Why Shopping For Someday Is A Huge Mistake When Crafting Your Dream Wardrobe
There's nothing quite like going shopping for new clothes. Whether you're someone who sticks to the classics like jeans and a white button-down, or you're someone who prefers to follow the clothing trends of each season, clothes shopping gives you a chance to make your wardrobe feel brand new, unique, and one step closer to your dream collection of duds. Sometimes — and many of us are guilty of this — we buy an article of clothing that doesn't fit quite right in the moment with the hope of it fitting someday in the future. We go for the too-tight dress because we love it and plan to lose weight for it. Other times, we go for something too big or too long, with the hopes of miraculously growing into it.
"Keeping clothes that don't fit has an extremely distressing effect," fat acceptance activist and influencer Clare Sheehan told Bustle. "It's tortuous sifting through racks of clothes you can no longer wear day-after-day — getting dressed quickly becomes a toxic exercise that feeds self-loathing and shame ... Living a full life in the body you have now is possible. But keeping clothes that make us feel inadequate, ashamed, or disempowered prevents us from leaving the house to go live it." When we allow ourselves to keep or buy new clothes that don't fit, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. It's not just the mistake of wasting money, but a mistake in how it negatively affects us.
Remind yourself that clothes are supposed to worn
It's important to remember that clothes aren't supposed to pile up in your closet collecting dust, waiting for you to fit into them. Clothes are supposed to be worn. Of course, everyone has that special occasion outfit that may not get much wear. Even if that's the case, should an event call for that outfit tomorrow, it should fit appropriately and you should be able to wear it. This is something you should remind yourself of every time you go shopping. If it can't be worn now, do you even know if you'll ever be able to wear it? If you never can, how will you feel about yourself? Angry, disappointed, frustrated? Probably all three and more.
Goal shopping is just another way that we let society tell us that we need to change to fit into not just the size of something, but the world around us. The thing is, we don't need to change. If the clothes don't fit, don't buy them. We should never alter our bodies for a dress or any article of clothing, no matter how beautiful it might be.
Remind yourself of the power of clothes
Clothes have a wonderful way of impacting how we feel about ourselves. A 2012 study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology indicated that what people wear directly affects how they think about themselves. When we're dressed in something that makes us feel good, our mentality shifts to one of confidence and increased self-esteem. The researchers call this "enclothed cognition," citing that both the experience of wearing certain clothes and the meaning of the clothing positively influenced the participants in the study.
Because clothing that fits right can really turn our day around and make us feel like we can take on the world, it makes no sense to shop for "someday" clothes. Feeling proud of your authentic self, thanks to your clothes, is something of which you should remind yourself every time you're in a store about to make a purchase. You deserve that experience and you can't have that experience if you're buying for the future.