Here’s a thing that I do. I buy a top or a dress or a sweater and I decide that that particular top or dress or sweater is the perfect one for me and that I need to have duplicates. I need to have back-ups. So I buy an extra, in another color if it’s available; or maybe an exact duplicate in the same color, just so that I will always have that perfect dress or top or sweater when I need it.
On the one hand, this is a perfectly sensible thing to do. Women learn something as we grow older, and that is that we can no longer walk into a store and just buy any garment that looks cute on the hanger. You find that there are a few styles that work on your particular weird body, and you stick with them. Maybe you vary the colors or the patterns. Or maybe you stick with solids. I still like prints, but that’s me. Anyway, knowing as you do that fashion trends change and that certain shapes and silhouettes go in and out of style, you try to stock up on the ones that work when they’re available. As an example, LuLaRoe makes a shirt in a style called Randy (after a person, presumably, like all of their other styles). The Randy top is one of the items that I buy on repeat.
Side note #1: I make fun of LuLaRoe just like every other right-thinking person. Why would a grown woman wear leggings printed with donuts or cupcakes or kittens? Why would you wear Disney apparel unless you happen to work at Disneyland? These are among the many questions that I have about LuLaRoe clothing. But the Randy is the exception. It's a simple baseball-style t-shirt that comes with solid sleeves and a patterned torso or the reverse, and while some of the patterns are truly hideous (Disney or donuts or the like), some are very nice. And the Randy goes well with pants and skirts and shorts, and it fits me well, and I like it.
Side note #2: I know all about how problematic LuLaRoe is, even aside from the horrendous pre-K-appropriate prints and sack dresses. In fact, I knew about all of that even before the Amazon documentary. A friend of a friend sold LuLaRoe, and she lost a lot of money on her huge investment. And so I don't buy LuLaRoe products new anymore. I buy my beloved Randy tops secondhand on Thredup or in thrift stores or on Poshmark.
Side note #3: Anyone else lol-ing at the unmitigated gall of AMAZON airing a documentary exposing corporate greed, shady business practices, and worker exploitation?
*****
Anyway, if you don’t know about Poshmark and Thredup, they are both online resale stores. Thredup is like a consignment shop. People send in their stuff, and Thredup takes pictures and writes descriptions and sets prices and posts listings. When the items sell, the original owner receives a portion of the proceeds. Poshmark is more like a fashion-focused eBay without the auction-style bidding (although you can bargain over prices). You open a Poshmark account, set up your shop (they call it a closet), write your own descriptions and post your own pictures and set your own prices. Poshmark then keeps a commission on your sales. I’ve purchased items on Thredup but I have never consigned to them, but I do have a Poshmark closet, and I sell stuff every so often. It’s not very much money, but there’s something satisfying about allowing someone else to benefit from a bargain and recouping a little of your investment on an item that you no longer use.
Both of these sites are very popular. Both of them promote the reduce-reuse-recycle sustainability ethic. Of course, it’s also just cheaper to buy used clothes. But it’s not just thrift and it’s not just environmental consciousness that makes these sites so popular. It’s desperation to get rid of stuff. We all have too much stuff.
*****
Maybe it’s too broad to say that “we all” have too much stuff. But I certainly have too much stuff and even as I recognize this, I still continue to stockpile Randy tops and shift dresses and pants that fit. And I’ve been thinking about why I do that. I criticized the early pandemic hoarders just like everyone else, and what is stockpiling your favorite clothing types if it’s not hoarding against future shortages and in the process, possibly depriving others of access to the thing that I am hoarding? But the “thing” that I am hoarding is not actually a thing. It’s the feeling of security and ease and lack of self-regard that I feel when I am wearing certain clothing. I like that feeling of freedom. I want to feel that way every day.
*****
We had a neighborhood garage sale last week. People could set up tables in the pool parking lot, display their items, and sell them to any and all comers. I didn’t go this time, but I’ve been to this annual event many times. We have lots of older people in this neighborhood, so in addition to the usual clothes and toys and household goods, you can often buy vinyl records, Sony Trinitron TV sets, typewriters, or old Trimline or Princess phones. My younger son, now 17, then 11, once bought a huge Clinton-era camcorder. He and his best friend, who had his own giant camcorder, spent the rest of the summer making nuisances of themselves by videotaping everything and everyone that they could point their lenses at. It was like Snapchat for the Stone Age. I have no idea if any of the footage is extant. Maybe they’re saving it for posterity.
*****
It was a good weekend for garage sales. Everyone and their mom had a table or two set up in their driveway, with little piles of books or collectibles or toys, available for pennies on the original dollar. That made me see the upside to all of this overbuying and over accumulation. Amid the nearly annual political media frenzy over the disastrous impact that a default on the national debt would have on the economy and daily life (Stock market crash! Currency devaluation! Bank failures! Bread lines!) it's reassuring to think that at least we can't run out of stuff. Having more clothes than you need means that if we run out of fuel, we can always wear multiple layers for warmth. Or we can barter for whatever we need. I can trade a Randy or a Le Pliage for some bread and milk or some firewood. I picture a weekly market where people set up tables in their driveways and display everything they have to offer, and we all walk around carrying canvas totes full of sweaters and socks and light bulbs and books and canned food, offering a can of peaches for a pair of double A batteries or a bunch of extra Scrabble tiles for an unopened toothbrush. I figure that we can sustain a cashless neighborhood micro-economy for months--maybe years.
That solves the problem of what to do with all of our excess stuff. It does not solve the problem of needing stuff in the first place, needing it for reasons other than physical survival. That's a different problem altogether. Maybe it’s a mental health problem. I tell myself that I buy too many similar clothing items because then I’ll always be able to enjoy the freedom that comes with not having to think about what you’re going to wear every day. It’s not really freedom, though, is it, if it depends on a shirt or a dress or a jacket? It’s not really freedom if it requires a thing. That is the thing that I wrestle with.
Maybe I can find a therapist who accepts payment in books or postcards or Randy tops. Or maybe I should pray for detachment. Freedom demands detachment, and I am far from detached.
No comments:
Post a Comment