rise & shine

parka: Primark; dress and shirt: H&M

worn with black tights and ballet flats

Let me tell you a little something about my shopping behaviour. (And maybe grab a coffee, this might be a "little" longer than usual) So, I've always loved shopping. It just feels so good to roam the stores, look at the pretty things, imagine yourself wearing this piece or that. How would you wear it? When would you wear it? What would you feel like? (Little confession here: in those thoughts, I always look incredibly beautiful. Does that happen to you as well? Do you even have such thoughts? Come on, tell me I'm not alone here!)

When I was younger and still in University I would go to the city often to look around, see what's new, maybe try on a few pieces. But as I did not have a lot of money I would evaluate rather thoroughly what I would eventually buy. If I liked something, I would generally wait about 1 or 2 weeks. If I was still thinking about the piece come the next trip to the city, I would go ahead and buy it. If not, I did't really need it after all, right? Now, I'm not saying all the purchases I made back then were perfect. I was a lot younger then, experimenting a lot with different styles and figuring out what worked for me and what not. Naturally there were some mispurchases. However, most of the things I bought, I would wear at least 1 or 2 years. 

Towards the end of my time in Uni, Primark came to my town, and I went totally crazy. For probably the first year, I would just mindlessly buy everything I liked in that store, because it was so pretty, yet so cheap I could afford buying a lot more than before. I even created a special blog. But all the prettiness did't really last that long in most of the cases. The dresses were usually too short for my bodytype (most bodytypes actually, to be honest), a lot of pieces so "on trend" you could wear them for a month and then it was over. And some things I only bought because I saw something similar in a blog or magazine and, well, they were cheap. So most pieces I ended up returning or selling on Ebay. I'm not saying it was all crap. I also bought some amazing pieces that I still wear today, like some simple leather sandals, a few pieces of jewellery or the parka in this post for example. Fortunately after some time, I habituated to the "Primark-craze". I bought less stuff there, returned to my old trusty swede, and - thanks to my friend A. - learned that designer brands can make a huge difference in product quality, but don't necessarily have to. (Did I tell you the button of my Marni coat (that was a gift and ridiculously cheap, just so you don't think I can afford Marni normally) came off after wearing it 4 times? Still, the fabric feels amazing.)

And then I started my first job. I'm not saying I went from rags to riches, but for the first time in my life I could afford to buy things at H&M, Zara, and the other usual suspects without thinking too much. That was actually not a good thing. I ended up doubleing the amount of clothes I had within one year (and I already had a lot to begin with). My closet was exploding, yet I always felt like I had nothing to wear. At some point, I challenged myself to 3 months without shopping to save some money for a DSLR. Maybe you remember that. This shopping detox put things back into perspective a little bit. Ever since then I have been trying to change my shopping behaviour bit by bit. I want to buy less clothes so I can invest in higher quality. I want a closet full of clothes I love and feel great wearing. I don't want 20+ purses and 50+ shoes to choose from, but a few really great ones. But at the same time, I want to have fun shopping, and sometimes you just see something, love it right away, buy it, and keep loving it for years to come. I don't want to cut myself off of fast fashion and trends completely, it's just too much fun. I've made some progress in the past year already. I am not saying there are no mispurchases anymore, but the amount has considerably dropped since I've started to actually use my brain while shopping again. I still have a long way to go. I still tend to rather buy 5 black T's than one quality one. But I know I have to give it time.

So after this long story, here's why I created this new category on the blog. I realized I don't really manage to take proper outfit shoots most of the time. Yet I think it would be nice to keep track of what I am wearing in everyday life on a regular basis. Keeping track of which pieces and styles I am wearing more or less often might help me decide even better what to buy in the future. In rise&shine I will document my everyday outfits in a most simple manner.

So, what is your shopping behaviour? And have you found your signature style yet?

This post was sparked by a comment I recently posted on this very inspiring article over at amazed.