The Great American Apparel Diet

no buying for one year

While I am a newbie(and thank you Sally for the welcome), I’ve been on a self imposed no clothes buying order since before the New Year, as that is when it all hit me.  I’ve found it easy thus far, steering clear from my old clothing haunts including the very limited number of decent clothing stores for men in Seattle, there are three in total, and most deadly, the online sites.  The problem is, each month that goes by, I find myself justifying the amount of money I’m saving from not shopping.  This little ”spend averaging” attitude easily slips into my mind.  For each month I don’t spend this year, I’m off setting a month of spend on clothing from last year and bringing the average spend on clothes down.  And over time, I’m going to start telling myself that I deserve to get something because I’ve not spent for so long. 

You see, the way this hit me is I went overboard on clothes shopping the last two years, fueled by the fact that I decided I only like a few designer labels: Armani, Hugo Boss, Jill Sander, Zegna, Ralph Lauren Black and John Varvatos and with the bad economy last year, there were plenty of sales on these brands.  So the “sales justification” mentality kicked into high gear.  The Jill Sander leather jacket I eyed at Barney’s, $2,400.  Too rich for me and too scared to even wear that expensive of a jacket out, but then the 40% off sale.  Still couldn’t justify. And then 65% off….$840, okay.  Sold.  Fits perfectly and I receive lots of compliments, but there is was, a justification from a sale.  By the end of the year, it had gotten out of hand. 

So to put it fairly, the closest is full and I don’t need any more clothes, but I miss it. I miss pawing through the racks and seeing the latest colors and trends, or searching on saks.com or yoox.com for the latest pieces from my favorite designers, or using shopstyle.com to see what others are finding that I didn’t find.  You get caught up in the search…for something new, fresh, different, unique, but you also know the consequence.  If you look, you will find, and if you find, you will want.

Thanks for reading.

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Ok girls, and one guy.  We do have one guy now, though we are yet to hear from him on the blog.  Anyway, back to my point.  Last week I posted the poll over there to your right.  It’s sort of a trite, yes/no kind of a poll.  I was in a hurry and was getting tired of the old department store versus boutique poll and thought it was time for some poll freshen-ing up.  And the: Is it easy?or Is it hard? poll was the best I could do that day.   When I published the question I was feeling proud and sassy, as if I could go a lifetime without buying anything new.   Well today is another story.  To say “who’s idea was this anyway,” would be saying it lightly.  It’s more like who’s!@#$%^&*()_ing idea was this anyway?   You see we have had record breaking sunshine in Seattle and temperatures hovering around 58 degrees.  It’s like Mother’s Day in February which is giving me some insight into my very limited warm weather wardrobe.  What pray tell will I wear when the real mother’s day gets here?   At least in the winter you can layer a great coat over a bad outfit. Not so in warm weather.  Can you say painter’s smock?  Perhaps I’ll pick up the paintbrush again. 

So back to the poll.  Last week this diet business was easy….this week?  Un frickin’ bearable.  I want something bright, snappy and new.  The good news is…tomorrow I will likely feel differently.  Hang in there girls, and our one guy! 

Sincerly, your fearless leader

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sample screenshot from ThredUp Kids web site

Although I’ve written previously about not having an excess of clothing in MY closet, the same cannot be said for my kids.  Having thoughtful friends and family with kids a bit larger than my own has assured that both of my boys have plenty of great-looking hand-me-downs filling their drawers and closets.  Unfortunately, my boys keep growing (pesky kids!).  But buying lots of new clothes just isn’t in the budget right now.  I’m sure I know plenty of people in the same boat, so I’m thinking some clothing exchanges may be in order… kind of a modified version of TGAAD for kids.

Coordinating exchanges amongst lots of different people with various aged kids can be a challenge, though, so I’m going to try using ThredUp for kids to accomplish this task.  Those of you with growing children may be interested in giving it a shot too.  I know some of us have blogged about the ThredUp adult version not working out for some, but I’ve decided to give the kids’ site a go.

One thing I like about the kids’ version is that they will even coordinate swaps with your LOCAL friends for you at no cost.  You can browse online to see what items & sizes your friends have available and grab them when you want… no need to pay for shipping!  However, if you don’t have any local friends with whom to swap, ThredUp will have a nationwide network of participants sure to have clothing that suits your needs.

If the concept interests you, click here to find out more about their upcoming seed phase.  The seed phase (which will populate ThredUp with clothing to prepare the site for launch) should begin in early March and anyone who signs up for the launch will be the first on board.  Participating in the initial seed phase also has perks and benefits not available to the general population.

Happy swapping, everyone… I’m looking forward to hearing how this works out for people!

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Last year I made the choice to stop purchasing new clothes, and this year I have chosen not to purchase any clothes at all. So far, so good. In fact, I don’t even miss the endless, mindless shopping and I’ve decided to put my saved cash toward something fun, my first vacation in 5 years. My husband and I chose to head out to Park City, Utah for some pretty intense snowboarding. We traveled with friends to keep the expense down, but really enjoyed ourselves and I’m so glad that I had the opportunity to go. My three lifestyle changes that I have implemented have made the trip possible. No smoking, means that I could still breathe and be active at 11,000+ feet, getting up early and working out prepared me for four straight days of hardcore riding, and the money that I didn’t spend on clothes helped to fund the trip. I finally feel unencumbered, rather than just sacrificing by participating.

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I recently “unsubbed” to the multifarious apparel companies who had contrived to get into my email inbox.  Adios, J. Jill.  Adieu, LL Bean.  Auf Wiedersehen to Land’s End.  Ciao, Bloomingdale’s.    Arrivederci, Macy’s.  Most of all, an enormous Valete to all of those luxury bags and scarves mailings. But I was not emotionally equipped for the actual physical presence of a catalogue.  Many hawkers of clothing have abandoned the traditional catalogue.  My response to these catalogues is like a child at Hallowe’en.  I want to consume them all.  I may be a stern critic of advertising and its emotional grip on people intellecutally–but emotionally these catalogues are like poetry.  And art.  Sort of like my own interior Louvre.  And for someone who has been starved by the diminishment of the effluvia of catalogues in the mail, any new thing will do. So I had a heroic struggle with a Land’s End catalogue.  I was sucked into the visually alluring pictures of little Mary Jane T-Strap shoes in 50 colors, mostly neon.  If I only have 38 tee-shirts, I must be in need of several more.  What if the washing machine breaks down and all the laundromats in thw world disappear and I run out of clothes?  Shouldn’t I stock up on easy, casual, Land’s End wear? It was a Herculeon battle, but I thought of my GAAD and the catalogue found its way into the Recycling box where its clarion cries will be in vain.

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Last night I was out with a good friend I haven’t seen in a while—it’s a schedule issue really.  My friend, she’s fabulous.  She’s married, no kids, big corporate VP job with all the accolades, notoriety and wardrobe that go along with the job.  She picked me up wearing a chic skirt, which later I learned she bought in London while on a four-city whirl wind business trip.  She had on the latest laced knee high boots and a super snappy pancho that she could pull over her head when she felt a drop of rain. 

Flash to me, older mom barely holding it together and deprived of a “new wardrobe.”  For a living?  Well, I manage to piece together a paycheck as I toggle from home to the office to school.  I am not above taking conference calls from the bedroom closet, (lest my clients detect that I am home with kids and two rambunctious cats), or writing marketing plans in the doctor’s office or from the bleachers of a baseball game.

I greet my friend at the door wearing the same jeans I have been wearing for the last 5 days (and by the way they have gotten a little baggy from the wear which somehow makes me feel thin).   Under last year’s black wrap-around sweater coat I wear a stained oatmeal colored crewneck sweater that has seen better days.   On my feet I wear my favorite pair of black Dansko clogs because everything else just hurts.  The good news is I have a fresh application of lipstick on . The bad news?  it’s  all the makeup I have on.  Upstairs, before the doorbell rang, I gave myself a cursory glance in the floor length mirror that hangs behind the closet.  I could have sworn I looked good, but once I see my friend on the doorstep it becomes painfully clear that I do not.

My friend smells good.  She has her fancy rings on her fingers and the latest watch on her wrist.  I notice her bling as I reach up to my ear and realize I forgot to put my earrings on all together. My friend says she had to “Escape from work.” In her words, “They will just have to move forward without me.”  I long to be in such hot demand from someone taller than my shoulder.  My friend told her people that she had a prior commitment and had to leave the office early.  No corporate mukety muck would understand the point of going out with a girlfriend at 5:30pm on a Monday night.  But my babysitter has a curfew and I have to be home by 10pm at the very latest.  This is standard operating procedure for me and my mommy friends who are often buzzed by 7pm and in bed by 10pm. 

When I am with my friend sans children and the big career I feel like The Great American Apparel Diet is stupid.  Like I have set myself up for frumpsville.  I feel like my career of juggling kids, a business and the occasional trip to the gym is just an excuse for a distracted and sometimes unattractive scattered existence.   What I wear is a long way down the  list of things I worry about these days, partially because I have taken up the new and brave effort to consciously consume or simply to not consume.  Seeing my friend makes me want to go to Barneys and spend like Katie Holmes.  I am moved to buy things that I know I will hate in a year, clothes that are conspicuously fashionable and expensive and well beyond my credit line.  I want clothing that says “she’s a risk taker!”   Clothes can do that you know. 

My fashionable and important, high profile friend and I  had a good time noshing on sushi and sipping saki. We skipped the movie in lieu of conversation and caramelized bananas.   I eventually forgot what I was wearing and I stopped coveting my friend’s outfit.  We discussed cancer, death and dying.  We talked about her and her husband’s effort to adopt a child, about my ever changing career and the shifting sands of the advertising business. 

After dinner my friend drove me home  just in time to relieve Rachel the babysitter (before she morphed into a winter squash). We hugged in the car and promised to get together “sooner than later.”  

Inside I chatted with Rachel and paid her in cash for watching my proidgy.  As she loaded her backpack and put on her shoes she said, “Hey, I like your sweater, where’d you get it?”   It made me laugh.  “It’s from last year…Nordstrom,” I offered, knowing that she’d never find it this year and glad that someone was coveting my wardrobe.

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First month in, and I’ve been committed to the diet. It hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be. Or maybe because I’ve been avoiding shopping malls and boutiques altogether. The closest thing I’ve been to a clothing store for weeks has been in a Target. And even then, I find my eyes lingering in the general vicinity of women’s apparel. SPRING CLOTHES ARE OUT!!! Bright gorgeous colors are calling out to me! And then I move on. Out of sight, out of mind.

For weeks, I have contemplated on this challenge and what it means to me. And then I thought, “Have I really become a slave to material possessions?” When I think about it, people work to pay bills. People work hard to catch up on debt. People work extra hours to afford that new dress in Nordstrom. Of course working is important for survival as well. But how do you explain everyone else who has two of everything? When is it enough? And then my mind wanders to poverty-stricken countries or people who are just down in their luck. I sometimes feel a rush of embarrassment. When I try to think about it, the only people I’m helping are the already rich venture capitalists who are laughing at the mere thought of me scrounging for my last dollar to buy a pair of shoes on sale.

Don’t get me wrong, I love having that buying power, but is it really necessary to have 24 pairs of bra? Such greed. Really, there’s got to be a limit.

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I love, love, love clothing swap’s! Fortunately for me, my friends who own the bar in my neighborhood biannually agree to open up for the ladies to conduct a “squaw swap” and what a great one we had this past Sunday. While the turnout wasn’t large, the group of ladies (about 10) had enough clothes, shoes, accesories, and housewares to really make it fun. We swapped stories of our favorite items while enjoying a glass of wine or a Guiness and poked through each other’s cast-offs.  We made goofy costumes, we were amused at another ladies delight over our silly hand-me-downs and we had a blast. Guilt-free shopping is always fun. I am in between sizes so I swapped out for a few new items in both smaller and larger sizes so I’ll be sure to have space to move up and down over the next few months. I got clothes that fit perfect, some that I can refashion or alter and some that I plan to simply cut apart for the fabric and figure it out later. My favorite find was a brown cashmere knit poncho, like an all-business snuggie; I love it. I also found a beautiful Banana Republic blazer, sweaters galore and an awesome cowgirl shirt.  It was fun, it was refreshing and I can’t wait to do it again!  If you live in the Baltimore City area and are intersted in future clothing swaps, you can follow my personal blog or twitter feed for updates, or sign up for the Parkside’s newsletter where they’ll send you emails of their upcoming events, including clothing swaps. The more ladies we get, the more choices we’ll have so bring your used clothes and get ready to have have a liberating, guilt-free, swapping party!

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Here I am, joined last week…and I have to admit, I had to make my last goodbye shopping last week. I feel like starting with real diet, and eating a big cake the night before  But that was really final! I will not anymore support financial crisis overcoming (because some smart economists told that if we buy more, we will overcome financial crisis faster). So goodbye shinny windows, nice clothes, and discouuuunts. Will update you how it goes! And if I am surviving

Btw, any proposal what we can do with the money we save from shopping! Maybe we can organize some trip in August

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Got my username and password yesterday and already my brain is spinning in anticipation of how I will deal with my next temptation. I did survive a trip to Urban Outfitters Saturday night but I got off easy because we only had a 5 minute window before getting to a movie and I was very purposefully shopping for headphones that would both work with an iphone and fit a very tiny 4 year-old head. This mission enabled me to pass by what I’m sure was the exact item that would unify and streamline my wardrobe and possibly be on sale 2 for $20. I didn’t even look twice though due to the time constraints and quite honestly, not wanting to fall off the wagon before jumping on. But it did cross my mind that it really is pretty sick we have arrived at such a rich, industrialized place in history that someone could seriously build a modest wardrobe for probably under $100. We always complain that things are so expensive, but in a certain sense, things are also unbelievably cheap. If I were an actual journalist I could probably insert a well-researched statistic about how readily-available inexpensive items are these days (as a percentage of one’s salary) compared to back in the day when it probably cost a day or more’s wages to buy a winter coat. And hey, I got a really cute one for $10 at Forever 21… but I digress….The hidden cost of all that foreign labor abuse and pseudo world domination our country engages in (with avid participation by the fashion industry no doubt), gives me pause…and perhaps gives me a reason to stay out of places like Urban Outfitters, though — quick tip to those on the modified-accessories-are-ok version of The Diet — they have some great gloves/belts/headbands right now. Cheap too.

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