The Great American Apparel Diet

no buying for one year

I went to the mall yesterday to return a purse my daughter picked out for prom. She brought it home and it didn’t exactly match her dress. Since my husband was home with the kids, I went alone. I usually have to run errands with at least a couple of kids in tow, but this time, luxuriously, I went alone. In retrospect, it would have been better to have a few little people with me moaning about being bored and rushing me along, but I went into the den of enticement without anyone to keep me from “just looking”. I was sorely tempted by lovely, adorable things that I absolutely don’t need and didn’t want to spend money on. I withstood and didn’t buy anything, but I came pretty close! Today, I am so glad I didn’t, but it was very hard to walk away at the time.

I should have know better than to spend more than two minutes at the mall because the first step to withstanding temptation is to avoid, it, right?

Anyway, later in the evening, while I sat up waiting for the above mentioned daughter to return from the prom, I read part of a book on weight loss with a chapter about resisting temptation. It suggested imagining the food that was tempting you as dirty, smashed and maggot ridden. I was thinking today that that might work to help with the temptation to buy while I am on TGAAD. I still think the best thing to do is stay out of the mall, but that isn’t always possible. I could imagine a new sweater pilled and stretched out, or dress pants with frayed edges and tees with stains on the front. If I get really desperate, maybe I’ll even go all the way and think about maggots on that pretty dress!

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Last night as I was rummaging around in my closet looking for something to wear it occurred to me that I have given, thrown or recycled a lot of clothes over the past ten years. Darn, I’d love to have some of those items back, and if not the items themselves the time it took for me to shop, clean, futz and manage them into my wardrobe. Especially now since I am no longer able to purchase any new apparel. I remember vividly, an amazing and probably overpriced DKNY sweater coat. A sort of retro 20s style with velvet accents. I wonder who’s wearing that gorgeous garment now. I wish I were.

This morning, right on the heels of my closet rummaging, I read an article in the NYTimes magazine about storage and consumerism.  By 2005, according to the Boston College sociologist Juliet B. Schol, the average consumer purchased one new piece of clothing every five and a half days.  

This eye-opening statistic got me thinking about a “slow clothing” movement. There are official slow food, slow money, slow travel and slow sex movements these days. Why not a slow clothing movement? I wondered.  And is The Great Amearican Apparel Diet the beginning of it? 

 I googled “slow clothing” and “slow fashion,” and guess what…we’re slow to the movement. People have been blogging about this for a long time. “Wear local,” they say—is that like a sweater made with Fido the family dog’s hair? Or does it mean belting your neighbor’s old drapes and wearing them as a topper, a la Maria Van Trapp? Maybe we could learn from the Hispanics who wear huarache sandals made from repurposed flat tires? Buy from a thrift store and then remake your own, the experts suggest. Sew the arms of one sweater to the bodice of another, cut off pants and make them into a patchwork skirt, turn a tube top into a Rasta hair band. I am envisioning a renaissance fair.

In one article I read in the Christian Science Monitor, the author challenged US households “to create a single outfit for every man, woman, and child that is homemade.” Going back to a bygone era, she also suggested that people mend and darn their clothes.

Good idea for those people who:

a.) Know the meaning of darn in this context.

b). Know how to darn or sew http://www.ehow.com/how_648_darn-sock.html

c). Have a sewing machine. ( Investment Tip: Buy Singer, Ticker Symbol: SEW, you heard it here).

Darn (as in Darn-it), I wish I had that DKNY sweater coat  and that brown Liz Claiborne maxi, corduroy coat from 1987, and let’s not forget the blinding Neon Obermeyer ski jacket I bought in 1992 to match the bottom of my K2s. Looking back, I admit, it was a wasteful, hedonistic and consumer-centric few decades—but we looked good.

Now, with my apparel budget cut to the quick and my participation in The Great American Apparel Diet, I am left fantasizing about my old wardrobe. I imagine a lovely waif of a “slow clothing movement” girl prancing down the runway of life in my old clothes and my Guess booties. I trust that she appreciates where her wardrobe began. I really hope, upon further reflection, that the “slow girl” hasn’t sewn the arms of my Obermeyer ski jacket onto the bodice of my brown Liz Claiborne Courdory Maxi coat. But if she has, all I can say is “you go–slow girl!”

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Hi guys…anyone out there?  Things are sort of quiet on the blog these days which makes me wonder….are you all still dieting?  Remember only a few more months.

Some good news.  My husband and I just got a tandem bike.  The bad news…cycling apparel.  For those of you unfamiliar with cycling shorts they are every girl’s fashion nemesis.  The good news, I don’t have to spend anytime in a dressing room trying on cycling shorts like I did last year thanks to TGAAD.   I will  blaze forward in the same bad, unattractive shorts I wore last year.  Which brings up a scary topic.  Trying on bike shorts.  If you haven’t done it don’t.  It’s enough to make a girl give up on the sport.  See my post from last Spring when I found myself in the same situation.  Unfortuantely I was still shopping…

June 2009 (pre TGAAD)

I have recently and reluctantly re-taken up cycling, I guess you could call it recycling.   I say reluctantly not because I don’t enjoy cycling or its benefits—forty miles equals a monster sized burrito and a frothy Hefferweizen.  I say reluctantly because the clothes SUCK.  I am being kind when I say that no one, not even Mark, my handsome, 2% body fat husband looks good in the stuff.

My re-entry into the sport began last spring when Mark talked me into upgrading my old, Raleigh ten speed to a fancy, schmancy, carbon fiber, eighteen speed something or other, with clip-in pedals.  He said the upgrade was for me but I really think the old red Raleigh along side his pimped-out racing bike embarrassed him.  My new bike, donned with all the components and the aero dynamic seat that is sure to give me hemorrhoids, is something he can stand by with pride.  My outfit?  Not so much.   Upon completing the expensive bike transaction with the tattooed sales specialist, Mark insisted we stop by the apparel section of the store to check out some cycling pants.  He obviously had a vision.

“Wait a minute,” I said, pausing in my tracks for effect.   “Cycling pants?  Are you !@#$%^ nuts?  I told you I’d ride but I didn’t say I’d wear the pants. I would rather wear a pair of high waist, acid washed jeans than a pair of ugly, spandex, sausage legged shorts with a crotch chaffing, Kotex Maxi Pad chamois.  It’s not my look.”

“Well then what are you going to wear?” he asked.

“My yoga pants.”

“Your yoga pants, for cycling?”

“Yeah, why not?  They look so much better.  You know the ones, the bell bottom lulu lemon pants with the hipster contrast border at the waist.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Yes.  I am not wearing those weird pants.  No way.”

I saw in his eyes his vision for our future of biking together slip away.  “You can’t wear yoga pants babe.  Not with your fancy new bike.  It’s just not done.”

I knew then I was in over my head.  This cycling business was so much more than the bike.  It was a culture that demanded an aesthetic reset.  I was now the proud owner of a fancy bike that required me to scrap my instinctive fashion sensibility and embrace the ugliest, most unattractive trend invented by man (a woman would know better).

And so right there in the bike store I acquiesced.   I gathered six to ten pair of black cycling shorts and began the demoralizing task of squeezing my soft body into a variety of girdle like contraptions, one after the other in search of the “most flattering pair.”  News flash, for those of you who have an issue with cellulite the issue becomes an all out crisis in bike shorts. I stood face to face with myself in the small, dingy fitting room and mouthed the words “you know better.”

Mark called from outside the dressing room, “hon, come out and show us.”  The us included the youngish, sinewy sales woman.   “Not yet,” I said, nearly out of breath and laboriously peeling off another pair of tourniquet shorts.   The sales girl chimed in, “do you have a jersey?”  And with that she hung three loudly colored polyester jerseys over the dressing room door.  “Try these on, we just got them in.  They’re awesome.”   Awesome was not the word that came to mind.  Logo-mad print designer on acid was more like it.

I finally settled on a pair of black, below the knee knickers with a stayfree mini-pad sized chamois.  They were $90.  Who knew that being unattractive could cost so much?   My husband and his sales clerk side-kick were disappointed that I passed on the Jerseys.  I was certain that I could get away with cycling pants and a Gap t-shirt for a while.  At least until I found an inconspicuous jersey that didn’t scream “this is ugly.”

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The proverbial ink had barely dried on our story about Manpacks when one of our spotters alerted us to an equivalent for women: Panty by Post, a Canadian venture that offers—sure enough—women’s underwear by monthly subscription.

Where Manpacks focuses on the practical and functional, however, Panty by Post has quite different aspirations. No basic whites here—rather, the company has an exclusive agreement with Montreal’s Blush Lingerie for its signature and bridal lines. Panties come in hipster, thong and bikini styles and are made with French lace and satin. Customers can order panties individually, or they can sign up for subscriptions lasting two, three, six or 12 months. A different panty is then sent every month, each wrapped in an attractive mailing package. Pricing ranges from CDN 16 for a single pair to CDN 240 for a year’s worth of premium deliveries. Panty by Post is also about to launch a men’s subscription service featuring Montreal-based JM Intimode’s eco-minded “Briefs in a Box.”

Part convenience and part indulgence, Panty by Post reminds us of ShoeDazzle’s monthly subscriptions to a handpicked series of stylish shoes. Where else might fashion-minded consumers be interested in a little curated selection and recurring delivery?

Website: www.pantybypost.com
Contact: info@pantybypost.com

Spotted by: Lori Kalef

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SoOoOooOoo I’ve done it. I have fallen off the proverbial wagon and bought something.

Was it expensive? Probably…
Unnecessary? Probably..
Worth it? TOTALLY.

To be fair, this isn’t juuusst ‘something’ it’s more than that…I bought a limited edition type coat by Smythe for HBC. It’s ABSOLUTELY 100% GORGEOUS!! And I LOOOVVVEE it and it LOOVEESS MEEEEE back! I want to have its babies! 100,000,000 of them!!

………annnyywaaayyy.

Let’s slow things down with a little history lesson about this jacket: In 2009 HBC [Hudson Bay Company] asked 10 Canadian Designers to re-create one of a kind coats from a HBC Point Blanket. Originally, they weren’t for sale, however, Smythe’s jacket in particular was so popular that they made a special order of 100 coats and sold them during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Anyhow, this is just one little minor blip on the radar. I will continue on with this challenge. After purchasing my jacket, I started thinking; I wonder what the success rate of this challenge is. I know you can measure ‘successes’ in a number of different ways yadayadayada. But if you measure your success rate as 100% = no buying anything and 0% = buying a new pair of Louboutin’s every week, what would it beeeee?!?!

Perhaps we can start a poll: For those on the challenge, how many non-essential items have you purchased? Don’t’ be shy, be honest…but be warned, I WILL JUDGE YOU! [just kidding, I won't - cubs honor]

Zero
1 – 4
5 – 9
10 – 14
15 & Up

I suppose it was rather ambitious of me for thinking I could go an ENTIRE year without shopping. Mehhh…oh well, it was a good run; 7 weeks of zero shopping. That’s pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good…if I say so myself. All in all, No regrets. And whatever your number is; keep on keeping on.

For previous post, and more ridiculousness check out Naked Susie; A year without [new] clothes

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I have a friend who judges women on whether or not they remember where they were when Lady Di died.  She uses this as a barometer for what kind of woman you are.  If you can’t remember or don’t care my friend would instantly dismiss you as “not her kind of girl.”

Well I can take that concept a step further…I know what I was wearing when Lady Di died—a pair of burnt orange Gap jeans, a gray short sleeved t-shirt and a pair of ratty Nike Pegasus shoes, sans socks.  I was probably wearing a bad bra too; I don’t remember the brand.  Underwear? Who knows?  I had been painting my office and made a quick trip to the paint store when I heard the news.  I wish I had been more appropriately dressed for the occasion.  It was Lady Di after all.

I know it’s silly and probably a giant brain drain but like songs from the 70s I remember almost every important event in my life by the outfit I wore.  I am not just talking about clothes I wore in pictures; I am talking about clothes that I wore to my first gyno appt., my first kiss, and my first day of third grade.  The list goes on and on, it’s kind of embarrassing.

I also have a list in my brain of my top ten outfits of a lifetime.  It starts with an ensemble from third grade.  A knit pant suit with yellow and white horizontal striped bell bottoms (who knew that was ever a good look) and a solid yellow knit tunic.  And then there was the pair of footless black leggings paired with a fuchsia shaker sweater that went down to my knees—In retrospect I looked like The Big Fig Newton with a ratty perm.  Then there was the Rayon black blazer from The Limited that I wore with pleated Seattle Blues acid washed jeans, The Nicole Miller aqua and black print flapper dress with the long waist (it looked hideous on me but I loved the print).

I won’t bore you with the rest of my top ten, but here’s my point.  Apparel makes my world-go-round.  It’s part of who I am, how I approach the world and how I organize my mind.  Weird, and quite possibly shallow, I know.  Just think of all the world’s problems that have been left unsolved simply because my brain is filled with memories of polyester and wool. But, oh well, that’s me.

For the record, as I write this I am wearing a J. Crew heather gray long sleeved cotton t-shirt, a pair of strategically ripped jeans by Big Star, my Frye engineer boots with Hue stripped socks, a pair of Calvin Klein undies and a flesh colored Natori bra.

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I never claimed to be “normal”, that being said I will go into a brief history on my love of books. For the first seven years of my childhood we did not have tv, so I spent hours of my life scanning through pages of the books which brought me worlds away from my boring reality. I don’t want to brag, but I did win an award in elementary school for having read for the most hours than any other kid in my school (granted I did go to a small school). I can often become lost for hours in book stores, perched against shelves reading my way through countless books and magazines (the travel section is a dangerous place for me, thank you Anthony Bourdain). When updating the Reading Club books for TGAAD, I have a difficult time choosing just a couple books at a time because of the countless great books out there about shopping, fashion, and money saving tips. I’ve narrowed it down to just a couple as to not overwhelm anyone out there. The first new book I’ve added to our list is Cinderella Ate my Daughter by Peggy Orenstein, the book is a fascinating discussion of the princess culture our daughters are being brought up in and a questioning of how to best deal with this without rearing a daughter who will become the next participant on You’re Cut Off (VH1 reality show about very spoiled girls). The second book added to our list is Spent: Memoirs of a Shopping Addict by Avis Cardella, which gives us an account of the authors addiction to shopping as well as her emotional connection to purchasing, especially after experiencing the loss of her mother. So read away and enjoy!

My second topic of discussion today is that I realized I have been neglecting our conscious shopping page and thought it was perhaps best to take a moment to think about our male counterparts and give them a little help when it comes to shopping. So I’ve added a new and fabulous clothing company named Longshot Apparel to our list of conscious clothing brands! The brand is made for the tall fit man, fabrics woven in Italy, handmade in the USA! This might be a great help to some of you who still have nothing for your significant other for our upcoming Valentines Day (singles awareness day to some of us), or to pass along to that guy who just can’t ever seem to find a properly fitting shirt, because lets face it Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome is not supposed to be wearing high water jeans or a shirt that it looks like it was borrowed from his old college roommate who’s appears to be a foot shorter than him.

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If anybody knows that slogan, you can feel my pain.

So: There’s this gorgeous Lululemon sweater that I, ABSOLUTELY. MUST. HAVE. You know the kind; It’s a: my-life-wouldn’t-be-the-same-without-it kind of sweater… It will complete me; people will start referring to me as “the girl in the neon sweater”. BUT!!… I can’t buy it. Ughhh!! Ugghhh..bleh..blahhh..blarrrgg. If I weren’t on this diet, I would have totally snapped it up like 5 days ago. Instead, I slipped a not-so-subtle hint to the BF that if he evvverrr wants to buy me anything, this would be it; in a size 4. That’s allowed right? Rigghhtt?. ..hmm..I’m going to say: yes.

For those who aren’t aware of Lululemon, it’s a FANTASTIC store from Canada that sells all sorts of athletic wear; mainly specializing in yoga apparel and accessories. They even have men’s clothing! Not to be biased or anything, but once you go Lulu, you never go back… Their design team really knows how to make clothing that is not only technical, but figure flattering [4 way stretch is amazing], breathable, and they also have a number of organic cotton pieces, which is a great alternative for those looking to lessen their carbon footprint.

Anyhow, I’m proud of myself for not breaking down [especially this early] and not so proud of myself for whining incessantly to the BF about said sweater…

So what did I learn? I learned that I need to restrain myself from online window shopping.. Le Sigh…

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It’s been about two and a half weeks now since I started TGAAD.  This doesn’t seem like much, and yet it feels like things have started to change, and I hope these changes are something that stick around.

First, I’m much more aware of all of my shopping – clothes, books, housewares, even groceries.  I find that being so much more aware means I seem to buy less in general, not just in terms of clothing.

Second, I don’t much feel like shopping anymore.  Without shopping for clothing as much of an option because of TGAAD and my heightened awareness of other forms of shopping, it doesn’t cross my mind as something that I could do as often as it used to, so I don’t even start thinking about it, let alone go out to do it.

Third, when I do think about shopping, or head out to do some, it feels wrong, even somewhat unpleasant.  While I was visiting my parents for the holidays, in what is remarkably inconvenient timing, I discovered a hole in one of my favourite pair of dressy jeans.  I’m going to mend them, but they won’t be wearable for work anymore.  So, I headed out to the local thrift store to try to replace them with something work appropriate.  I looked around for ten minutes before feeling so uncomfortable with shopping for clothes that I left.

Finally, if I do need to get something (like work-appropriate jeans), I’m extremely careful about what I do get.  I finally bit the bullet and went to a thrift store the other day in the hopes of finding dressy jeans before I have to go back to work.  I tried on many, many pairs.  I was only willing to get a pair that fit perfectly and was exactly what I was looking for.  While I’m willing to let myself replace things that do wear out, especially for work, I won’t be replacing them with anything that’s almost-but-not-quite good enough.  If I can’t find what I want, I’m much more willing to wait now, rather than winding up with a closet of not-quite-right items and a depleted bank account to go with it.

So, that’s the first two weeks or so.  I’m not thrilled with buying jeans in that period (even if they were used and only $5), but I’m not going to beat myself up over it, especially when I bought work clothes and left the store without buying anything else.  And, given the changes with which I seem to approach shopping in these last few weeks, my hope is that the net result is a positive one.

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So it’s official:

I’M FREAKING OUT MAN!!!!!

As i get closer to to my start date, I’m getting more and more nervous, anxious, doubtful… that I will be able to actually start and finish this challenge.

So nervous that I bought a pair if True Religion jeans yesterday morning… Blarrrgg. I’m doomed!

My friend and a fellow dieter mentioned taking an inventory of my clothes. So I did, and I’m disappointed with the choices I am left with. I cant help but think this diet could have been a whole lot easier if I had made rational, thought out purchases when buying my current wardrobe. Instead of the “Oohh! This is pretty, Oohh this I cute” approach I inevitably ended up taking. Double Blarrg.

Another thing that bothers me is the fact that it’s not a really great wardrobe as a whole. Sure I have some fantastic individual pieces, but most of it is just, well, blahhh..uninspiring, really. Which is rapidly decreasing my confidence.

Update* I had another meltdown last night and ended up purchasing 2 button down shirts, a lovely striped hoodie, and two pairs of jeans [one for me and one for the bf..] from Abercrombie.

I KNOW!!! I’M A HORRIBLE PERSON, 100% HORRIBLE!!!

… on the bright side, I haven’t bought anything today! Baby steps…baby steps.

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