Shopping as Hope

    

    Back in March, I relocated to my parent’s home in Rhode Island for what I thought was a long weekend (and I packed accordingly), but has morphed into six months with at least another three months in sight. When I first got here, I immediately purchased some things that I had deemed as necessities and I felt like I was doing my part by simulating the economy, which is without a doubt the best and worst excuse for shopping. I bought a new skincare routine (my skin was glowing for about a month, but none of my colleagues seemed to notice?), a black cashmere sweater on sale, and a fun striped sweater. All of which I thought would carry me through the horrid months of a stormy spring and they did for the most part. Side note: I did tend to wonder if my colleagues got sick of me rotating the same 3 sweaters week after week, but if they noticed they didn’t comment, which now seems like a pattern. 
As the days wore on, my email filled to the brim with promotional emails from my favorite stores, sample sales had gone online, every brand was cutting their prices to stay afloat, and I was reading articles on “How to spend your stimulus check.” There seemed to be a direct correlation between the number of promotional emails and my lack of desire to shop. I’d waste hours scrolling through Net-a-Porter, The Real Real, The Outnet, and countless other sites waiting for the moment that I would see something that I just had to have, but nothing came up. In a way, I was relieved, by living at home with my parents and my stimulus check my savings account was swelling to new heights. At first I had thought I had just reached the pinnacle of fashion: uniform dressing, but I think I had just become complacent and a bit blue given the rainy weather it wasn’t unusual for me to go full days without going outside. I was no longer waking up in the morning feeling excited to get dressed. 
I have often joked that my favorite clothing items to buy are often the least practical, I have a penchant for purchasing party dresses and bikinis, both of which have extremely limited shelf lives. I have always been a strong believer that if you fall in love with a party dress, you should absolutely buy it because then when you have a party you won’t have the unneeded stress of finding something to wear. I would equate this to a professional sports team having players in reserve, you always need to have a backup. This is also how I justify that I have owned for the past seven years an unworn white drop-waist sequin floor length dress and it now seems the next appropriate occasion for me to wear this will likely be my wedding. I thought because now I had absolutely no reason to wear a party dress for the foreseeable future and no vacation to wear bikinis would explain why I had lost an interest in shopping.
My lack of desire to shop lasted through July and I would routinely go through my email box and delete hundreds of emails without a single glance and it felt cathartic, like “you can’t tempt me with 65% off, I’m above all of that  now.” As the summer moved on I kept pushing back my move-in date from Labor Day to September 15 to September 30 to finally 2021. At first that was a hard pill to swallow, I had just felt like I had completed the first step in my initiation of becoming an elusive New Yorker, when the rug was pulled out from under me, but coming to terms with the fact that I wouldn’t call New York home for the next several months I felt lighter, knowing the timeline brought me relief. At the same time I began opening up those promotional emails again, which at first I couldn’t understand for what reasons. Why was I looking at white leather boots (the ones from Everlane, if you’re curious) that no one would  give a glance to if I wore them into the office, but walking down my parent’s street it would look like I got lost on my way to a costume party? 

I couldn’t realize why I was now suddenly invested in reading about how cities and designers alike were responding to the lack of fashion shows and what that would mean for the fashion industry as a whole. I suddenly was thinking about what gaps I had in my fall wardrobe, what handful of pieces would become my workhorses this year? I was re-invested in dressing how I wanted despite my physical location. On a 75 degree day I bought a tweed mini skirt and an off-white wool jacket. Both of which I probably won’t wear working in my parent’s attic, but still felt necessary. When the pieces arrived and I tried them on, I realized how ridiculous I looked in this home in a beach town wearing these pieces, but it made sense to me why I bought them. It had instilled a sense of hope in me. If I’m being honest with myself, these pieces probably won’t get to see New York city streets this fall. I’m not sure when I will go back to New York to wear them and that’s not saying I have to be in New York to wear them, but New York has come to symbolize a stand-in for my return to normalcy, whatever that means. I’m not even sure what normal means any more, but I realized by buying these pieces I was investing in the idea that living at my parent’s house, working remotely, and not having a place to call my own is temporary. What we are going through collectively isn’t easy and I do realize I am in some of the luckiest circumstances to be in during a pandemic, it doesn’t mean there haven’t been changes to my life. While I no longer am getting dressed up everyday to head into the office, I do hope that there will be a day when putting together an outfit is the norm and no longer a novelty for the occasional socially distant dinner. Buying something that I know I won’t wear right now isn’t impractical or silly; it's a sign of hope.

love you, mean it