|  My maternal grandmother wasn’t a clotheshorse, but she seemed to like fashion. For instance, I remember meeting her at the airport once during college. She was wearing ironed slacks and the kind of nice knit shirt you could buy in the mature-ladies section at Macy’s — does that still exist? — under a smartly zipped-up Old Navy performance fleece vest. She looked like she was having fun with clothes.
I also remember her telling people not to buy her a thing because she didn’t need anything. She was old, she’d say, where was she going to wear it all? She did keep buying things, and she would hand down shoes and blazers and skirts, some of which I still own and wear. That idea of not needing anything — I just couldn’t understand it. I probably haven’t needed anything since my early 30s. I spend far too much money on clothing, money I should be saving, and for that I have a beautiful wardrobe of items that I continue to love and admire and am excited to wear again and again. However, by the end of 2019, I was having trouble finding things that I even wanted. I’m not sure if it was the fashion cycle or my overflowing closet, but nothing felt exciting, even pieces I thought would work well for me. Perhaps, inching closer to 40, I was over shopping. So I decided to conduct an experiment. I promised myself that I wouldn’t buy anything new for all of 2020. I could shop vintage, which took more time and effort and could be more rewarding, but there would be no new stuff. I didn’t need new socks or workout clothes or underwear, so it seemed possible. This wasn’t a moral decision. I believe that the movement to get consumers to buy “fewer, better” things is interesting, and may change some behavior in the upper classes. But clothes are made too cheaply and sold too cheaply — and consumer culture drives too much of the economy — to expect most of the population to change the way they shop without government intervention or some other form of regulation. You can't unlearn this kind of behavior without financial freedom. Instead, I hoped that buying secondhand would make the shopping experience more satisfying. I even signed up for a Rent the Runway subscription, just to see if it would expand my pretty rigid idea of my personal style. For all of January and February, I didn’t buy anything. It wasn't hard. Then, came the Sliding Doors moment. I was in Paris for fashion week when the pandemic got very real, after the outbreak in Milan, and I felt strange. I stayed in the city for a few days after the shows for meetings, avoiding the Metro as much as I could but still not wearing a mask. By the weekend, as we were about to leave, I did what I thought would make me feel better, more normal: I went to my favorite store, tried a ton of clothes on, and bought something. In London the next week for work, I bought another thing: a Margaret Howell black trench coat at the label’s outlet store around the corner from my employer's London office. Oh, and a plaid bandana. We left on the day that Trump announced the travel ban on most of Europe, and by that Sunday we were locked down in our Brooklyn home. You’d think that, in a year when I absolutely did not need knew clothes, not shopping would be easier. I certainly shopped less for more formal items, and spent way less money than any average year. But when things got bad and sales of clothing came to a halt, I felt compelled to support smaller brands whose designers I knew may not have the personal wealth to make it through. I also started buying more of what everyone else was buying: sweats, workout clothes, sneakers, pajamas. For normal life, I had plenty of that stuff. For pandemic life, I couldn’t get enough. Other personal changes — including a move across the country, to a place where all my nice coats were rendered useless — called for other purchases as the year progressed. I suspended my Rent the Runway subscription before I had a chance to try it (for obvious reasons) and I mostly stayed away from secondhand—I don't enjoying shopping on the large resale platforms; it's so difficult to tell what you're getting. However, my two favorite purchases did end up being vintage. I’ve always admired Geoffrey Beene — many of my favorite contemporary designers rip from his archives on the regular — but this was the year that I started collecting it. In the summer, I bought a purple silk blouse with wooden buttons at Scout in Los Angeles. This fall, I did a virtual appointment with Tucson, Arizona’s Desert Vintage — an exquisite store that justifies its prices because it does all the work of finding the best things — and ended up buying a wool Beene jacket, one that makes sense when it’s just a little chilly here. Alternative reality or not, I’m not sure I would have managed to keep my promise to myself. What I realized is that, for me, it’s not about buying nothing, or making the game more challenging. It’s about remembering why I love fashion so much, and finding pleasure in the experience. I might not need anything ever again, but I hope that I’ll always want something.
Some Things I Wrote in 2020 (in Sequential Order) 5 Things I Read in 2020 That I'll Never Forget Favorite Podcast of 2020 Favorite Album of 2020  | 
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