I’m taking part in Friend Friday again for a change! The theme today is the phenomenon of only wearing things once. Well, I say phenomenon, but as you will see, I’m going’ to be questioning whether this is really something that happens beyond a few very isolated cases. It seems to be one of those accusations often thrown at bloggers and women in general that has very little basis in reality. I think this accusation is often part of that ‘fashion is frivolous, stop being so vain when there’s real problems in the world’ thing that we bloggers so love to rail against.
The thing that started this discussion off was this article on get off my internets, where the question was ‘where bloggers store all the clothes they keep acquiring?’. The examples given are Anthropologie shopping blogs and ‘famous’ bloggers who get a lot of free stuff. Some of the commenters suggest that some bloggers buy stuff, wear it with the tags on to take photos and then return it. That seems a tiny wee bit mad, but what do I know, I had no idea an Anthro-shopping blog genre even existed! Blogs based on the shopping rather than the wearing/using of things aren’t very interesting to me, but obviously they must be to others.
Another article that touches on one time only wearing is this one by Arash Mazininani, which starts talking about celebrities rewearing (or not) things at events, then moves on to people buying things for going out or an event, and then somehow from there ends up at only wearing said things once. Says Arash:
Women that I know personally, always seem to have this obsession with getting something new when they go out. I know from past conversations that many wouldn’t dream of wearing the same thing twice.
I’m sure does know women like that, but I also have a feeling that there’s a bit of a conflation going on here between only wearing things once for an event where you’ll be noticed and photographed, and only wearing them once full stop. Which really isn’t the same thing.
Hopefully answering the questions it will become clearer what I mean.
1. Are you a one-time wearer?
Nope, course not.What would be the point? I do wonder if anyone is going to say yes to this!
2. Do you feel the need to purchase something new for an evening out or a special event?
I don’t have the kind of nights out that require new clothes any more. Not sure I ever did actually, though I did used to buy stuff with the express intention of wearing it for going out when I was younger. I do like to get something new for really special events sometimes, especially weddings of people I know well. I don’t get something new for every wedding, but for close friends I do, it’s just part of the excitement of them getting ready for the wedding.
That doesn’t mean I don’t re-wear the item afterwards though! I do own a couple of dresses that are too dressy for anything except evening dress situations, but any dresses I buy for weddings from now on will have to be suitable for general evenings out as well.
I think this is kind of the point I was trying to make in the intro, buying something new for an occasion doesn’t mean you will only ever wear it for that occasion.
3. Re-mixing is something a lot of bloggers are proud of being able to accomplish – are you a re-mixing pro or do you shy away from posting items frequently? Why?
Ok, that’s two questions.
Am I a remixing pro? Well, i wouldn’t call it that but yeah, I think so! I am pretty good at making new combinations of outfits with existing clothes – see, for example, my capsule wardrobe challenges. I very very rarely will wear the EXACT same outfit twice, I’ll usually add a little something different, like a scarf or a brooch. I know the contents of my wardrobe really well, and I am OCD enough to remember most of the outfits I wore in the last month, so I do make sure to wear things that haven’t come out for a while, and not to repeat complete outfits. But still, the basic canvas onto which accessories are added will be the same within a short period very frequently.
I’ve actually come to dislike the word remixing more and more. I do have a certain fondness for the term, because (as far as I know) it emerged out of the wardroberemix flickr group, which is how I got into taking outfit pictures and blogging in the first place, but really it just seems a bit meaningless. I mean obviously you will rewear clothes, that is he point of them! With a few exceptions of people in unusual situations, that is what everyone does. It hardly seems worth remarking upon.
On the second question, and this may seem a little contradictory, I don’t usually post very similar outfits on the blog, unless it’s for a capsule wardrobe challenge. I only do one or maximum two outfit posts a week, so I want to make sure I use these for something that is fresh and interesting. It would be different if I posted outfits daily, and I did used to do that for a while, but it’s not the direction I’ve chosen to go in now. So I do try to reflect the width of my wardrobe within the outfits I post, and I don’t repeat items a huge amount within a given period of say 6 months.
(A little exception to this is my new handmade dress, which has been posted twice in short succession here and here, although the actual instances of me wearing it were pretty far apart, and I had initially scheduled the first post for about a month before it actually went out just got overwhelmed with other stuff whicch meant I had to keep pushing it back.)
4. Do you have a clothing budget or are you an impulse buyer?
Neither. I don’t have a budget because I’m not interested in buying things that are either really expensive, or buying a lot of clothes. I have really got to the point now with my wardrobe where I have so many clothes that I actually don’t want to get lots of new stuff, and I won’t buy lots of random stuff from the charity shops any more, even if it’s super cheap, it has to be right. Partly as a result of that I have recently started spending a little more on clothes per item, and buying a bit more good quality and long lasting new. For example, there is a Cos in Brussels and I intend to buy a dress or a jumper from there before I go, I’m just deciding what will be best.
But I still shop well within by means and the thought of handing over large amounts of money for anything still scares me. I am slightly obsessed with financial safety (especially since husband Dave is still in a precarious and woefully underpaid job situation) and always think of money spent on luxury goods as a trade off against money spent on the mortgage. So I don’t need a budget because it’s not in my nature to go overboard.
And as for the impulse buying, no, that’s not me. I think it’s part of the thrifting, vintage shopping approach that you have to have an open mind, so of course I do buy random things sometimes, but generally I just shop when I am going out to shop and I think about things. I’m not the kind of person that nips into town to go to the bank or something and comes back with bags full of stuff. And online shopping, which seems to be such a danger for a lot of people I have no problem resisting. When I do my biannual People Tree order, I always think about it for at least a week, visiting the site multiple times to narrow down my choices.
5. Do you find yourself bored when reading a blog in which clothing items are often remixed and appear frequently?
No, it doesn’t bother me at all when items are repeated. I expect it of people who post daily, and I like seeing what people wear day to day. It’s like knowing a friends wardrobe. That being said, I would notice if people repeated the exact same outfits often. I also don’t find blogs of people with very small wardrobes or that wear a lot of similar items that interesting. I prefer people who look a bit different, and who can add interest to their outfits, even if it goes a bit too far into the realms of crazy, or it’s stuff that I would never personally wear. And that’s not that easy to do with a minimal wardrobe. It’s not that I’m bored as such, it’s just I don’t read blogs for advice on how to dress, it’s more inspiration and new perspectives I look for.
Et voila! What do you think, duckies? Any one time wearers want to come forward? I would love to hear from you!
You can read the rest of the posts on this topic here.