Blog Detox - Step 1 - Wardrobe

Over the past few weeks, I've been feeling the need to change things a LOT. I'm blaming Instagram. I've become weary of the endless 'must buy' & the latest 'got to have'. The M&S jumpsuit pushed me over the edge this week...it felt like a case of the emperor's new clothes.  It's an average jumpsuit...nothing offensive about it but nothing special either. And it's definitely nothing special now that pretty much 50% of my instagram feed has bought it. 

And I'm as guilty as anyone in this regard. I love to shop, especially the sales, and I share lots of it online. But my wardrobes are bursting. I have too much - bought and gifted - and I'm feeling stressed about it all and uncomfortable that the people who read this blog and follow my social channels are buying things that they've seen me wear whenever they don't need them or worse again, can't afford them.

I think shopping is actually creating a kind of stress for us all because we are spending time, money and effort that we don't have to spare, chasing items that we think we need because someone else has them and tells us we need them too. I don't know about you but I find so many of these things hang in my wardrobe and I don't actually end up wearing them very often.

Then I go on two weeks holiday with one suitcase and realise how easy it all is when you have less. Realise that I don't need the rest of my wardrobe - I can actually live with the suitcase full.
And because the one question I get asked repeatedly as a blogger is 'how do I create the perfect capsule', I know that many of you are in the same situation. Loads in your wardrobe and nothing to wear. 

Hands up to another confession - buying 'for the gram'. I've recently found myself buying stuff I don't honestly need because I want to have something different to take a picture of because that's what all the other bloggers are doing. I'm feeling that peer pressure and all that happens is that I end up with multiple similar items in my wardrobe.

I'm detoxing in several ways over the coming weeks and months and step one is the biggest wardrobe cull I've ever done. This includes items I've bought and some items I've been gifted, some quite recent, others I've held onto for longer. I love them all but I'm simply not wearing them enough and in most cases, I have similar multiple items. It's more than one woman could ever wear in a lifetime (well, in her 40's anyway).

Now I'm aware of the irony of selling stuff to you all as part of my wardrobe detox...I'm hardly encouraging you to practice the same approach if I'm suggesting you buy my stuff! Honestly, I'm not sure how to address this except to say that I'm giving over 50% of what I'm clearing out to charity. So I'm not selling off everything but I have some nice things that I know many of you would be interested in and at least as a preloved item, it's not going to be as expensive and I promise it's all very wearable. That's as good as I can do but please don't buy something if you don't need it or can't afford it.

The sale will go live on Friday at 10am on my Tictail store on this link (currently disabled - but you can bookmark it or refer back to this post on Friday morning). I'm still photographing things and I have to work tomorrow, so that's delaying things. I'll post about it on social media on Friday morning too though in case you forget!

This is just Step 1 - there are more steps to come, one of which is quite radical and I'm more than a little afraid of it but I know it's going to be the most empowering one of them all. Eek. 

See you Friday!

Ax