Three unfortunate clothes shopping habits I’m trying to bin

The way that the topic for this blog post came into my head is kind of embarrassing, but let’s roll with it.

Today I spent probably two of my fully dressed hours pulling my culottes out of my arse (how’s that for TMI?), where they seemed determined to reside for the majority of the day.

Honestly, it was ridiculous. I tried walking in all manner of different ways – with my hips thrust forward/with my legs further apart than was natural/as though I was wearing a large nappy – but each time I thought I’d rectified the situation they found their way up there again.

By the end of the day I was resolving to always wear my most enormous pants under them so as to try to put a barrier in place, but once I was home I realised that probably a better resolution would be to just not buy any more garments that give me a massive wedgie. Because yes, fine, I admit it; it’s not the first time I’ve done that. And it’s certainly not the first time I’ve bought something that hasn’t exactly been a match made in heaven. In fact, there are several clothes buying habits I am absolutely awful for, so I thought that today I would talk about three of them that I really need to quit.

Buying clothes that invade, obstruct, or otherwise seem to dislike my body

Okay, let’s start with the thing that started all this. If you are also the exasperated owner of a permanently hungry bum, perhaps you’ll know the situation I felt compelled to overshare in the top paragraph, but it doesn’t stop there.

Basically, I have an awful habit of buying clothes that broadly speaking do fit – they’re not too big, not too small, I can breathe, and I can move – but clearly don’t fit perfectly. We’re just not made for each other, I guess. Most mini skirts, for example, no matter how roomy or how tight, simply will not stay where I put them. They ride up until they form a sort of hula hoop around my waist and the hem sits rather higher up the thigh than I would have liked, and consequently I spend the day yanking them down. Or jeans, which when tried on in a changing room seem fine, but turn against me the moment the tags are off and slide down to my hips where they settle in a vice like grip, giving me a rather uncomfortable overhang, and causing me to look awkward as hell attempting to wriggle further into them throughout the day (I’ve broken belt loops this way).

The older and more boring I get, the more I appreciate comfort in my garms, and while I’m not averse to suffering for fashion to a degree (I’m not throwing out a pair of beautiful lace up shoes for this reason), it’s the unsuspecting items that look fine at first glance but just don’t seem to sit right once I’m trying to do life in them that I need to stop purchasing.

Incidentally, that’s what I love about this outfit. The jeans, the top and the mules are all just so easy,  with no yanking or fidgeting or readjusting required.

Buying things and then saving them for an indeterminate ‘best’

I’ve heard it said before that if you want to put something that you’ve just bought on straight away, then you really love it. That is true to an extent for me – I go home, I put it on straight away, and I admire it. I then take it off, put on my pyjamas, and hang it lovingly in the wardrobe, where it lives awaiting a mythical future event which is ‘worthy’ of it’s loveliness.

Buying things that I then don’t wear for weeks on end because I want their debut to be a special (or, let’s face it, photographed) event is one of my very worst fashion habits, particularly given that I live a fairly run-of-the-mill life and my idea of a special event is putting my phone in the next room and eating takeaway in bed.

In part it might be that I’m prone to ‘investing’ in things that I don’t have much cause to wear, but it’s not just that. I honestly could buy a new slogan tee and think it was the best slogan tee in the world but then refuse to wear it until I was doing something I deemed slogan tee-ish enough on a particularly sunny day six weeks later, just so I felt that the occasion was befitting for it’s first wear.

Absolutely ridiculous, right? In future I’m putting the damn tee on the day after I buy it.

Buying things I only sort of like for specific events on the day of said event

“I can’t wait to plan my outfit!” I think, 1 – 6 months before every wedding, christening, baby shower, night out, afternoon tea, and who knows what else.

“I should have planned my outfit!” I think, on the day of or the day prior to every wedding, christening, baby shower, night out, afternoon tea, and who knows what else, as I rush to grab something that I do like, but don’t love, just so I have something to wear.

You get the picture, I’m sure. Basically, for someone who shops a lot, and sometimes buys things they have no cause to wear, I have an inexplicable talent for avoiding buying outfits for the few special events I do go to – particularly those I know about months in advance.

The result is a wardrobe full of items bought very hastily, with absolutely no thought put into whether I’ll be able to make use of them again and what else I can wear them with. They’re things I think are nice, obviously, but they’re also often things which I’m not completely sold on, or they aren’t quite my style, or they fall in line with point one of this post. This simply needs to stop, so guess what? I have a wedding to go to this year and I’m going to browse for an outfit tonight. That’s progress, my friends.

Come on then, make me laugh – what are your worst shopping or fashion habits?

What I’m wearing

Top – C/O Eimi Boutique (Get 15% off with code ‘sopharsogood’)| Jeans – H&M | Mules – Marks & Spencer | Bag – Zara

Photography: Kaye Ford

C/O denotes an item which has been gifted to me. All thoughts, styling, wedgies and words are my own.

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