A Shift in Gears

If I am correct in assuming, most, if not all of you that follow this blog also follow me on Social Media, so you already know about my change in employment over the past few weeks. At the end of April I received an email that changed the course of my life and career. I was asked if I could come be the wardrobe supervisor for Hamilton in Chicago, so here I am. I've been here for a little over a week, some would stretch to say a week and a half but really I got here a week ago on Monday. I'm in the midst of securing an apartment that is close but not too close to the theatre and I've also started running. So I'm confessing to you that I've faltered a bit with the shopping challenge.

I've found that when faced with an impulse purchase I ask my self a series of questions:

• Do I need this item?
• Do I have something similar already that doesn't need to be duplicated? 
• Do I have space for this item?

If I can answer yes to at least one of these questions I will allow myself the purchase. The first question is always a fun one because we live in a society of "needing" things in a playful "OMG you NEED that dress!" kind of way, that doesn't really mean we need that thing. Most of the time we don't actually "need" that super cute crop top that has one day of use in it before it either disintegrates or just doesn't fit anymore.

I feel these questions help me a lot. I was just in target, wasting time because I showed up over half an hour early to work forgetting it's a 12:30 call and not a noon call. Dangerous choice, I know. I wandered around the clothing department just to see if that 90s aesthetic was still going strong, it is, and I found a cute belt, that I did in fact need. I have one other belt that fits on my jeans and that's it so now I have 2! A neon green with large grommets that fulfills all of "My So Called Life" dreams (ooo I should re watch that).

ANYWAY, I also caved last week when I realized I was in need of a lightweight rain coat and a new pair of sneakers, since I started running again. Well I got a cute little red jacket, and 2 pairs of sneakers. So now I have 3, not allowed to buy anymore until another pair dies. They're very cute, all comfortable and I can run in them.

So the challenge is still going fairly strong and since I've "allowed" myself to do the shopping that I used to, I find I don't feel guilty about not buying things. You don't owe it to the store to buy ANYTHING, no matter how the sales people look at you when you leave empty handed, it doesn't matter, we should not be doing the stores a kindness by buying something from them. That's what defines a consumer society. Our economy shouldn't be balancing on material things that people don't need, and throw away fashion. I wonder what would happen if clothing stopped being manufactured cold turkey. How fast would people notice? How quickly do you think we'd "Run out of clothes?" I think people would go mad with their time before they went without clothes. We all have clothes, we don't need a new shirt every week, or even every month at that matter. Retail therapy shouldn't be a thing, doing activities without needing to consume a material good should be enough. But why isn't it?

Feel free to try to answer that in the comments. I'm going to take some time with that one and maybe even post again next week :)

Thanks for reading