So, for all ten of you who follow my Instagram stories and read this blog, brace yourselves for relief. I will not be writing about the boxer short trend.
After spending a sleep-deprived two weeks trying to reacquaint myself with shopping while dealing with a baby who just learned to crawl and now wants to destroy everything in his path, I found myself confused, overstimulated, and in the midst of an existential wardrobe crisis. Having spent the past year out of body with pregnancy and its resulting postpartum metamorphosis, I feel like I was abducted by aliens who sat me down in front of a screen for a year to watch the world evolve as my wardrobe stood still.
At first, the prospect of transforming my sparse collection of neutral basics was exciting. I went through everything I packed away while I was pregnant, as well as all the more colorful, trendy, and vintage items I had put aside in 2022 when I decided I would try out minimalism. I kept only coats and basics that were maternity-friendly on the rack.
I was excited to fit into the vintage items I feared I would never be able to wear again, but the excitement wore off after about five minutes when I realized that 1) even though they fit, they fit differently because my hips are wider after storing a giant in them for nine months and 2) everything I had to work with were items I curated for myself more than two years ago.
It didn’t occur to me that this would be a problem. I love old clothes. There are items I’ve had in my possession for more than twenty years. But after making my eyeballs bleed from shopping and scrolling for inspiration in every spare minute I could scrounge up over the past few weeks, the issue I struggled with in making meaningful progress is that my wardrobe didn’t evolve throughout 2023 to provide a foundation for me to move forward with in the year 2024. The vintage items I had pulled from my storage (which is my childhood bedroom) in 2021 were primarily Y2K-focused and felt pathetically stale. It’s as though my wardrobe lacks a certain element of context for me to work within the current trend cycle, headspace, and lifestyle I’m in. I was going into deep spirals over certain items that I felt were missing from my closet that I was uncertain if I really wanted or if I just felt like I should have collected last year because the algorithm told me so.
Here’s just one example:
Oversized Bomber/Moto/Leather Mens Jackets
I bought a vintage Eddie Bauer Legend jacket back in 2021. At the time, the oversized mens Y2K leather jacket trend had already been in full effect for more than a year. So, of course, thinking it would go away shortly and not wanting to bother dealing with a gigantic heavy blanket of leather with gigantic sleeves to carry around, I decided to go with something that was in the same time period, cut, and style but just slightly oversized instead of full blast so I didn’t look too much like a teenager. But, dear god, Hailey Bieber won’t let this trend die. It’s only gotten bigger with each year that has passed, and every year, I tell myself it will go away, but it just won’t, and now my moderately oversized jacket just looks awkward to me, so I felt like I needed to replace it.
So here’s the spiral I went down: If I bought a larger jacket now, then once fall came around, it’s highly possible I’d be disenchanted with it and feel cliché for owning one. I mean, I felt cliché for wanting one in 2024. And now, as the trend has blown up to the proportion of fast fashion faux leather status, it’s going to be hard to find a genuine leather original with the exact length and finish at the hem I’d want in good condition on eBay that’s not close to $200. And I just don’t think it’s worth that right now because I can’t see myself getting more than one more season out of it. Whereas, it would have been worth that to me in 2022, although I’m certain I wouldn’t have paid that much because the last time I priced them in 2021, you could get them for $40-$50.
Now, I could suck it up and buy one, but I have two issues with that. First, in my old age, I’ve become hyper-aware of just how wasteful and how much money I can nickel and dime into the toilet like it’s a wishing well with my eBay habit. It’s basically a gambling addiction. Don’t you for one second think I haven’t bet on many a dud in my lifetime. And second, you CAN own too many leather jackets… and I know this because I do. If you need to ship coats back to your mom’s house in another state every other year to be stored, then you have too many. My jacket hoarding is horrible, and it’s something I’ve worked very hard to overcome, and I don’t know if I want to break my abstinence on some stupid four-year-old trend.
On the other hand, I honestly don’t have a leather jacket I feel is current at the moment, and since flying with a baby is a nightmare, I’m not sure when I’ll get another opportunity to shop my storage. Now, I could also just buy a cheap fast fashion version. The idea of faux leather is actually appealing to me because it won’t be so heavy. My concern with that, however, is the drape. Faux leather is all fun and games when you’re dealing with a fitted jacket, but if it’s an item where the drape of the jacket matters, it’s going to look like you’re wearing a plastic Halloween costume. So, I’ve decided to put this out of my head.
Now, there is a list of items just like this with a similar story and spiral I went down the past two weeks: mary jane ballet flats, boxer shorts, poplin pants, metallic loafers, studded belts, going out tops, baggy jeans etc. I actually bought baggy jeans while I was pregnant, but they no longer fit me, so it’s either I take them to the tailor or send them to Goodwill. But everything else wasn’t going to happen for me last year. I gained almost 60 pounds, my feet were swollen (I couldn’t reach them anyway), and I was nauseated and puking almost every single minute of those nine months. I was in survival mode and couldn’t even think about clothes too long without becoming depressed. And the past six months have been a blur of sleepless nights and spit-up.
Needless to say, I severely underestimated how difficult it was going to be for me to get my closet up and running again after basically giving up shopping for a year and a half—not to mention the impact of becoming a different person with a very different lifestyle and priorities. The person I was in 2023 believed that all her problems could be solved with extreme minimalism in wardrobe volume and color palette, as well as in her environment. After playing around with vintage Y2K items in 2021 and 2022, I grew bored and decided I was, in fact, too old to be screwing around with overt trends. I loved (and still do) TyLynn Nguyen with her Carolyn Bessette caliber approach to curation and was obsessed with Andrew Mukamal‘s work with Zoë Kravitz on the Batman press tour. So, by the end of 2022, my wardrobe was cut down to neutrals (white, black, blue, grey, and a little brown), leaving space for trends only in cut and silhouette.
I absolutely loved it. It reminded me of when they made us wear uniforms in Catholic school. The amount of thought and energy I saved having only a few basics to choose from was astounding. I also enjoyed keeping my home as modest and bare of decor as possible. I felt like my iPhone screen provided me with more than enough stimulation. My blank ivory walls soothed me. But as soon as I was tasked with designing a nursery, the urge to bring color into my son’s world changed the way in which I would have approached that project. For the first time since I moved here, I brought primary colors into my home. And as his toys and equipment creep into our living area, the need to experiment with color feels more urgent than ever.
So, with all that in mind, I’ve decided to work on reevaluating and updating my foundation of basics, keeping simplicity at the core of my wardrobe while slowly, intentionally, and selectively adding some color. I’m going to try to avoid buying Y2K anything whenever possible, no matter how much the algorithm is telling me to. I don’t want to be too rigid about this because it’s simply accessible and what the market is most saturated with at the moment, but I’m going to do my best to move on to the next thing I will inevitably tire of in a year or two: Indie Sleaze…because I have no shame.
This weekend, I bought a vintage yellow cotton sundress from the 1950s, a vintage purse, round oversized sunglasses, and shopped for bangles until midnight, and let me tell you, the endorphins from that experience slapped. My inner hipster, who I’m positive looks exactly like Sméagol from The Lord of the Rings, has been lurking, waiting, and hoarding vintage costume jewelry in the depths of my closet for years, just biding its time until this moment arrived. My mind was racing with vintage dresses, bangles, beads, pearls, clutches, larger bags—specifically the motorcycle bag from canceled Balenciaga I always wanted in my 20s but could only afford knock-off versions—almond-toe heels, etc.
Although now, I’d like to invest in some nicer pieces of jewelry and be far more selective about the items I do bring into my closet and not just have a free-for-all like I did in my 20s.
So, that about covers everything I’ve been hallucinating about lately, except for my Levis addiction, which will require a whole post to confuse you with on another day.
Thanks for reading. I’ll try my best to post again soon.