Today, as I was chronicling a purchase I had just made in my “Purchases for the Year” note, the note I keep to track my Rule of Five purchases, I came across a note called “Wishlist” that I started in 2021. I remember creating this “Wishlist” note as a way for me to catalog things that I needed in my wardrobe so that when I was out shopping, I could pull it out for reference so I didn’t buy things I “didn’t need”. This was my version of smart shopping at the time. This “Wishlist” had about 20 items on it, and as I was scanning through all of the things I thought I needed to make my wardrobe complete, most of them were more or less irrelevant to me three years later. If I had the opportunity to buy most of the things on that list now I wouldn’t because I don’t see them as serving my wardrobe, whereas the me of three years ago would have snatched them up in a heartbeat.
These items as need-to-haves are silly to me now, but back then I was able to talk myself into most purchases and was rarely able to talk myself out of them. I don’t really want to get into my fraught relationship with money here but when I got my first real job, before my pre-frontal cortex was fully developed, I thought I was legitimately rich. I was not. I was not making very much money at all, but it was more than I had seen in my life all at once, and I developed a bit of a shopping addiction. I’m not talking about a hehe-haha-I’m-so-bad shopping addiction, I’m talking about like an actual problem. I knew for a while that my spending and clothing consumption were a bit out of control. I would see something I liked, the thought of needing to have this thing would consume me and I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it until I hit that purchase button and the transaction went through. Then a feeling of euphoria would wash over me. I would fantasize about the moment I ripped open the package, the feeling I would get putting on the item for the first time and wearing it out. Finally, when I pulled the trigger on the purchase I would breathe a sigh of relief because I was free from the intensities of my desire.
Or so I thought. I would type in the USPS or UPS or DHL tracking number into my browser compulsively until after about five business days, the item would inevitably arrive. That moment of fantasy of plunging my X-acto knife into the smooth cardboard surface of the package and excitedly ripping apart the tissue paper to reveal the beautiful new acquisition contained within was finally real. And sometimes I would feel as excited wearing the piece as when I first bought it, but most of the time I would be sorely disappointed. It didn’t look the way it looked on that influencer as it did on me or it didn’t fit in my wardrobe or it was uncomfortable or it didn’t work in this specific way I hadn’t considered in my pre-purchase frenzy, and then I’d feel bad about it. At this time, I had a steady income and I was at a new job that paid me better, so while things weren’t great, I was able to somewhat ignore the issue. But this all changed when I found myself without a job one late October morning and with a long way to go on my grad school saving goal.
The thing about addictive behaviors is that even when you logically understand things are bad and you need to make a change, there’s no on-and-off switch for the behavior. I’ve had to do some hard inner work to address why I feel these compulsions but I’ve also had to implement some practical tips and tools to help me make better decisions when it comes to my relationship with shopping. I follow a lot of lovely fashion creators on tik tok and instagram and youtube who provide very constructive style and shopping advice and they’ve been very helpful in my journey to fiscal responsibility. I made shopping rules for myself. I started screenshot wishlists where I put everything that I want (including all my likes on various shopping apps) in a folder on my phone. Following Heather Hurst’s advice (
here on Substack) I started keeping track of items on my wishlist that I no longer want in a separate album on my phone called “wishlist graveyard”. This allows me to keep track of things I wanted but no longer want, pick out trends within items that I gravitate towards but consistently don’t work for me, and be able to visually see and pinpoint why I don’t want certain things anymore. Most satisfyingly it allows me to see how much money I’m saving by not purchasing the item.Another completely unsurprisingly helpful thing I’ve done is get one of those excel budget templates that helps me track every single thing I buy and itemize them by category in a nice, neat, albeit terrifying spreadsheet. This shows me how much money I’m really spending on clothes month after month. As I mentioned, I’m also following the Rule of Five this year. This is a practice where you only buy five new things per year. In full transparency, the Rule of Five creator Tiffanie Darke says that secondhand items do not count toward your overall number of five but that you shouldn’t go overboard with secondhand shopping. She allows herself four secondhand items so that’s what I’m doing as well. The Rule of Five has changed my life since I started it (just three months ago, but still), and I do think I’ll do a post on it. I’ve also created a “DON’T BUY” (caps included) list consisting of things or types of things that I’ve noticed I repeatedly buy that repeatedly don’t work for me. You know the old “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result” and all that. On this list are things like pastel clothing, which feel a bit too cutesy in my wardrobe and therefore I never gravitate toward and going out tops, which never end up working as hard in my wardrobe as they should.
Looking at my 2021 wishlist with some hindsight, my new shopping tools and rules, a better understanding of my compulsions, and most importantly a better understanding of my finances, I see how absurd it is. For example, I had a “fun Fendi baguette” on the list. I have a black Fendi baguette that I got for a steal on Vestiaire Collective three years ago. I do wear it often enough to justify having it in my wardrobe, and it fills a particular need in my closet. For me, it functions as a bag that is simultaneously casual and dressy that I usually wear in the evening with an outfit where I don’t want the bag to be a statement because the outfit is already doing enough. Understanding the purpose it serves in my wardrobe has cured me of seeing a “fun” one as filling a legitimate hole in my wardrobe. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have a novelty baguette, and I know I’d get use out of it, but because money is a finite resource for me, I am no longer actively on the hunt for that item because it frankly wouldn’t suit my wardrobe or my life as well as another bag would. I am currently on the hunt for a chic tote for school next year that has room for my laptop, my nalgene, and a book or two and zips to keep the aforementioned items safe amidst the chaos of a New York commute.
Another thing I had on there was just the words “more button-downs”. I think this was put on the list when oversized button-downs were really being pushed as “classic”, “timeless”, “effortless”, “capsule wardrobe” pieces. And I want to be effortless, I want to be chic, I want to look undone and put together all at the same time! So, I bought a few button-downs to try to fill this “need”, and all of them got donated or returned or re-sold, and I ended up wasting money with nothing to show for it. The thing about most button-downs is that they are often very boxy and stiff à la the popular oversized-ina-garten-matilda-djerf-frankie-shop button-down or on the other end of the spectrum, they are very form-fitting and stiff à la the office-siren-sexy-gisele-bündchen-in-devil-wears-prada button-down. Neither of which really fit the bill for me. I’m five feet tall and personally need to have both shape and movement in my clothing for me to reach for and use an item. The only button-down that I have ever bought that works in my wardrobe is a duo chrome purple-y orange-y Vivienne Westwood button-down purchased from James Veloria that I wear religiously. The fabric is drapey and it’s cut in such a way that follows the natural curve of my torso without being tight. The vague command of “more button-downs” on my wishlist wasn’t helpful because I thought I needed that oversized button-down that was very popular at the time when what I really needed was to find my personal button-down platonic ideal. Those oversized button-downs wouldn’t have filled the button-down-shaped hole in my closet because they wouldn’t fulfill the purpose I want a button-down to serve in my wardrobe.
I think the most insane thing I had on the list was a pair of silver sparkly J.W. Anderson rain boots with a giant gold chain. This isn’t an insane purchase in itself. These boots are sick. I still love them. But looking back on this as being on my need-right-now wishlist, it’s clear that I can’t even piece together two outfits that I would wear with those boots, so they don’t belong in my closet. I can look at them fondly from afar without feeling the need to acquire them for myself. The JW Anderson boots are emblematic of how skewed my shopping was a few years ago, and it’s clear just how much amnesia I seem to have about how illusory needing something in my closet really is. I’ve talked a couple of times about fantasy selves as they relate to clothing consumption on here, and as I’ve been interrogating my relationship to consumption, specifically clothing consumption, I see just how much my shopping has been dominated by my fantasy self and how much shopping for my fantasy self fuels this amnesia.
The very idea of a wishlist is that of a visual and almost objectified archive of desire. It’s an archive of desire in the sense that I literally desire the items on my wishlist but also a reflection of the person I want to be. Jacques Lacan’s theory of desire is helpful in explaining this phenomenon. Lacan says that we have a primordial wound that stems from being separated from our mothers at birth. This primordial wound leaves us with a fundamental and existential void that we seek to fill throughout our lives. While this larger feeling of desire may not always be related to wanting to literally return to the womb it is always about chasing some fabled state of wholeness or addressing a perceived lack within ourselves. In our quest to rectify this perceived lack, we project this desire for wholeness onto other objects of desire in hopes of ridding ourselves of that pesky feeling that something is missing (the void, duh). It’s the idea that I can’t fulfill this existential and fundamental desire but I can buy a gorgeous pair of trousers that will make me feel gorgeous and maybe that will finally make this feeling of inadequacy go away. The trousers become symbolic of that larger desire—my desire to look a certain way or be a certain version of myself, to feel complete.
However, it’s not as easy as wanting something, getting it, and then being satisfied. Desire is cyclical in the sense that desire begets desire. The cycle begins with the pleasure you feel at the prospect of getting the desired object. It’s the build-up of anticipation, the hope that this time you might actually get what you want. This purchase will finally be the one. Then you get what you want, and you’re disappointed because not only is the pleasure of anticipation gone but you didn’t actually fill the void or if you did, it’s temporary and you’re back to wanting. Ultimately the thing that you want, that perfect pair of trousers that will finally make you happy, is an illusion. It’s a mirage that taunts you with the promise of satiety but that immaterializes as soon as you reach it. The trousers are never going to make you feel whole, and for me and my shopping that’s actually pretty helpful. Like I said, I can’t logic my way out of these urges, but understanding that my compulsion to shop is tied to a deeper sense of lack, a desire for meaning and satisfaction that is fundamental to pretty much all human beings is helpful. And what’s even more helpful is knowing that even if I get that skirt that I want, the longing never stops. There will always be something I want and the cycle starts all over again. In all honesty, I love clothes and I’m not going to stop shopping, but if the wishlist showed me anything it’s that my desires are fickle and fleeting and never-ending, which for me at least, weirdly takes the pressure off.
What I’m saying here is not groundbreaking. It’s clear that I substitute dealing with my own issues by shopping as a means of projecting a different version of myself, but it is good to remind myself that buying a pair of stilettos that I will wear maybe once a year is not a need to complete my wardrobe or myself. This also isn’t some call to austerity or that everything needs to be practical or that statement pieces have no place in my or anyone else’s closet, but more so understanding who I’m shopping for and why. I’m not so naïve as to think that I’ll never regret a purchase again or that I won’t look back on my wishlist a few years from now and think it was nuts. There are already things I look at that I wanted a few months ago and think why did I want that? But before I would have already purchased the thing that I would later regret as opposed to looking at a picture of it on my phone. So we’re making progress.