Why We Buy Clothes We Never Wear

In my last article I described how I used to buy without any system — each piece on its own. And I wasn't alone. Almost all of us buy this way, because this is exactly how we were taught.

There's an enormous industry working around us. Corporations spend billions on advertising, and that money has one job: to make us buy. Not to help us build a wardrobe and stop wondering every morning what to wear. Quite the opposite — to make us buy again and again, to reach for new things and new brands, because they're shown to us as a picture of a happy, successful life.

I have nothing against beautiful things, and nothing against brands. I'm against only one thing: buying on autopilot, without noticing who actually made the decision — me, or the advertising on my behalf.

Advertising doesn't work head-on. It presses a few buttons, and each one pushes you to buy the wrong thing.

Emotion. A thing as a reward after a hard day, as comfort, as a way to give something back to yourself. The purchase closes a feeling — but not the job your wardrobe needs done.

Trend. What's fashionable right now. Chosen for the moment, not for you — and a season later it sits unused, and you never come back to it. Luxury belongs here too: an expensive thing bought because it's prestigious but doesn't suit you is still the wrong thing, just more expensive.

Haste. "I urgently need something for an occasion." You grab the best of whatever you happened to find, not what will suit your figure and your wardrobe.

An imagined version of yourself. A purchase for a body or a life you don't have right now. "When I lose weight, I'll wear it." "Once the occasion comes up." The thing waits for a different you, while the you of today has nothing to wear.

But even when not a single button was pressed — when I honestly searched, tried hard, walked for hours — I still bought the wrong thing. Because not one purchase began with a simple question: what in my wardrobe will this go with?

That very dress from the last article — that's exactly how I chose it. Not on emotion, not for a trend — I was sincerely looking for something suitable. And I brought home a piece that didn't go with anything already hanging in my closet. And it didn't suit my everyday life, which at that point was mostly at home, with small children.

I wore it mostly out of guilt. I had bought it myself, after all. I had spent money on it. Once the thrill of the purchase faded, I grew tired of the dress. It irritated me — and I was angry at myself.

And the circle closed. I'd go shopping and again buy the familiar — things that sort of suited me but I didn't quite like. It seemed to me the problem was me: I'm just fat. I was a size S with a little belly, but I still thought of myself as too fat, and I was sure that was why it was so hard to find clothes. I went on diets, worked out constantly, went running. And I'd break down, because there were no results. In reality there were — just not the kind social media showed me.

Size had nothing to do with it. I had no reference point — nothing to choose against. So even an honest, diligent choice went to waste. And every such purchase started the circle over again: guilt, irritation, more shopping.

And we pay with more than money. Extra clothing drains your energy every day after the purchase. Where to wear it. What to pair it with. Whether to keep it. What else to buy to make it work. Where to put it. Every extra thing isn't a single expense in the store — it's a long chain of small decisions afterward. The more random pieces in your closet, the more energy simply goes into living with it all.

Money, time, space, energy — it all drains away because we buy a lot. And we buy a lot because we choose without a reference point.

You can stop wasting it — not by banning shopping and not by willpower, but when you finally have something to choose each piece against. That reference point is your base.

What a base really is — read about that in my next article.