Reviewing 5 Years of Wardrobe Additions

A dizzying look at my consumer history: rating the 156 pieces I acquired between January 2020 and June 2024.

Recently, I put on an outfit and realized every single one of its components was purchased online, from new, within the last three years. As someone whose style identity centres around being a “preloved shopper” and is a major proponent of buying in the flesh (entering my credit card information online still makes this millennial uneasy), it was a bit of a shock. Have I strayed so far from the high schooler who discovered a textile heaven in the endless maze of racks at Value Village? 

Recalling my recent history of habitual overconsumption and the accompanying cycles of binge-shopping and decluttering, my next line of inquiry was, am I actually a better shopper when I post transactions online?

Struck by this thought, I was compelled to take on the considerable task of combing through all my purchases from recent years to find some answers. By digging through old budget spreadsheets and blog posts, I was able to compile a more or less comprehensive list of everything I’ve purchased for my wardrobe dating back to 2020. Then came the painstaking part of the exercise: reflecting on how each of those 156 additions panned out.

As long as I’ve been shopping for myself, local secondhand stores have been the primary source of my clothes. Magical places where (at the time) a few dollars of pocket money could be converted into swathes of pure silk or a gaudy beaded jacket. However, there was danger in the low price tags and designer labels; fashion curiosity and style discovery eventually led way to rampant excess and a disjointed closet. For a while, I could defend my compulsive thrifting as a less environmentally damaging and ethically superior alternative to fast fashion. But addiction is addiction — and over-stuffed drawers serve nobody. I’ve spent the last few years trying to remediate my behaviours and curtail the rate of changeover in my ever-ballooning wardrobe. As you’ll see, there have been “good” years and “bad” years, but along my journey I’ve become more aware of my shopping triggers and increasingly confident in what I like to wear. 

In this catalogue, I’m baring it all. From the pieces I’ve adored year after year to the plethora of neverworns, it’s an honest look at my clothing consumption patterns — the story of my closet, as told through data. Seeing my purchase history presented this way, it’s easy to feel guilt and shame. All that money wasted! I have to remind myself that this isn’t a punitive chore, but a way to unlock a trove of invaluable closet insights. Let’s get to it.

Some Notes:

• There are probably a few things I’ve missed/forgotten about, but this is otherwise a pretty faithful roundup of all the clothing items I consumed from the start of 2020 through to the first half of 2024. I’ve also left out unremarkable purchases of loungewear, underwear, and some accessories (e.g., winter mittens).

• In some cases, the cost of the item is rounded or estimated due to incomplete data. Items without a price were gifted, purchased with a gift card, or refunded.

• For each purchase, I’ve tagged whether the item was a planned, semi-planned, or spontaneous purchase. To clarify, semi-planned refers to the purchase of an item that was vaguely on my wishlist at the time (e.g., summer shorts), or was not on my wishlist, but I waited to buy it. Planned refers to the acquisition of a specific coveted item (e.g., Keen sandals).

• Each item of clothing is ranked out of 5 on “purchase satisfaction”, which is completely subjective and never completely static as my feelings towards pieces may have changed (and continue to change) over time. If I were to review this list again, I’d probably adjust some of the numbers, but I’m sticking with my initial, gut assessments.

The List

Below, I’ve included a snapshot of the list in its entirety, which is also viewable in Google Sheets in case anyone is interested in perusing the contents more thoroughly. Lines highlighted in yellow are those I consider to be 5/5 purchases, while the greyed out items are no longer a part of my wardrobe. If you aren’t concerned with the minutiae of each individual entry, please skip over to the next section where you will be treated to some clumsy, inexpert data analysis.

The Quick Stats

I’ve never been a statistical whiz, but I can appreciate the learnings that can be drawn from cold, hard data. So here’s my best shot at summarizing the key findings from this table (please don’t judge my aesthetically-challenged visualizations!).

Over the past four and half years, I’ve purchased 156 items for my closet (including clothing, shoes, and some accessories), amounting to $7109.23 CAD spent. These sums are hard to swallow, but not completely surprising — I had hopped on the “minimalism” bandwagon right before the pandemic, but rebounded hard after a year and a half of restraint. There are some other, personal, reasons for the ensuing avalanche of acquisitions, which peaked in 2022, but I’ll get into those later.

Going a level deeper, these figures on where my clothes came from confirms that the majority of my recent closet additions are secondhand items, obtained in person. However, my shopping behaviours seem to be trending the other way. Of the 7 items I’ve consumed so far in 2024, 57% were purchased online and shipped to my door in a limp plastic sack. In comparison, this proportion was only 33% in 2020 — and that was a lockdown year! (Side note: does anyone else remember lining up two metres apart, masked up, to scavenge for used goods?)

Finally, here is the distribution of my purchases according to how I’ve rated them (as of publishing) on a scale from 1-5. There are a fair of number of items belonging to each tier, but thankfully, the “what-was-I-thinking?” 1’s represent the smallest segment. That said, I’ve made way too many mediocre, middle-of-the-road purchases — 70 of them, in fact. They are offset by the similar number of 4’s and 5’s, though I often wonder it would be like to have a streamlined wardrobe consisting only of my favourites. With the $1,297.44 sunken into 1’s and 2’s over the years — nearly all of which are no longer with me — I could have afforded some truly special, dream pieces to shift the balance.

Diving into the Best and the Worst

First up: the best. Of the 39 items that scored 5/5…

• 20 were purchased online; 19 IRL

• 19 were planned purchases; 15 spontaneous; 5 semi-planned

• 22 were purchased secondhand; 17 from new

• Average price per item: $64.15

• 7 were bought from Etsy; 6 Value Village (local thrift shop); 4 SSENSE

Of the 46 items that are no longer in my closet…

• 41 were purchased IRL; 5 online

• 37 were spontaneous purchases; 6 semi-planned; 3 spontaneous

• 43 were purchased secondhand; 3 from new

• Average price per item: $21.80

• 22 were bought from Value Village; 5 Odd Finds (local vintage shop); 4 Salvation Army (local thrift shop)

Reflections

I’m sure I could mine a million insights from the wealth of data compiled here, but here are some key findings I’ve taken away about my shopping behaviours:

• Shopping online = better outcomes. While I don’t love the experience of buying virtually, evidently, I tend to be more successful when shopping this way. I’ll chalk it up to the wishlisting and waiting, due diligence, and extra consideration that goes into each purchase to minimize the risk of having to return a dud. Whether it’s a new item or a vintage piece, I need to feel very certain about an item before I press checkout. As an aside, I seem to have a good streak going with Etsy — of 12 purchases made in the past 5 years, 10 of them scored either a 5 or 4, and there’s only been one bust, which the seller actually refunded me on.

• Thrift stores are a blessing and a curse. The opposite is true when I shop from my favourite local secondhand stores — where my success rate of bringing home a true 5/5 gem has been a disappointing 13%. I like to think of myself as a disciplined, rational person, but when I enter the thrifting arena, all bets are off. Affordable prices, quality fabrics, and overwhelming novelty makes it extremely difficult to leave the fruits of my rack-scouring labour behind. It’s hard to resist bagging something unique and seemingly-rare for the cost of a coffee and croissant; I’d tell myself it was my weekly indulgence in place of a café treat. But, of course, the dollars spent and unworn piles accumulate when you essentially treat secondhand stores as a clothing rental service — before I know it, I’m toting the same wares back to be restocked.

• Nice fabrics are my kryptonite. The sample of decluttered purchases shown above all had one thing in common. Well aside from my never wearing them, they were all of exceptional quality. I have always had a weakness for beautiful natural materials. Pure new wool, cotton gabardine, matte silk, and butter-soft linen — I want you all. Even if the item itself is something I’d never wear (a bolero jacket), or its other elements are absolutely wrong for me (colour and fit are usual suspects), I have a hard time leaving it behind. Which nicely leads into the next point…

• I am never going to [alter that top / reconstruct that skirt into shorts / dye that dress / etc.]. When I scan through the graveyard list of items that are no longer with me, I realize that many of them were bought as “project pieces” — materials for fantasy DIY projects that I never found the time for. Over the years, I have greatly improved my sewing skills to the point where I can mend most holes and put in a simple hem. But a skilled seamstress I am not. By “saving” so many items that were defective, but “had potential”, I was constantly setting myself up for failure and disappointment. The mountainous to-do pile I had going, coupled with a continuous influx of new items, made it challenging to make progress on any of my half-formed ideas. Eventually, I’d get fed up with the mess and chuck it all into the donation bin in a fit of defeat.

• Retail therapy is real, but not actually therapeutic. There was a period, from mid-2021 to mid-2023, where I shopped myself into a stupor. With the gift of hindsight, I have a few theories for why this happened: 1) pandemic blues; 2) a jump in salary; 3) moving to a hip neighbourhood with very good secondhand shopping; and 4) the stress of trying to conceive and subsequently preparing for a baby. My life changed extraordinarily over those two years, highs and lows aplenty. I have to admit that I felt lost and overwhelmed at times — and as someone who tends to internalize emotional distress, I turned to regular browsing and shopping as my outlet. Despite my burgeoning wardrobe and continued “slow fashion” ethos, I deluded myself into accepting this behaviour as unproblematic. At the height of my shopping addiction, I would hide purchases from my husband and pass off new-ins as “oh, this old thing”. Unproblematic, indeed.

• I cherish my old favourites. It’s normal to favour the new and shiny objects in our lives, but I’m happy to see that my highly-rated and frequently-worn pieces span this entire shopping timeline. There are clothes that I still love as much as when I first purchased them years ago — maybe even more so. This information comes as a relief. Ultimately, I envision for myself a long-lived, long-loved wardrobe where carefully selected and cared for items endure for 5, 10, 20, perhaps 40 years.

Conclusion

In the past decade, I’ve found myself alternating between periods of runaway consumerism followed by short-lived fashion diets — budgets, low buys (currently, I’m trying to abide by the Rule of 5 new + 5 used), no buys — you name it. So far, having a child has proven to be the most effective method of curbing my shopping impulses, though I’m finding my new day-to-day life isn’t compatible with a lot of the cherished pieces I’ve amassed. My wardrobe will always be evolving, alongside my lifestyle and taste preferences. And so my mission continues: to be a considered, responsible shopper without depriving myself of the pleasure I find in clothes and self-expression through them.

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Thanks for making it to the end of this mammoth of a post! I guess now is a good time to properly introduce myself and this Substack. I’m Lan, a late-twenty-something hailing from Toronto, Canada with a day job, a child, and a keen interest in personal style.

This Substack is a continuation of my personal blog Some Use Some Wear, where I’ve been chronicling my wardrobe, consumer habits, and evolving style philosophy. More a messy, personal style ethnography project than a shopping newsletter or altar to my taste — if that sounds like it’s up your alley, I hope you’ll stick around.

Some posts from my old blog that I’d recommend checking out:

Maternity Style in Review

22 things I loved about my style and wardrobe in 2022

Closet Inventory 2022: Everything in my Medium-Sized Wardrobe