I find it a confusing thing to be interested in fashion and style, and yet an intelligent (I hope!) person who has a sense of social responsibility. Don't misunderstand: by describing myself as such, I don't mean to imply that I'm dishing out soup to the homeless every weekend or even joining in the recent "occupy" protests. I fall a long way short of being a model citizen. So perhaps that wasn't the most accurate description. What I mean to say is that I do realise that the purchasing decisions that I make have consequences, not only for myself, but for everyone involved in the chain of production, and for whoever and wherever comes into contact with the item in question once its useful life has ceased.

So yes, I find it confusing to be interested in fashion and style. Whilst I try not to consciously follow trends, which does help to slow down one's rate of fashion consumption, just the fact that I take an interest in personal style and delight in connecting to the history of fashion through actually wearing garments of different eras means that I have quite an extensive wardrobe. Add to that the fact that I am a graphic designer and inherently interested in all things visual and you may understand that have a natural compulsion to collect and to change things up... often.

So I try to reign myself in, resist those spontaneous "OMG I must have that" moments. I'm trying to train myself to think carefully about my sartorial choices before actually making them, thinking about what pieces will work best with what is already in my wardrobe, what will be the most versatile, and what has the most longevity. I'm trying really hard to train myself to only buy the one item of good quality (and thus higher cost) rather than the gratification of quantity, buying perhaps 3 or 4 items of lesser quality all at once. No I can't recall that any of my recent purchases have been from local, independent stores, but in my mind I would like to head that way. But it's small steps... one has to start somewhere.

Of course one thing that I do do is recycle! Op shops are a great way to save money, to recycle, and help raise money for charity, but the great trick to them is that you don't always find anything when you go shopping. Going shopping at a mall or high street is easy - there's so many interesting things out there that just the fact that you've gone out "shopping" almost definitely means that you will purchase something. But when you go op shopping, it's like a wonderful treasure hunt. You get all the satisfaction of the activity, but you may return home empty handed. While this can be slightly frustrating, it does mean that you can go out "shopping" without it necessarily contributing to the rapid decline of space left in your wardrobe.

I realise that this is a terribly rambling post, but in a way it explains why I haven't been blogging about fashion so much lately. I've been trying to sort out my own personal style (it's difficult) and trying to refine and cull my wardrobe (that's harder) in order to regain some space, but also just to simply my life a little. But perhaps I can ramble about that in another post.