The No-Buy Zone
What one clotheshorse learned by not shopping for a year.
Lesson #4: Not shopping has helped her find her style. On the other hand, not buying clothes has helped her discover what she genuinely likes to wear. “I hate blazers! I hate blouses! So why do I have a closet full of them?” she wondered. Sally realized that her career and her upbringing had fashioned her into a consumer dutifully responsive to the demands of the marketplace—but deaf to the dictates of her own style.
That’s changing. “See this ring?” she asked, unfurling her fingers to reveal a transparent Lucite bauble the size of a golf ball. “Twenty bucks in Fremont. I love this ring. I’m not sure I would have bought this before the diet.”
Lesson #5: A person should never buy something just because it’s on sale. Aka Why Sally Has So Many Blazers and Blouses. Nine months into the diet she was moved to draft a set of shopping rules, including: Don’t buy anything on impulse, don’t buy anything that doesn’t fit you at that moment, and, foremost, if you wouldn’t pay full price for it, don’t buy it on sale. “Thirty-percent off” should never be a garment’s best feature. If it is, the market is having its way with you.
Lesson #6: Cheap clothes are unconscionable. If Sally started the diet concerned about the effect too many clothes were having on her soul, she ends it harrowed by the effect the clothing industry is having on the planet. “You can’t breathe in China,” she says, quieting. “Kids there are making our clothes in packed sweatshops, with no bathroom breaks.” Wear your discount store uberbargains, she says—but know that you’re wearing them on the backs of those children.
Cheaply made, short-lived apparel has become for Sally more than an aesthetic crisis. Her raised consciousness now regards it a spiritual, environmental, and humanitarian crisis. “I want to challenge the notion of disposable clothing, to find meaning in things that last,” she says. “My two most prized possessions are ski sweaters my mom wore in high school.”
Lesson #7: Shopping works like a drug. The biggest surprise for her was finding that women the world over self-medicate by shopping. The Great American Apparel Diet had participants from Denmark, Portugal, Italy, Australia, Croatia, and elsewhere, who carried on their shopping trips the same baggage of acquisitiveness, appearance anxiety—lots of weight issues—and buyer’s remorse that we are known for.
“The bloggers articulated that so well,” Sally said. “That cycle of standing in the shop, wondering ‘Can I afford this?’ then buying it, then feeling guilty, then gathering debt . . . and you’re still the same person, only slightly better dressed.”
“It’s filling the hole,” she mused. “Reaching for fulfillment in the wrong way.” Sally, no addict, nevertheless knows the inclination. A couple weeks earlier, in the kind of funk that would usually tempt her toward a boutique, she dropped a major wad on her hair. An amount that could buy a person a pretty nice leather jacket.
By now we’d made our way to the Nordstrom shoe department, where she was eyeing a pair of cherry-red patent leather wedges. “Honestly, I am so over this diet,” she admitted wistfully. “I’m jonesing for new jeans.” As she spoke I was admiring a pair of black gladiator sandals on sale.
Which is how we ended our interview about not buying clothes—by buying shoes. “It’s not cheating,” she ventured, 80 days shy of freedom, a flutter of anxiety momentarily knitting her brow.
“So why do I feel guilty?”
Published: August 2010
I’m a clothing junkie as well and hate to buy things that were made in China. However, one thing to point out is that just because an article of clothing is expensive, it does not mean that it wasn’t made in China. You have to read the label. Over half the clothes in Nordstrom and Barney’s are made in China. I love James Pearse and the clothes aren’t cheap, but they’re made in China. BCBG…made in China. It would be nice if she had actually recommended brands and designers that are responsible, rather than using the word cheap. Not everyone can drop the same amount of money on clothing that Sally can. I buy the expensive brands for cheap, you just have to know how, where and when to shop. The final step is to look at the label to see where the garment was actually made. I’ve found that most items by the following are made in the US (note, I said most not all):
Michael Stars
Splendid
Citizens of Humanity
Perhaps I am skeptical of this “diet” because collecting clothing and trying to be on the cusp of the next big fad is not something that particularly plagues me, but I have to say I’m just not that impressed by Sally Bjornsen’s “diet.”
Granted, I did have the privilege of growing up quite differently from her. Instead of being raised in the retail industry and hearing my family make judgments about clothing and style, I grew up in a third world country—my parents’ work had us living in Africa—and we were lucky to go shopping once every four years. In the meantime, we wore clothing that my mother made for us. If we wore out our jeans before we were in the US every four years, then…we didn’t have jeans.
Even now, when I am back in the US, I have a hard time going shopping. I feel physically ill when I go to shopping malls and see the blatant conspicuous consumption all around me. When I see people carrying multiple bags from high end stores, I think, “The prices of those clothes could feed a family in Africa for several months…” (Where my family lived, the average individual was LUCKY to earn $100 a YEAR.)
These days, as a young professional fresh out of college, I am struggling to make ends meet, especially as I pay off my college debts. I prefer to keep food on the table, gas in my Honda’s tank, and a roof over my head, than to spend money on clothing. SO…when Sally made the comment about super bargain stores, I wish she had clarified. Did she mean Walmart? Target? JC Penney? I realize that there are some stores that have better relationships with their overseas employees than others, but which ones?
I looked on her website to see what stores she recommended—I don’t want to exploit people!—but the stores she suggested were ones that I can’t afford to shop at with my current income. So now what? Do I buy my clothing at Target—I’m still wearing my wardrobe from a few years ago, by the way—and exploit people around the world? Or do I buy one pair of jeans from one of these suggested stores and not have clothes for a year that I can wear to work?
Sally, I know that your intentions are good, and I don’t want to slam you, but not everyone can buy $100 jeans or dresses that cost $250. That’s food for a month and a payment to Sallie Mae. In the meantime, I’m on a forced clothing diet of my own.
Whether a clothing diet is “forced” or not, I think the purpose of Sally’s quest is to prove a point, raise awareness, and make us all think about the things that we buy. I love that her cause has gotten so much attention in the press recently.
I’ve been thinking about my minimalist life a lot lately, and have concluded:
If I could wear only 8 pieces of really rad, super comfortable, versatile pieces, I would be happy.
So I came up with a business idea – 8 pieces of clothing, (fashionable clothing!) that can be worn 100 ways.
I’m in Nicaragua researching fair trade labor to produce, and blog about it at www.allofusrevolution.com. Would love ideas from all those interested in minimalist lifestyles!