Retail Therapy
September 2nd 2008 15:31
I wonder if there is a form of disorder that involves buying clothes instead of food. I think I heard that somewhere and I can't deny that the idea appeals. As I fan through Vogue outfits catching at the frayed edges of my imagination and breaking off threads of longing, I'm wistful.
With what we spend on grocery's and coffee (Not to mention chewing gum) every week pehaps Chanel isn't so far out of reach.
But I've just eaten strawberry's and grapes!
Have I just devoured what could have been a gorgeous outfit?
If I got a dress with strawberry material perhaps I could have the best of both worlds and a much more lasting experience.
For me everyday life makes it so much easier to spend money on food, not clothes. Food shops are more accessible and they are deceptively woven into everyday life. The price of the items seem so much less than an outfit but it's so easy to forget how quickly the little amounts add up.
Clothes shopping involves for me The mental block of I could never afford that (I have expensive taste) and an extra contemplation process of where would I wear it which restrains the impulse to buy.
Trying on clothes takes so much longer than choosing a few grapes. The labour of undressing, the dis-ease at the threat of an inquisitive shop assistant peering in at an uncomfortable moment puts me on edge and distances me from the item and from the exchange of money.
Whereas money just seems to evaporate in a supermarket. As I fill my basket with bits and pieces that fall under the radar of scrutiny as they've been misfiled in my brain as necessity.
The colourful displays tug at appetite. To put aside the delicious looking cherry now for the far distant possibility of a dress I have nowhere to where later, it's just too hard.
If there is a disorder the people who have it must live in close proximity to better shops and perhaps that is my problem, perhaps the retail therapy just applies itself to whatever is closest to your reach
Grocery shopping is so much more to me than buying food. It is buying an experience, it is an immediate way of doing something towards changing my life when I feel most bored or uninspired.
I gravitate towards the vegetables I have never heard of or the far eastern sounding ingredient. It's all a bit like a painting with the food as the paints. I don't want to eat it I just want the pleasure of creating it.
But it is such an empty pleasure, as at the end of the night it distintergrates into a pile of dishes and unappetising left overs covered with gladwrap and shelved carelessly in the fridge, to be forgotten an most probably thrown out the next day.
Also, when you are the only member of the family who actually likes flavouring it's like being a bird with clipped wings confined to creating meat and three veg when your mind wants to fly to gourmet heights of creativity.
So wistfullness flows in and drowns my tired mind as clothes seem a more fulfilling avenue through which distract myself from the mundanity of life. while a drawer of memory is purposefully left shut for the basket of skirts jeans and tops I bought instead of food once yet never wear. Evidence that neither food or clothes are going to satisfy my appetite for a life.
With what we spend on grocery's and coffee (Not to mention chewing gum) every week pehaps Chanel isn't so far out of reach.
But I've just eaten strawberry's and grapes!
Have I just devoured what could have been a gorgeous outfit?
If I got a dress with strawberry material perhaps I could have the best of both worlds and a much more lasting experience.
For me everyday life makes it so much easier to spend money on food, not clothes. Food shops are more accessible and they are deceptively woven into everyday life. The price of the items seem so much less than an outfit but it's so easy to forget how quickly the little amounts add up.
Trying on clothes takes so much longer than choosing a few grapes. The labour of undressing, the dis-ease at the threat of an inquisitive shop assistant peering in at an uncomfortable moment puts me on edge and distances me from the item and from the exchange of money.
Whereas money just seems to evaporate in a supermarket. As I fill my basket with bits and pieces that fall under the radar of scrutiny as they've been misfiled in my brain as necessity.
The colourful displays tug at appetite. To put aside the delicious looking cherry now for the far distant possibility of a dress I have nowhere to where later, it's just too hard.
If there is a disorder the people who have it must live in close proximity to better shops and perhaps that is my problem, perhaps the retail therapy just applies itself to whatever is closest to your reach
Grocery shopping is so much more to me than buying food. It is buying an experience, it is an immediate way of doing something towards changing my life when I feel most bored or uninspired.
I gravitate towards the vegetables I have never heard of or the far eastern sounding ingredient. It's all a bit like a painting with the food as the paints. I don't want to eat it I just want the pleasure of creating it.
But it is such an empty pleasure, as at the end of the night it distintergrates into a pile of dishes and unappetising left overs covered with gladwrap and shelved carelessly in the fridge, to be forgotten an most probably thrown out the next day.
Also, when you are the only member of the family who actually likes flavouring it's like being a bird with clipped wings confined to creating meat and three veg when your mind wants to fly to gourmet heights of creativity.
So wistfullness flows in and drowns my tired mind as clothes seem a more fulfilling avenue through which distract myself from the mundanity of life. while a drawer of memory is purposefully left shut for the basket of skirts jeans and tops I bought instead of food once yet never wear. Evidence that neither food or clothes are going to satisfy my appetite for a life.
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