Why we over-consume clothing
Most of the time, people are faulted for buying too much. We’re told we should be more conscious about what we’re buying and we should stop buying clothes altogether. How fun is that?
What a lot of us don’t take into consideration is why we feel the need to buy so much clothes. It’s not as simple as seeing something and thinking “why not, I’ll buy that.” It goes much deeper than that, and until we understand why we do it, we won’t be able to change it. And we need to change it.
A lot of us feel pressured to buy clothing. Sometimes, I’ll think about a shirt or a pair of shoes incessantly until I finally buy it to shut myself up. But then, I feel bad afterwards instead of happy with my purchase because deep down, I knew I didn’t need it, but I just had to have it.
There’s some different factors that could be at play here making us feel so addicted to shopping.
MEDIA
It’s no surprise that the media we’ve consumed since we were kids has influenced the way we act as adults. For me, I grew up watching basic “tween” shows like Hannah Montana or Clueless. What do those have in common? I was convinced that I needed to have massive closets like the girls in the show because that’s what was “normal” for women. It was accepted, it was even cool.
These shows and movies also showed the main characters going to the mall/shopping constantly. It made it the norm to spend excessive amounts of money when going out with friends because shopping is supposed to be our favorite thing to do. I remember going to the mall when I was young and there wasn’t a more powerful feeling than walking through the mall with bags and bags of clothes. Just like the women in the shows I watched, I learned that shopping was fun and made me happy, which made me want to do it all the time.
These tropes continue into the shows and movies we watch as adults to further drill into our minds that as women, we should love shopping and we should do it as often as possible to maintain that feeling of belonging and satisfaction.
SOCIAL MEDIA
I know this isn’t a new concept to everyone that social media influences our behaviors, but it’s still something we need to talk about.
From influencers shoving discount codes in our faces, to people doing $900 Shein hauls on TikTok, to seeing the same ad over and over again for some kind of clothing item (looking at you, Halara dress from TikTok), we’re constantly being told to buy clothing to satisfy some need we didn’t know we had. That need could be telling us that we have to hop on a microtrend (before it inevitably ends in a few weeks), that we absolutely have to buy this piece of clothing that’s going to “change our lives”, or because we want to look like our favorite influencer and seem like we’re put together like they are.
Whatever the case, social media has positioned itself deep in our subconscious to buy clothing constantly.
RETAIL THERAPY
The concept of retail therapy is so damaging for a young girl. We’re being taught and continue to teach other young girls that if we’re feeling down, we can do some retail therapy and feel better instantly. How damaging is it that we’re being told to spend money on clothes we don’t need just to forget about our problems for an hour?
I remember breaking up with my first boyfriend and my mom taking me to go on a shopping spree to make me feel better. I bought an excessive amount of clothing that I didn’t wear half of because I was feeling down. There was also the time I missed a school dance because my date was sick and my mom took me shopping then too. She didn’t know better, she was teaching me the same thing she’d been taught–shopping makes you happier, if only for a moment.
Bringing it back to media, retail therapy is shown repeatedly in shows all the time. Clueless has multiple iconic scenes of Cher needing retail therapy to deal with getting a low grade in class or failing her drivers test. If it makes the characters we look up to happy, shopping should make us happy too.
Though this seems like an innocent way to make yourself feel better, it’s furthering the narrative that we need to buy clothing to deal with minor inconveniences. That buying clothing will give us that little drop of dopamine we need to get over our problems instead of dealing with them head on. It’s a conditioned way to avoid the way we feel by replacing it with an addiction that no one is telling us to get rid of.
It can be hard to remove ourselves from the mindset that buying clothes = happiness. I don’t think it’ll ever be something that we’ll truly unlearn, but that we make a conscious effort to ignore. Some things that’s helped me while I try to navigate through this is:
Taking note of what gaps my closet has before I go shopping and limiting myself to only buying things that would fill them.
If I see an item I really want but know I don’t need, I won’t buy it. I’ll leave the store, and if I’m still thinking about it days or weeks later, I know it’s something I genuinely want and not impulsively buying.
I try to think about 3-5 outfits that include the piece of clothing I want to buy. If I can’t think of that many or they’re outfits I could make with pieces I already have, I leave the item behind.
We absolutely have the ability to unlearn these behaviors to make our lives more sustainable. It may seem hard at first, but the environment (and your bank account!) will thank you.
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