About 5 years ago I read a book about 'the last aunts' from Fatima Bremmer (De sista tantarna), wherin it is described how most people get stuck with the style they're wearing around their 40's (except for people with fashion interest). In my daily practice I've noticed that many times. 60-year old people dressed like the early 00's in floral pants, slacks and slim jackets, 80-year old people like the 90's etc. I can understand it right away and I'm aware that I'm also there in some way, still admiring and feeling most myself when I browse collections from around 2015-2017 (J.Crew, Dries etc), exactly from when I was 40 years old....
I was right in the middle of cleaning up my Substack subscriptions when I read your post -- I join you in metaphorically buying that blue eyeshadow. I read some of my really old blog posts the other day and I did not recognise the me who passionately followed designers' work for years, season after season and had feelings about it! I miss that old me but I also think my understanding of fashion as an industry -- a very commercial one -- has made it impossible to go back.
Funnily enough, this made me interested in analysing consumption habits and I am glad to find others on the same journey....but then I too began to wonder if this is really yet another echo chamber in which we tell each other it's ok to buy stuff. I still hold on to my dream of being able to enjoy and appreciate things without falling into the trap of needing to buy something...perhaps disengaging from the discourse from time to time is key, because it is incredibly overwhelming.
I miss the old me, too -- the one who would pick up a copy of Vogue every month and read every article with genuine, sincere interest. Or the one who'd have the energy and the patience to watch as many fashion shows during the fashion weeks as I possibly could. I enjoyed it. I'm right there with you: as my knowledge of the industry has grown, it's become impossible to feel good about it.
I, too, sometimes wonder whether focusing on budgeting or wardrobe planning or listing purchases or being "anti-fashion" is just another way for us to keep circling around our consumerist identities. Conspicuous non-consumption can become a trap as well.
"Conspicuous non-consumption can become a trap as well" -- YES. I needed to process the shock of realising I was buying something new every month, but it was really forcing myself to reclaim my other habits -- reading novels, cooking, taking long walks -- that helped me slowly learn to decouple my interest in fashion and design from consumption. Thinking about consuming and not consuming is a pretty interesting exercise but it can't be the only thing or else it just becomes a monster that feeds itself.
Definitely. It's exhausting to have everything revolve around what we buy or don't buy. It really shrinks our understanding of ourselves and reduces us to consumers.
I just finished reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari and he builds a strong case for getting off of devices and he (perhaps obviously) didn’t even dig into all the niches of ways we use our phones. I am feeling tired of being on the hamster wheel and, also, addicted to the dopamine rush. So I’m thoughtfully working my way through these conflicting feelings and learning how to make STYLING the avenue I walk rather than CONSUMING.
Even Substack has started to feel quite difficult to manage as the number of newsletters increases. I have to differentiate between those walking my way and those not (still happy for them!)
I read Johann Hari's book last year and I thought it was so interesting how at the end of the book he went back to using his phone. I found myself thinking at the time "why the heck would he go back"... and then I basically did the same thing after my 3-month break from IG. I feel like I'm back to square 1 with my phone usage now and will have to make some decisions about it. But yes, our phones and the 24/7 access to everything under the sky is definitely giving me anxiety. It's just too much stimuli.
I had to unsubscribe to some Substacks. My email is constantly clogged up with emails from newsletters that will lead to more and more screen time. The app function of Substack is troubling too, it's too scrollable, so I try to use Substack only on my laptop now.
I love this! I recently heard someone say "you don't have to own Van Gogh to say you are interested in art. So, why do you feel like you have to constantly shop clothes to say you are interested in fashion? There are so many other ways to engage with it" and it really changed things for me.
That's really interesting, I get that! I guess it's easier to reject the need to belong when it comes to buying art because you don't walk around with the paintings that you own. We invite fewer people into our homes to see how we live and what we have, but we are present in the world, wearing our clothes every day, and every day the clothes we wear tell a story about us to others. So that makes us vulnerable.
I look forward to receiving your newsletter every Sunday, and I related so much to this one.
I've been feeling a heightened sense of what you write about for the past year. An anecdote: I walked into the Prada store in September 2023 on the same day S/S24 went down the runway. The SA was showing me the $10000 white floral appliqué skirt that everyone was crazy about six months ago, and I couldn't help but feel like it was already forgotten with the next new thing Prada showed that day. The fashion cycles are so fast, and so much is being made that we literally don't have time to enjoy what already is. And not just enjoy for a season, but for years. Maybe our blue eye shadow era is here because our brains simply cannot take more of the same input and we are content to digest and rework all that has come before.
Thank you Irene, your anecdote describes so well what's wrong with fashion.
It hit me as I was reading your thoughts on Prada, that last fall when S/S2024 was being shown, I found a lot of things to love at the Dries Van Noten runway. Now it feels like a small forever ago. Snow has finally mostly melted in Helsinki, summer is still months away, and I'm already conditioned to thinking that S/S24 collections are yesterday's news. It's like we're always catching up to something impossible.
Just chiming in to say, I really resonate with you both on this. The velocity of fashion turnaround, no matter the label, makes me feel like the items I did indeed purchase are somehow now long forgotten and "has been" causing me to fall out of love with my closet much sooner than I think should be happening.
Thank you for writing this! It's made me feel much better about the direction my own newsletter is taking. (Writing it lately, I've been asking myself if I'm doing it "right" because I'm not plugged into all the latest trends, the up-and-coming designers and what-have-you. That was never what I set out to write when I started on Substack - I'm much more interested in fashion history and art - but that type of writing seems to be all over the place here, and it's like an alien world.) There's no separating fashion from consumerism, but it does feel so much better to try - to prioritise craftsmanship, colour, texture, motif, and ignore what's popular.
(Also, incidentally, I love blue eyeshadow. I used to wear it a lot when I was first experimenting with bolder makeup, and I had in mind as I was doing so that exact type of nonconformist Blue Eyeshadow Lady.) 🖤
I don't know how I hadn't subscribed to your newsletter before. It seems utterly fascinating and I will be reading your archives when I get the chance!
Yes, fashion and consumerism are linked and we can't separate the two. It's complicated for sure, but luckily there are ways to still enjoy clothes without embracing the consumerist side whole-heartedly. It's challenging, though. The need to keep up is a tough one to break.
Thoughtful and memorable writing as always Tiia! Maybe it’s part of my consumerism, but I find listening to podcasts like pre-loved podcast and vintagepodden are touching my love and enthusiasm for clothes and getting dressed. It’s something about listening and not seeing. I can be with my own clothes. I believe that to have a piece of clothing that you wear wear wear will be (or already are) the coolest thing.
I am not really a podcast person myself and I didn't even know that there are vintage podcasts! They sound fascinating!
About listening and not seeing: I am reminded of the times when fashion collections were reported in magazines with only one or two images from a show and a very detailed description in text. You had to imagine what the clothes looked and felt like. I kind of love that idea. Now that everything is so accessible, it feels like noise.
I've been thinking a lot about how fleeting life is. We are here, do our thing, and it's actually NOT THAT LONG. And we don't know what's on the other side. Suppose life is really just 95 (wishfully) years of temporary joy. Your goal is to find it every day and to share it with others while doing as little damage to others ability to experience it as possible. The only purpose I can see for fashion is joy. Aiding us in the joy journey. We know it hinders the joy of future generations; so that's in the calculus. But why oh why should there be a pressure in it? That's joyless. This one-buy month I did alerted me to how often I shop/look/etc. without joy. That is something I can stop doing. When the joy's gone, so am I. I think you get to leave. There are no trophies for zeitgeist following. Go, return, or not. It's all ok. Make delicious coffee, dip in and out as you please. XO. LOVE this piece + can I say, love YOU.
Love you, too, Rachel!! And you're onto something there. There really is very little point to fashion without joy, and if fashion gives us anxiety or if it feels like a bottomless pit where we try to drown our sorrows or fears, maybe turning away from it for a while isn't so bad. Joy can come from feeling real love toward the clothes we already have, the things that remind us of the people we love or places we cherish. There is definitely joy in enjoying something truly beautiful, something with real craft, something with purpose.
I do love to see an older woman marching to her own beat. (But now MissMatch10 will have me do mental math to locate their 40s fashion era!!). It’s one of the reasons I enjoy @ladiesofmadisonave. There’s something inspiring about a person who wears an eclectic mix of things that are special to them from across multiple time periods. It nods to the beauty of clothes but transcends the capitalist rhythm of fashion.
I enjoy @ladiesofmadisonave as well, for the same reasons. It gives me hope that we can continue to love clothes and not fall prey to endless consumerism.
Amazing, love this post! I noticed that the styles I feel best in harken back to early 80s prep, which is probably my earliest fashion memory. Wild to think how some fashions get imprinted and keep resurfacing across our lives!
I'm always fascinated by how our formative styles develop and are anchored in a particular place and time, much like the music we love and identify with. :)
Thanks Hannah! My half is functioning at very random intervals, but every now even the blind hen finds a grain of corn! My way of saying: thank you so much, you're very kind, but if you only knew how weird and anxiety-ridden my brain was, you wouldn't necessarily call it high functioning... :D
I just read Trust by Hernan Diaz, a.o. about the trade and finance business in 1920s. And was thinking, this looks like fashion industry of today. Shein doubled it's profit last year, produced 1.5 mio different items. And as you say, also designer brands are moving fast, with a new show we want something new. What is in store is not hot anymore. It is not only the fast fashion brands. I wish I could withdraw from it. I am such person that did a 10 months no buy (I failed for the year no buy). After the 10 months I bought a lot. Not happy with that, but it happened. I don't know how to break the cycle. And still love fashion. But I hate the industry and consumerism. Including my own
A ten month no buy is amazing! You should give yourself credit for that!
It's so freaking difficult to get out of this madness, and madness is what it is. You're right that it's not just fast fashion brands, but all fashion. And not just clothes either, but everything that we consume. Food, furniture, home decor, cosmetics, technology, entertainment... everything is produced fast and furious. It makes me sick.
I applaud everyone who finds themselves arriving at their own "blue eyeshadow era", because I think that's a badge of honor of having lived and really figured out what they're about and what they're just not into. It's a really liberating thing to be able to confidently say, I DGAF after the unsure wanderings of our 20s and perhaps even 30s. In the late 2010s I found myself totally uninspired by what was going on in the contemporary fashion world and just gave myself total permission to clock out and focus on building and exploring other realms of my life. I've found my way back after a long hiatus, and it's given me a much better perspective on what really resonates with me and what I care about.
Fashion as an industry runs on planned obsolescence and taps into some of our deepest emotional spaces. I'm ok with participating in that sometimes when it feels right, but I'm grateful that I'm also at a point in my life where I'm self aware enough to opt out when it doesn't serve me.
I love your badge of honor -thinking, and I salute you for having found ways to explore who you are and what works for you. No small feat!
I feel that I was a lot more sure of myself in my 20s. I dressed instinctively, I didn't really follow trends, I was pretty comfortable with who I am. I'm still trying to figure out why my 40s have been so freaking challenging. My therapist once told me that we enter a phase in our 40s when we make the final push for independence from our parents. We see our lifespan in a different light, and there's a lot to process. I hope clarity will follow at some point or another!
It's funny, when I was younger I was very focused on the classics and building a serious wardrobe of timeless pieces (a worthwhile project, many of these items have lasted and still serve me well!). Now I'm finding myself less serious about things and more open to experiment, building on those foundations. I'm sure you will find your way to what feels right for you naturally, Tiia:)
A bit of a side note perhaps, but I had to chime in here, Tiia, to say that my 40s have been incredibly challenging, too. You're certainly not alone in that! I believe it's a combination of significant hormonal changes that are underway in addition to the "mid-life crisis" idea which is likely related to what your therapist calls the final push for independence from our parents (or individuation...making boundaries, becoming autonomous, deciding who we are/who we want to be instead of who we were brought up to be). And yes, a new perspective on our life span and the reality of our mortality begins to emerge. I'm a few months away from 50 and am now in menopause and what I can personally add is that clarity is slowly appearing, yes, but even more so, my energy levels dictate that my tolerance for caring so much about every little thing like I used to is just no longer possible. For me, this means I have a growing inner freedom to just be whoever I really am, dress however I feel like/can do that day, etc. and that's that, though it admittedly is still very much a work in progress. In a way, my body is leading the way in dictating my this pathway to clarity rather than my brain trying to figure it out. (I **cannot recommend enough** the paperback or audio book "Wise Power: Discovering the Liberating Power of Menopause to Waken Authority, Purpose and Belonging" which does a wonderful job at shedding light on what the hell is happening in our 40s.)
I'm so late to replying, but thank you so much for this, Lisa! We are, indeed, all works in progress, and I believe that growing inner freedom is where we should all be headed. Thank you for the book recommendation, I will have to look it up!
So much nourishing content in this post, Tiia. You really are putting your finger on something so deep and true. This post (and so many of your posts) cause me to take a much-needed step back, get the bird's eye view, reflect, feel, and reconnect with my soul underlying all of the hubbub on the surface of my online scrolling, shopping, purchasing, fretting, trying, hoping, failings etc. You make the blue-eyeshadow-forever idea incredibly appealing. Something inside me has a big YES.
I'm always so thankful for you, Lisa! I wish it was easier to just step out of the craziness and to opt out of the scrolling and the shopping and all of that. I often feel that I truly _know better_ to not engage in this world of consumerism, but it's still tempting, and especially if I have a bad day or a bad week for whatever reason, all I want to do is buy stuff. It's happening less and less, but I still feel that I could so easily slip and slide right back where I started. One day at a time, I guess!
Right there with you...I feel all of this, too. It's such an inner battle at times between the wanting so desperately to buy stuff vs. the relief from not being in the craziness, but yet, having to sit in all the uncomfortable feelings that greet us when we aren't caught up in the whirlwind. Soooo challenging! Yes, one day/hour/minute at a time!
Whow, seeing the fashion and shopping madness in these religious terms really spoke to me as a( more or less lapsed) Catholic, and how timely for Easter Monday....
About 5 years ago I read a book about 'the last aunts' from Fatima Bremmer (De sista tantarna), wherin it is described how most people get stuck with the style they're wearing around their 40's (except for people with fashion interest). In my daily practice I've noticed that many times. 60-year old people dressed like the early 00's in floral pants, slacks and slim jackets, 80-year old people like the 90's etc. I can understand it right away and I'm aware that I'm also there in some way, still admiring and feeling most myself when I browse collections from around 2015-2017 (J.Crew, Dries etc), exactly from when I was 40 years old....
Well what do you know, that makes perfect sense! I'm right on cue at 46 years of age.
Thank you for sharing this nugget of information! I'm now wondering if my Swedish is good enough to read the book because it sounds fascinating.
Guilty as charged.
I was right in the middle of cleaning up my Substack subscriptions when I read your post -- I join you in metaphorically buying that blue eyeshadow. I read some of my really old blog posts the other day and I did not recognise the me who passionately followed designers' work for years, season after season and had feelings about it! I miss that old me but I also think my understanding of fashion as an industry -- a very commercial one -- has made it impossible to go back.
Funnily enough, this made me interested in analysing consumption habits and I am glad to find others on the same journey....but then I too began to wonder if this is really yet another echo chamber in which we tell each other it's ok to buy stuff. I still hold on to my dream of being able to enjoy and appreciate things without falling into the trap of needing to buy something...perhaps disengaging from the discourse from time to time is key, because it is incredibly overwhelming.
I miss the old me, too -- the one who would pick up a copy of Vogue every month and read every article with genuine, sincere interest. Or the one who'd have the energy and the patience to watch as many fashion shows during the fashion weeks as I possibly could. I enjoyed it. I'm right there with you: as my knowledge of the industry has grown, it's become impossible to feel good about it.
I, too, sometimes wonder whether focusing on budgeting or wardrobe planning or listing purchases or being "anti-fashion" is just another way for us to keep circling around our consumerist identities. Conspicuous non-consumption can become a trap as well.
"Conspicuous non-consumption can become a trap as well" -- YES. I needed to process the shock of realising I was buying something new every month, but it was really forcing myself to reclaim my other habits -- reading novels, cooking, taking long walks -- that helped me slowly learn to decouple my interest in fashion and design from consumption. Thinking about consuming and not consuming is a pretty interesting exercise but it can't be the only thing or else it just becomes a monster that feeds itself.
Definitely. It's exhausting to have everything revolve around what we buy or don't buy. It really shrinks our understanding of ourselves and reduces us to consumers.
I just finished reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari and he builds a strong case for getting off of devices and he (perhaps obviously) didn’t even dig into all the niches of ways we use our phones. I am feeling tired of being on the hamster wheel and, also, addicted to the dopamine rush. So I’m thoughtfully working my way through these conflicting feelings and learning how to make STYLING the avenue I walk rather than CONSUMING.
Even Substack has started to feel quite difficult to manage as the number of newsletters increases. I have to differentiate between those walking my way and those not (still happy for them!)
I read Johann Hari's book last year and I thought it was so interesting how at the end of the book he went back to using his phone. I found myself thinking at the time "why the heck would he go back"... and then I basically did the same thing after my 3-month break from IG. I feel like I'm back to square 1 with my phone usage now and will have to make some decisions about it. But yes, our phones and the 24/7 access to everything under the sky is definitely giving me anxiety. It's just too much stimuli.
I had to unsubscribe to some Substacks. My email is constantly clogged up with emails from newsletters that will lead to more and more screen time. The app function of Substack is troubling too, it's too scrollable, so I try to use Substack only on my laptop now.
I love this! I recently heard someone say "you don't have to own Van Gogh to say you are interested in art. So, why do you feel like you have to constantly shop clothes to say you are interested in fashion? There are so many other ways to engage with it" and it really changed things for me.
That's really interesting, I get that! I guess it's easier to reject the need to belong when it comes to buying art because you don't walk around with the paintings that you own. We invite fewer people into our homes to see how we live and what we have, but we are present in the world, wearing our clothes every day, and every day the clothes we wear tell a story about us to others. So that makes us vulnerable.
wow, I love that perspective!
I look forward to receiving your newsletter every Sunday, and I related so much to this one.
I've been feeling a heightened sense of what you write about for the past year. An anecdote: I walked into the Prada store in September 2023 on the same day S/S24 went down the runway. The SA was showing me the $10000 white floral appliqué skirt that everyone was crazy about six months ago, and I couldn't help but feel like it was already forgotten with the next new thing Prada showed that day. The fashion cycles are so fast, and so much is being made that we literally don't have time to enjoy what already is. And not just enjoy for a season, but for years. Maybe our blue eye shadow era is here because our brains simply cannot take more of the same input and we are content to digest and rework all that has come before.
Thank you Irene, your anecdote describes so well what's wrong with fashion.
It hit me as I was reading your thoughts on Prada, that last fall when S/S2024 was being shown, I found a lot of things to love at the Dries Van Noten runway. Now it feels like a small forever ago. Snow has finally mostly melted in Helsinki, summer is still months away, and I'm already conditioned to thinking that S/S24 collections are yesterday's news. It's like we're always catching up to something impossible.
Just chiming in to say, I really resonate with you both on this. The velocity of fashion turnaround, no matter the label, makes me feel like the items I did indeed purchase are somehow now long forgotten and "has been" causing me to fall out of love with my closet much sooner than I think should be happening.
Absolutely! It's like the system is rigged that way. We're never satisfied because there's always something newer to buy.
Thank you for writing this! It's made me feel much better about the direction my own newsletter is taking. (Writing it lately, I've been asking myself if I'm doing it "right" because I'm not plugged into all the latest trends, the up-and-coming designers and what-have-you. That was never what I set out to write when I started on Substack - I'm much more interested in fashion history and art - but that type of writing seems to be all over the place here, and it's like an alien world.) There's no separating fashion from consumerism, but it does feel so much better to try - to prioritise craftsmanship, colour, texture, motif, and ignore what's popular.
(Also, incidentally, I love blue eyeshadow. I used to wear it a lot when I was first experimenting with bolder makeup, and I had in mind as I was doing so that exact type of nonconformist Blue Eyeshadow Lady.) 🖤
I don't know how I hadn't subscribed to your newsletter before. It seems utterly fascinating and I will be reading your archives when I get the chance!
Yes, fashion and consumerism are linked and we can't separate the two. It's complicated for sure, but luckily there are ways to still enjoy clothes without embracing the consumerist side whole-heartedly. It's challenging, though. The need to keep up is a tough one to break.
Thank you!
Reading your posts is one of the best reminders for me, honestly, of how significant clothes can be when you decouple them from the trend cycles. 🖤
Thoughtful and memorable writing as always Tiia! Maybe it’s part of my consumerism, but I find listening to podcasts like pre-loved podcast and vintagepodden are touching my love and enthusiasm for clothes and getting dressed. It’s something about listening and not seeing. I can be with my own clothes. I believe that to have a piece of clothing that you wear wear wear will be (or already are) the coolest thing.
I am not really a podcast person myself and I didn't even know that there are vintage podcasts! They sound fascinating!
About listening and not seeing: I am reminded of the times when fashion collections were reported in magazines with only one or two images from a show and a very detailed description in text. You had to imagine what the clothes looked and felt like. I kind of love that idea. Now that everything is so accessible, it feels like noise.
I've been thinking a lot about how fleeting life is. We are here, do our thing, and it's actually NOT THAT LONG. And we don't know what's on the other side. Suppose life is really just 95 (wishfully) years of temporary joy. Your goal is to find it every day and to share it with others while doing as little damage to others ability to experience it as possible. The only purpose I can see for fashion is joy. Aiding us in the joy journey. We know it hinders the joy of future generations; so that's in the calculus. But why oh why should there be a pressure in it? That's joyless. This one-buy month I did alerted me to how often I shop/look/etc. without joy. That is something I can stop doing. When the joy's gone, so am I. I think you get to leave. There are no trophies for zeitgeist following. Go, return, or not. It's all ok. Make delicious coffee, dip in and out as you please. XO. LOVE this piece + can I say, love YOU.
Love you, too, Rachel!! And you're onto something there. There really is very little point to fashion without joy, and if fashion gives us anxiety or if it feels like a bottomless pit where we try to drown our sorrows or fears, maybe turning away from it for a while isn't so bad. Joy can come from feeling real love toward the clothes we already have, the things that remind us of the people we love or places we cherish. There is definitely joy in enjoying something truly beautiful, something with real craft, something with purpose.
YES, exactly that. There is something in tuning in to what brings real (not false, not fleeting, not guilty) joy.
I do love to see an older woman marching to her own beat. (But now MissMatch10 will have me do mental math to locate their 40s fashion era!!). It’s one of the reasons I enjoy @ladiesofmadisonave. There’s something inspiring about a person who wears an eclectic mix of things that are special to them from across multiple time periods. It nods to the beauty of clothes but transcends the capitalist rhythm of fashion.
I enjoy @ladiesofmadisonave as well, for the same reasons. It gives me hope that we can continue to love clothes and not fall prey to endless consumerism.
Amazing, love this post! I noticed that the styles I feel best in harken back to early 80s prep, which is probably my earliest fashion memory. Wild to think how some fashions get imprinted and keep resurfacing across our lives!
I'm always fascinated by how our formative styles develop and are anchored in a particular place and time, much like the music we love and identify with. :)
Yes, me too! Music in particular takes you back, like a little time machine.
I love the idea of imprinting. It's like the memories become us, and we become our memories.
Once again, I feel as if we are sharing the same brain - only your half is higher functioning than mine.
Thanks Hannah! My half is functioning at very random intervals, but every now even the blind hen finds a grain of corn! My way of saying: thank you so much, you're very kind, but if you only knew how weird and anxiety-ridden my brain was, you wouldn't necessarily call it high functioning... :D
I just read Trust by Hernan Diaz, a.o. about the trade and finance business in 1920s. And was thinking, this looks like fashion industry of today. Shein doubled it's profit last year, produced 1.5 mio different items. And as you say, also designer brands are moving fast, with a new show we want something new. What is in store is not hot anymore. It is not only the fast fashion brands. I wish I could withdraw from it. I am such person that did a 10 months no buy (I failed for the year no buy). After the 10 months I bought a lot. Not happy with that, but it happened. I don't know how to break the cycle. And still love fashion. But I hate the industry and consumerism. Including my own
A ten month no buy is amazing! You should give yourself credit for that!
It's so freaking difficult to get out of this madness, and madness is what it is. You're right that it's not just fast fashion brands, but all fashion. And not just clothes either, but everything that we consume. Food, furniture, home decor, cosmetics, technology, entertainment... everything is produced fast and furious. It makes me sick.
Yes, everything is fast. I need quiet and slow. Will do a 2 months no buy. No shopping = more time for other things
I applaud everyone who finds themselves arriving at their own "blue eyeshadow era", because I think that's a badge of honor of having lived and really figured out what they're about and what they're just not into. It's a really liberating thing to be able to confidently say, I DGAF after the unsure wanderings of our 20s and perhaps even 30s. In the late 2010s I found myself totally uninspired by what was going on in the contemporary fashion world and just gave myself total permission to clock out and focus on building and exploring other realms of my life. I've found my way back after a long hiatus, and it's given me a much better perspective on what really resonates with me and what I care about.
Fashion as an industry runs on planned obsolescence and taps into some of our deepest emotional spaces. I'm ok with participating in that sometimes when it feels right, but I'm grateful that I'm also at a point in my life where I'm self aware enough to opt out when it doesn't serve me.
I love your badge of honor -thinking, and I salute you for having found ways to explore who you are and what works for you. No small feat!
I feel that I was a lot more sure of myself in my 20s. I dressed instinctively, I didn't really follow trends, I was pretty comfortable with who I am. I'm still trying to figure out why my 40s have been so freaking challenging. My therapist once told me that we enter a phase in our 40s when we make the final push for independence from our parents. We see our lifespan in a different light, and there's a lot to process. I hope clarity will follow at some point or another!
It's funny, when I was younger I was very focused on the classics and building a serious wardrobe of timeless pieces (a worthwhile project, many of these items have lasted and still serve me well!). Now I'm finding myself less serious about things and more open to experiment, building on those foundations. I'm sure you will find your way to what feels right for you naturally, Tiia:)
A bit of a side note perhaps, but I had to chime in here, Tiia, to say that my 40s have been incredibly challenging, too. You're certainly not alone in that! I believe it's a combination of significant hormonal changes that are underway in addition to the "mid-life crisis" idea which is likely related to what your therapist calls the final push for independence from our parents (or individuation...making boundaries, becoming autonomous, deciding who we are/who we want to be instead of who we were brought up to be). And yes, a new perspective on our life span and the reality of our mortality begins to emerge. I'm a few months away from 50 and am now in menopause and what I can personally add is that clarity is slowly appearing, yes, but even more so, my energy levels dictate that my tolerance for caring so much about every little thing like I used to is just no longer possible. For me, this means I have a growing inner freedom to just be whoever I really am, dress however I feel like/can do that day, etc. and that's that, though it admittedly is still very much a work in progress. In a way, my body is leading the way in dictating my this pathway to clarity rather than my brain trying to figure it out. (I **cannot recommend enough** the paperback or audio book "Wise Power: Discovering the Liberating Power of Menopause to Waken Authority, Purpose and Belonging" which does a wonderful job at shedding light on what the hell is happening in our 40s.)
I'm so late to replying, but thank you so much for this, Lisa! We are, indeed, all works in progress, and I believe that growing inner freedom is where we should all be headed. Thank you for the book recommendation, I will have to look it up!
WOW! You perfectly expressed something I've felt but couldn't quite put into words. Thank you. It’s heartening to know others feel the same way.
Thank you for reading! <3
So much nourishing content in this post, Tiia. You really are putting your finger on something so deep and true. This post (and so many of your posts) cause me to take a much-needed step back, get the bird's eye view, reflect, feel, and reconnect with my soul underlying all of the hubbub on the surface of my online scrolling, shopping, purchasing, fretting, trying, hoping, failings etc. You make the blue-eyeshadow-forever idea incredibly appealing. Something inside me has a big YES.
I'm always so thankful for you, Lisa! I wish it was easier to just step out of the craziness and to opt out of the scrolling and the shopping and all of that. I often feel that I truly _know better_ to not engage in this world of consumerism, but it's still tempting, and especially if I have a bad day or a bad week for whatever reason, all I want to do is buy stuff. It's happening less and less, but I still feel that I could so easily slip and slide right back where I started. One day at a time, I guess!
Right there with you...I feel all of this, too. It's such an inner battle at times between the wanting so desperately to buy stuff vs. the relief from not being in the craziness, but yet, having to sit in all the uncomfortable feelings that greet us when we aren't caught up in the whirlwind. Soooo challenging! Yes, one day/hour/minute at a time!
Whow, seeing the fashion and shopping madness in these religious terms really spoke to me as a( more or less lapsed) Catholic, and how timely for Easter Monday....
Easter probably had something to do with it! I'm not religious myself, but have spent a fair amount of time thinking about these concepts anyway.