A year of no new clothes

In 2024, I (only!) bought three articles of clothing, none of them new.

I’ve always been interested in clothes & how they’re made - when I was 12, I sewed myself a little black dress and wore it to a family Christmas party. In my 20s I took evening classes at FIT for sewing and pattern-making, and downloaded books and documentaries about the history of fashion. During the pandemic, I hand knitted my first sweaters.

But if I’m honest, buying clothes has been my predominant mode of participating in fashion. Picking out an outfit feels like solving a creative puzzle - a game to find a combination that feels most authentically ‘me’ for the given context. And that challenge has always extended far beyond the confines of my existing wardrobe and even beyond the retail playground that is NYC, to the outer reaches of the internet. I easily spent hours scrolling, searching, and comparing. Then just one click to secure the ‘perfect missing piece’. Multiply that many times over each month, each year.

I didn’t set out to do a ‘no buy’ or a ‘low buy’ in 2024 - I’ve never really set New Years resolutions for myself. But meditating on this past year, I’ve observed that buying less seems to be a positive side effect of other changes I’ve made.

I place the inflection point in August 2023, when I was laid off from my tech startup job. My relief was palpable, in fact I was elated! (which I recognize was a luxury, to not be primarily concerned with my health and my finances). I had grown frustrated and disillusioned not just with this specific job but with the venture capital-backed, ‘growth at all costs’ tech industry as a whole.

I’ve generally plotted my life one step at a time, without strong visions of my future - only the motivation to (in very loose terms) ‘do well’ along the way. It’s been a comfortable way to live, without inner tension between ‘where I am’ and ‘where I thought I would be’. It’s hard to feel angst about failing to achieve your dreams if you haven’t defined any!! In this past / first 10 years of my career, curiosity drew me in to each new opportunity, and eventual boredom propelled me to the next.

I’ve long wondered passively how I might combine my interests in fashion and technology - I’ve dabbled at the edges, but never found the right niche. Standing completely still for the first time, I asked myself a question about the future: is there a knot out there that I would be happy spending the next 10 years (or perhaps the rest of my life) trying to untangle? And that’s how I got here, writing this newsletter, taking a stab at apparel remanufacturing with my upcycled knitwear brand Next Season, and supporting efforts to shift the fashion industry away from linear ‘take-make-waste’ ways of thinking towards circularity and regeneration.

I *think* I’ve found a knot or maybe a cluster that I can imagine myself working on for a long time. This nascent space of ‘circular’ fashion is a big tangled mess, with plenty of material to feed my curiosity. I’ve also been rethinking my approach to work, and reframing my career around a specific problem (perhaps even taking on a variety of projects and roles at the same time), versus taking jobs as they come.

For the first time ever I even (sort of) set New Years resolutions? Besides writing this newsletter, I’ve spent these days between Christmas and New Years writing out my objectives & key results for 2025 - they’re more for my business, not personal (no resolutions to hit the gym, at least), but the action still feels spiritually significant to me. And a little scary - now that I have concrete goals in writing, I’ll have to hold myself accountable for them.

So what does this have to do with (not) buying new clothes? Getting laid off naturally forced me to change my spending habits, and clothes are now low on list. More surprisingly, I’ve found that my desire to shop has all but evaporated! I’ve (mostly) stopped looking at clothes as objects to buy, as yet unacquired puzzle pieces key to exhibiting my identity. I spend a LOT less time in stores, both IRL and online. It’s said that constraints breed creativity, and I’ve been enjoying making new combinations out of the clothes I already own.

I’ve been wondering if my desire to shop hasn’t really gone away but instead has been transformed? Perhaps my new creative venture has supplanted the role of shopping in this never-ending puzzle of self-expression? That’s my working hypothesis at least - and I guess time will tell better (RemindMe! One Year “Revisit this theory”). Ultimately it’s a topic for a more thoughtful, more personal essay in the future…

For now, I’ll tie a bow on this end-of-year recap post with a short list of my ‘ins and outs’ for 2025 (gotta keep up with these social media trends like it’s my job):

IN:

• Old clothes

• New goals

OUT:

• New clothes

• Old habits

And I wouldn’t feel right concluding 2024 without expressing my utmost gratitude for my family and dear friends, who are unwaveringly supportive and encouraging. Or without thanking you all who have been reading and following this journey! I’m so glad you’ve found these newsletters engaging (at least I hope so if you’ve made it this far), and I look forward to sharing exciting plans for 2025 → lots more coming soon!

Happy New Year!

The first of my three new-to-me items this year was this Stella McCartney dress I snagged on The Real Real to wear to my brother’s wedding in May 🧡 The other two items were both vintage Levi’s, surprising no one!