the thing about viral clothing
and what you should buy instead
I live for online shopping. Sometimes I’ll come across an item so beautiful that I will mentally rearrange my clothing budget (see how I determine that here) to see if I can make room for the newfound something that I NEED to have. The pull is swift and almost all-consuming. If I didn’t know better and if I wasn’t raising a child, I might throw caution to the wind and make a misguided purchase.
The impulse control of a 39 year old mom on a strict budget is pretty good though, I have to say. And I’ve noticed something that happens much of the time when I stop myself from buying just to buy. With time, that item I wanted so badly no longer piques my interest. This is a triumphant realization for me! Am I…mature? Is this…mindfulness?
It may be the closest thing I’ll ever get to meditation, and darn does it feel good. It’s not foolproof though. We still occasionally fall prey to the panicky FOMO of that viral piece du jour (remember the Toteme coat?), and that’s okay. I’d like to propose a mental shift, however.
Take, for example, this coat:
Other than capitalism doing its absolute best work, I have to ask myself why anyone is shelling out hundreds of dollars for a coat that by every metric, fails to do the one thing a coat needs to do??
In a recent poll on my Instagram stories, when asked what you’d buy right now if you had some extra cash, over half of the dozens of responses said they’d splurge on a new coat. Polyester should be reserved for the occasional trendy piece that will defy the odds and become a mainstay in your wardrobe. For a new coat, we gotta go purist. Wool. Leather. Shearling. Real! A quick aside here to say that, to me, a vintage fur coat is far less damaging to the environment than a brand new vegan leather coat.
With that in mind, feast your eyes on these similar options that are real shearling, same price point as Mango, and one of a kind.
If we didn’t succumb to the ever-present pulse of consumption, if we waited a second or asked ourselves what we really wanted, and then searched for a truly unique, mainstay piece…maybe we’d begin, slowly, to build the foundation of our most authentic, joyful wardrobe.
Talk to me. What are we buying (or not buying?) right now?