"The Year of No New Clothes"

I've written about how I gave up buying new clothes for a year before on this blog, and I'm happy to say I'm a little over a month away from the end of that "Lent Period". Up until about two weeks ago, I had no remorse, or regret, but then a couple weeks ago something changed. September 1st a year ago I moved to Chile, I had with me a knapsack full of clothes for 4 months, I brought mostly crap, but a few things I liked, a lot of which were items Sylvain hated, which sort of defeated the purpose really. A month into my time in Chile I asked Sylvain to cut my hair. Learn this lesson from me, unless your boyfriend is also a gay stylist, don't hand him a pair of scissors and ask him to cut anything off of you. It's not that he did a bad job, its that it was I had a stupid idea... So for the next 4 months, I basically lived like someone whose camping, I did not care what I looked like. This can be liberating for like a week, and then it gets depressing. I'm a pretty au natural kind of girl, but putting even a little effort into how you look can have big returns in the self-esteem and confidence department.

When I packed for Paris I figured, take anything that's black and lets wear out all that H&M crap I made the mistake of buying (note to self, stop buying clothes from H&M as soon as you graduate from college or at least as soon as you earn a paycheck). Six months later, and I feel a little bit like I've been punishing myself forcing myself to look a little bit stupid everyday. This was confirmed by Sylvain's late night confession that we had become less sexy...Yesterday I was anxious to go out because I didn't have to work today but I stopped myself from calling Sylvain to try and make plans with our friends, I was wearing a hideous orange skirt, with a top that could have landed me on one of those makeover TV shows. I am someone who started reading Vogue at age 12, I got the Coco Chanel award in the 6th grade, probably the only 11 year old to know what kind of honor that was. So why was I dressing like a lunatic?

For months I've been watching Sylvain wince as I dress in the morning, and I've opted to let him pick out my outfits when we "go out". Basically my clothes have been fashion suicide, and I'm over it. We are strapped for cash, but last weekend Sylvain urged me to go buy some new clothes, this from a guy who spends money on clothes once a presidential term.

I hope I've learned something from this year of "no new clothes", I think at least I've learned never to shop at J.Crew or H&M again, to seriously consider whether that American Apparel dress is appropriate and that less shopping can mean a lot more traveling. But the bigger lesson has to be that we ought to buy only what we need, I've worn out clothes this year for the first time, maybe ever and it felt so, so good. This year I've learned how much having stuff makes you stuck, how un-"green" it is, how it tethers you to standing still, I think I got it. I sort of hoarded all my favorite clothes, saving them for "when I get back" so I don't need to buy new clothes just yet (except a pair of jeans) but man I'm looking forward to not dressing like a schmuck anymore.