What I think about when I think about not buying clothes.

A tale of several cardigans. one I want and don't yet possess, and the ones I think will solve a problem I don't really have. (Spoiler alert: I still think about clothes).

When I stop thinking about buying clothes as an option, it feels traumatic at first (what if all the beautiful clothes in the world stop? what if they all vanish in my brief haitus?) until I feel a kind of settling in again, a contentment with the wardrobe I have so carefully collected over these past years.

I have enough clothes - more than enough. I have enough to satisfy all the parts of me. I have enough to begin to overfill the physical spaces I have for them, and although in theory I could keep expanding those spaces (I live alone, it’s not impinging on anyone else if my clothes keep flowing into other rooms), I don’t want to, because at some point I settled irrevocably on what I have. My footwear (mainly changed out major seasonally, and with the exception of my tall boots) lives in a glass-doored cabinet in the hall, my coats hang in the hall during the winter, my clothes, with the exception of knitwear, lives in my tall, shallow, three door wardrobe. The knitwear has its own glass-doored cabinet, and is neatly folded. Scarves also live in here, and all of it is covered up for the summer months when the sun pours into the room. I have what feels like the right amount of clothes for me - not too many to be overwhelming and un-worn, not too few to bore or frustrate me.

Things I realise while I can’t shop: I don’t feel bad about having built in the proviso that if I stumble upon the black cardigan I want at the price I want, I’ll let myself get that. About twenty years ago, I was in Max Mara with my mother, who often shopped there. At the time I couldn’t afford to shop anywhere, and she offered to buy me something. I could have gladly chosen one of everything, but I asked for a longish, black, belted and buttoned cardigan. I think my mother was surprised I chose something so ordinary, but I wore the hell out of that beautiful cardigan until it just fell to bits. I replaced it about ten years later with a similar, unbelted cashmere one, and it proved equally indispensable. The cashmere one is now more darn than yarn, and I still treat it with respect, but it is too prone to delicately dissolve in places to wear to work. So I haven’t worn it for a while, which means that in theory I can perfectly well live without it, especially as I have passed over any number of potential replacements, and obviously have other pieces of clothing that could be described as black cardigans (but are shorter, tighter, more firmly woven… not the same beast at all). At least once a week in the colder weather I will wake up and think of an outfit that requires the black cardigan, and then I think of another one, and all is well.

More darn than yarn. I’ll note that I do know how to darn properly, and this mess is not visible from the right side - this particular darn was executed at work one day when the whole armpit just gracefully disintegrated!

But I’ve realised that because the black cardigan has achieved this almost mythical status, I have spent money trying to compensate for not having it, or tried to find similar almost equivalents. I used to wear the black cardigan over thinner dresses in winter, and I have a grey one that works with a couple of dresses but not others, so I have another, different, grey cardigan for them, but neither of the grey ones works in this weather, when I would throw the black one over a light top in the cooler mornings and stick it in my bag later, so I have given up on cardigans here and wear linen shirts instead, and obviously there’s more than one. The black cardigan was an unobtrusive layer over a silk shirt, so now I don’t wear my silk shirts so much, and have more sweaters to go with the things I would have worn silk shirts with. I’m not really saying that I wouldn’t have these other pieces of clothing if I had the black cardigan replacement, because they do have their own place in my wardrobe - although maybe not both grey cardigans - but I realise I am prone to solving clothing problems by justifying other clothing purchases.

Right now, when the temperature drops in the morning and at night, but it’s not yet cold enough for winter clothes and not quite warm enough for summer ones, I am aware of gaps in my wardrobe, the same ones I’m aware of in spring. This spring I finally cracked the footwear dilemma (what to wear between boots and sandals? Clogs, is the answer), and my summer bottoms will see me through for a bit, with the introduction of my black and my patterned jeans, but what to wear on top remains something I try to get to grips with. There’s nothing to do about it but wear what I have, which is what I always do, and it will be absolutely fine - no one but me will have the slightest clue that whatever clothes my torso is the subject of heated debate inside my head, and I will appear to be perfectly well dressed, so really, there is no problem here at all, apart from the fact that I enjoy over-thinking all categories of clothing.

What I’m trying to say is that a voice inside my head is screaming, “You just need more cardigans!” and another is responding quietly, “Actually, I disagree. Finding the perfect cardigan is apparently quite problematic, and more and more it occurs to me that the solution to the transitional season discontent might just be cotton or linen sweaters. Which I have not traditionally got on with very well in the past”. I associate knits with wool, and warmth and cosiness. I think I may have had some bad experiences with overly heavy cotton knits in the past, which just seemed to weigh me down and make me feel cold - but in the past, I was a smoker, and as soon as I stopped (about 12 years ago), I noticed that my body was much more able to regulate its own temperature. I suspect I could cope with a light cotton or linen knitted layer these days.

Yeah, probably don’t need more cardigans (but I do love and wear all of these).

I have seen a perfect linen sweater, boxy and fluid, in the perfect shade of blue. It’s out of my price range, and I can live without it for now, because the idea that a sweater might be what I need is just taking root, and it may be a few more spring and autumns until I fully embrace the idea. In the meantime, because I can’t buy anything, I won’t run out and buy things I can better afford, which won’t make me feel any less irritated with these stupid in-between seasons, and soon I’ll be neck to hip in delicious winter knits, and perfectly happy. And, I keep reminding myself, it really doesn’t matter if I don’t buy the perfect linen sweater, or if I haven’t yet got my hands on the perfect black cardigan, because not only am I fortunate enough to have plenty of alternative outfits available, it just so happens that the things I lust after are not flash in the pans, fleeting trends, one season only miracles - they are perfectly classical pieces of clothing, always available, everywhere, and the ones I have my eye on are made by a sustainable, ethical label, which thoughtfully makes the same pieces season after season. This is the hardest bit for me, of shaking off the societal pressures around clothing marketing - the scarcity mindset is a myth. I’ll get what I need, when I need it, and I don’t even really need it at all.