The swift rise in popularity of online shopping and introduction of low-priced, fast fashion stores into Australia such as Zara and Top Shop has certainly changed the face of retail.
Quick fix shopping has become so easy a new dress can be delivered to your front door the same day you order.
Apps on your iPhone will let you know when there’s a sale on, anywhere in the world.
You can leave the office at lunch time and buy a head-to-toe, bang on trend outfit with handbag to wear on Saturday night for less than $200. But for those who may be teetering on the edge of a shopping addiction, these are dangerous temptations.
How do you know if you are just someone who likes fashion, or if you have fallen into the abyss of comfort shopping?
Are there things in your wardrobe that you have only worn once? Items that still have price tags on them? Pieces you bought excitedly because they were a bargain and then promptly forgot you had them?
These impulse buys are jamming up precious closet space and, more importantly, keeping you poor. Fashion that gets only one wear is not a good long term investment, hence the adage: “I’m not rich enough to buy cheap clothes”.
As someone who worked at Vogue for more than 25 years, I had to be very careful from the outset that I did not let fashion consumption take over my life.
I learned pretty quickly that something we fawned all over one month was out of fashion the next, and I watched wealthier colleagues around me spend a fortune on things that they wore only once or twice.
I also learned to invest in classic pieces, like a navy blue Armani jacket, a Jean Paul Gaultier trench coat, well-tailored pants, Gucci loafers, cashmere knits and the best handbag you could afford.
While you had to save a great deal to buy them in the first place, they would look great for seasons and seasons to come.
As I got older and my income increased, I set myself a yearly budget for clothes and made sure I didn’t overspend, knowing that mortgages and school fees were on the horizon.
Once I learnt restraint, it stuck — I could like everything, I just couldn’t have everything. More than once I felt relief that I hadn’t bought into an expensive trend (the extreme shouldered Balenciaga jacket is one example) because it was literally out of vogue 12 months later and I would have been $4000 poorer.
I also don’t buy cheap clothes just because they are cheap. I don’t feel well-dressed in them. I would rather save and have something a little more special.
Thankfully my early experiences with online shopping were dismal — wrong sizes, things that did not live up to my expectations once they arrived.
But I can certainly see how sitting down after a long day at work with a glass of wine and a laptop and a sale at Net a Porter could be a highway to financial hell.
I used to lecture the girls in the fashion office about their lust for $2500 Givenchy shoes, advising them to buy a house first, so they would have somewhere to put the fashion. But it fell on deaf ears. Logic and fashion are not really compatible.
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