The Cure for Fashion FOMO
The two month clothing shopping hiatus which also cured my fashion FOMO. The cure for fashion FOMO is easy. Don't buy anything. Admire others flaunting their fashion from afar. Still don't buy anything for at least two months. Wonder why you didn't try this sooner.
To break it down further here's how to get rid of shopping FOMO with my "expertly" applied two part system. First, don't buy any clothes, shoes or accessories for a month barring unforeseeable fashion emergencies. These do not include sales or product launches from your favorite brands which happen to coincide with your fashion fast. Sometimes it will be easy sometimes it will be torture but you will make it through.
After you've been through the emotional ringer continue not purchasing any fashionable goodies out of sheer logic. Items that previously would have swayed you to click buy now seem fleeting and some extra cash would be nice instead of having it hanging in your closet a la Carrie Bradshaw.
This was my secret formula for not making any clothing or style purchases for two months when one month was the hard and fast deadline. My self imposed one month shopping hiatus came about to counter the capitalist swell of December screaming "Buy all the things and treat yo self because you are so stressed out from buying all the things and the emotional labor of going to holiday parties you may or may not want to drive 2 hours just to see people who you know everything they have done in the past month from the ever vigilant eye of social media." Relatable. So I tried to start this retail cleanse in January but the after Christmas sales got me. After that false start February, dark and dreary month, began my great quest for money savings without too much personal sacrifice.
While saving money, time and mental energy this also helped with something I think most fashion lovers suffer from occasionally no matter how much disposable income they have. Fashion or outfit FOMO aka Fear of Missing Out. This started in my insecure teen years when I hardly had the funds to drop wads of cash on clothes even though I still did occasionally. I was a saver not a spender. But I would see outfits filled with pieces absent from my closet and rationalize their eventual purchase in my head. If I just bought that one dress, shirt, pair of jeans my outfit, wardrobe and myself would be complete at last.
Social media was pretty rudimentary in those days so feeds were not bombarding me with endless style and outfit inspiration which would make me simultaneously excited and dismayed. I love to be creatively inspired by clothes but the endless cycle of new things to buy that you must have yesterday to look like a cool human is unattainable and ultimately toxic.
The two main offenders are Pinterest and Instagram even though I'm not demonizing each platform entirely. The fashion consumption culture existed before these two apps but the effects and reach are accelerated now. You can be a fashion spectator via these platforms without dropping the cash to fly around the world for fashion week which is a big plus for those of us who work outside the fashion industry. Fashion as entertainment is exploding, just look at the Gucci challenge, and this frenzy only adds to the feeling of wanting to buy all the things we can afford, and can't, to be a part of the fashionable fun machine.
I've been swayed by the never wear an outfit twice mindset of blogging that for each new fashion post I needed to buy new things. Every. Single. Time. That got old fast and I've been recycling and rotating through my closet ever since only injecting it with newness occasionally when it felt warranted. No one is sending me free clothes, yet, so I won't be spending all my extra money on clothes. All the brands I support have some aspects of their business that I admire or they are the only one selling an item I was scavenging for.
I'm no saint and will be stopping my fashion fast come April since the siren song of a particular red linen ruffled Reformation dress is calling my name.
