On not buying things and why I blog

I'd like to think that my shopping habits when it comes to my wardrobe is "normal", but this is quite possibly because of my definition of "normal" rather than it being normal as per societal standards. These days, I don't exactly know what societal standard is when it comes to a woman's clothes shopping, but I think it's safe to say that women are expected to shop more than men.

For a few weeks now, I have been slowly reading Debbie Roes' Recovering Shopaholic blog. A lot of things that she wrote resonated with me, largely because ever since I got onto Project RumnRaisin, a constant theme that I have when it comes to dressing up is that nothing fits. And since nothing fits, I've been mostly overwhelmed by the number of clothes that I can't wear. Debbie's blog documents her journey of paring down her closet, and I quite like her engineer-like approach.

A significant part of the equation when it comes to paring down the size of one's closet is not buying things - be it new or thrifted. Ebay is my Achilles heel when it comes to the latter, where as for the former, oh well, asos.com. I have not exactly been staying away from these two sites, but I am happy to report that my purchasing frequency has slowed down quite significantly ever since I start reading Debbie's blog.

Long story short, Debbie's blog got me thinking. How many people out there really want to have a well edited closet, a well curated selection, engage in thoughtful dressing and effective shopping strategy? More importantly, how many of these people realise that to achieve these desires take a lot of work and effort and well, thoughts. We are expected to look good, effortlessly; but to look good is bloody effort-ful.   

Before I started this blog, I told myself that I do not wish to have a style blog that's geared towards selling, selling and selling. There is nothing wrong with such blogs, and I get that bloggers want to have an income source, but that's not what I want for mine.

I don't mind recommending a few things here and there, and I guess, in the process, end up selling them. The point of difference is that I do not wish to mindlessly link items that I am interested in whenever I browse shopping websites (and there are many of them). I'd like to recommend high quality items that are affordable, for example, because I am largely sick and tired of all the shitty quality clothes that seem to be infesting the market at the moment. I get that these cheap items are very popular with the younger crowd (yes, I was one of them), and I wonder if things had been different for me had I had this awareness of fabric quality when I was younger.

I think a significant part of dressing well means we exercise discipline when it comes to the things that get inside our closets. This discipline is worth exercising because (1) our closets will be that much closer to being well edited and (2) our wallets will thank us for it, and in my case, since I live in a small apartment, (3) my closet is not overfilled with stuff I can't wear.

And just like any form of exercise, this is hard work.