How to manage a shopping addiction
The short term buzz you may get from a new purchase can become something you crave as much as any other vice in your life. The circle gets more vicious the more you immerse yourself, which for me has always made working in fashion a challenge.
Needing to participate
I’ve worked in fashion my whole career. First in luxury menswear, then jewellery and now womenswear. I always feared working in the industry where I was the customer because it would blur the lines between what is work and what is something I do for me. Now that I do, I can’t be sure if my current habits are a progression that comes with earning more money, or that my increased exposure to retailers for “competitive research” is building a never-ending and unrealistic wish list.
I feel the need to participate in the industry I belong to, to be relevant and wear brands that would impress my peers and prove my credibility. By that logic, all of my coworkers should be obsessed with new brands or evolving their wardrobe - but they’re not. It’s just me, obsessing inside of my head and justifying the time and stress because of my job.
Insta-pressure
Social media has also amplified the peer pressure we feel to flaunt possessions and chase newness rather than appreciate what we have. It’s not anything groundbreaking to connect an increase in shopping with increased time spent looking at “aspirational” style. What we have is never good enough, because it isn’t what they have - even though what they have could have been gifted, borrowed, or purchased with a salary much higher than your own.
I daydream about all the incredible outfits I wear on holiday and post incredible photos of. The funny thing is, I’m not comfortable in front of a camera at all. I find an issue with every photo and have no awareness of angles or lighting, so what do I expect? That suddenly with the right clothes all of that will change? No. It doesn’t mean that the clothes aren’t beautiful or they don’t look great on me, more that I’m longing for some sense of validation. I want other people to notice how much thought (and hard-earned money) has gone into my wardrobe, and that is something I never fully admitted to myself. Fashion feeds into my vanity.
Control vs. chaos
A lot of people might describe a shopping addiction as quite chaotic and frivolous behaviour. You hear people say “I don’t know why I even bought that,” but that is something I do not experience. My approach is very thought out and organised, I spend weeks or months looking at an item I want, so the issue is more that shopping still consumes my thoughts and my price ceiling keeps moving up…
I actually started this site as a way for me to find a home for all my thoughts and planning around shopping so that it wouldn’t be something I think about on my way to work or dream about at night. So far, it’s been 6 months and I wouldn’t say that it’s stopped me from shopping. It has allowed me to be more focused on what I will buy, because of things like the My Wardrobe section where I can view it all together to assess whether something fits. I can visualize a new pieces in my current wardrobe and make sure it’s a smart purchase, but perhaps it actually encourages me to find new things to add on. That approach gives me a sense of control I suppose I lack in other parts of my life.
When people around you start to notice that you shop a lot, it’s really hard to not take a proper look in the mirror. They notice your behaviour from an clearer perspective and want you to take the appropriate actions to stop. Truth be told, I didn’t even realize my shopping addiction was as bad as it was until my boyfriend sat me down and said so.
Cut the card
I told myself I would go cold turkey this year, but I still haven’t started. That feels like failure. But it’s never too late to make a change!
I spend some of my free time thinking about what I want to buy and what would be an amazing addition to my closest, but how do I talk myself off the ledge of another purchase? How do I bring reason back to a thought process that is impulse-based? Well, I’ve started forcing myself to really consider what that item will bring to my life. Will I wear it every day - or is part of a fantasy? These questions bring me back to really acknowledging how I get dressed in the morning and what my uniform is. If something is being added to that, it has to fit that definition because otherwise, it will just sit on a shelf like my Jimmy Choos.
Cutting off a habit that feels like a dependence can be absolutely terrifying. Not shopping makes you think all sorts of existential questions like “will I be relevant?” or “will I be credible?” I ask myself these questions, finding myself working in the fashion industry in a fairly senior role. I feel like I have to represent my industry and impress my colleagues. You spend all this money hoping that people will add your style into their perception of how good you are at your role. But really, if I just made the sales, it wouldn’t matter what I wore to do it.
5 stages of addiction
First use
This isn’t necessarily your first ever purchase, but it was the start of something different for you. For me, it was luxury purchases. And the gateway to that drug was working at my current company, where I could splash out on new season digs for decent discounts. I think my first purchase was a pair of satin trousers - not my best, but I was just getting started.
Continued use
I had previously done any designer shopping on extreme discounts (80% off or more) through eBay. I loved eBay and the way it enabled me to get a piece of my favourite designers, and I had enjoyed it for years. Once I could shop new season, I left eBay behind and started my continued use of my loyalty card. Counting points and looking more at the amount I was saving than the amount I was spending, even though I never would have paid the full price.
Tolerance
The tolerance stage is where you become accustomed to this habit and then need more to get the same high you used to get. For me, this was the shift in my price ceiling. I would say that in my eBay days, the price ceiling was 100-150, then it moved to 200-250, and then it was rare big purchases of about 400. They were infrequent but I allowed them. And that is when I started to lose sight of how much I was spending because a single purchase could be equal to a mortgage payment. I didn’t bat an eyelid, and in fact I started budgeting to spend 500 per month.
Dependence
This stage is about withdrawal symptoms and behavioural changes. The feeling of not being yourself or “normal” without your stimulant. I was checking new arrivals of luxury partners daily and bookmarking the look books of the coming season of buys before they were even in-store. I was dependent on knowing what my closet would be and what I could buy. The knowledge of everything out there so I could make the best decision and start day dreaming about my purchasing like I was stalking my prey. Every month I had to tick something off this wish list I built.
Addiction
And then you arrive at addiction. You cannot see yourself without this in your life. You could be in denial (I sure was). And if you’re lucky, this might be where your loved ones try to intervene and remind you of what you’re doing.
The entire point of this site was to change the way you shop and look at your wardrobe and though I’ve been able to identify my shopping addiction, I’ve yet to fully crack it.
This post got serious real quick, but hey, financial debt is a serious topic. And if you don’t have your shopping under control, it could be a fate you are headed for. It will be challenging to reform some of the behaviour that got you there, but hopefully worth it in the end when you feel more secure and are a credible candidate to buy something bigger like… a house.