The Weird Irony of Being a Shopping Addict Who Cares About Sustainability

Can we ever rid ourselves of the desire to constantly acquire new things?

This essay originally appeared in the April 2024 issue of FASHION Canada.

Every evening, I perform a fusion ritual with my phone and disappear into a universe populated by tiny thumbnail images of garments I would like to own. Toggling between the RealReal, SSENSE, Depop, and Poshmark apps, I imagine what my life would be like if I owned that Rachel Comey jumpsuit or that Cecilies Bahnsen dress: where I’d wear it, who I’d flirt with in it. Occasionally, I am overtaken by a dark force and click ‘buy’, but more than anything, I scroll. Most of my waking hours are spent playing Purchase Tetris, arranging and rearranging my current obsessions into a structure that allows me to acquire each and every one, meanwhile a closet of beautiful clothing hangs undisturbed in a room nearby.

As a fashion journalist writing at the intersection of culture and sustainability for well over a decade (my undergraduate degree is in Environmental Studies), I am more than aware of the staggering issues the world faces when it comes to degradation of the natural environment caused by the overproduction of clothes. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that textiles accounted for 17 million tons of the municipal waste thrown out in 2018 (out of a total of 292.4 million tons) — the equivalent of 2,150 pieces of clothing each second. And that’s not even bringing up the egregious human labor issues baked into the industry. Yet still, I shop.

I abandoned fast fashion long ago and most of the clothing I acquire is secondhand, yet it feels excruciating to accept that my insatiable appetite is actually part of the problem. Experts have long touted that the best way to participate in sustainable fashion is to learn how to appreciate what you already have, only purchase when you absolutely need to and try to do so secondhand. Yet in spite of the plentiful nature of my closet, I still crave more. Over time as I have negotiated my own impulses, I have begun to wonder, is it possible to rid oneself entirely of the desire to consume?

To crave novelty is deeply human. It’s what fashion is predicated on; once a silhouette becomes familiar it sheds its outré appeal, becoming passé and boring. So how do I reconcile my appetite to express myself through clothing with my desire to preserve the environment? Is it possible to live a life where my morals match my actions? 

I’m not alone in my concerns. The “say-do gap” — when people purport to believe one thing yet behave differently — is well documented. According to a 2017 GlobeScan survey, 65% respondents want to put sustainability first while shopping, yet only 26% actually do so. While many critics intone that individual actions taken to combat climate change are futile when 71% of global emissions since 1988 have been produced by just 100 companies., we must acknowledge that these corporations are not typically in the business of creating goods there is no appetite for. “It’s the consumers that actually burn and demand the fossil fuels that these companies provide,” Richard Heede told Vox in 2018.

And yet, there are plenty of examples of people who seem perfectly happy not living a consumer-based lifestyle: Buddhists, Amish people, dads who have worn the same Patagonia fleece jacket for decades. The answer I’ve arrived at is: yes, it is possible to train oneself to desire less, but not without great motivation and difficulty.

According to Dr. Carolyn Mair, behavioural psychologist and author of The Psychology of Fashion, says that the best way to train yourself to not want to buy things is simply to distract yourself whenever the impulse arrives. A 2016 study found that people who want to cut down on eating junk food tend to eat less when they postpone the desire (e.g. I’ll eat it later) rather than eschew it entirely. So try avoiding the ‘buy it now’ button whenever the impulse pops up. “I know it’s difficult but do something else,” Mair suggests. “Pick up rubbish, volunteer for something, go to the gym, start running. Make fashion less important in your life.”

If possible, Dr. Carey Morewedge, Professor of Marketing at Boston University, suggests removing yourself from any stimuli that arouses the impulse to shop. If you notice that familiar tingle in response to Instagram ads, or have fallen prey to #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, block any accounts proffering goods you’re susceptible to being seduced by, or disengage from the apps entirely.

However, if deleting one’s primary source of entertainment sounds absurd or impossible, the most effective long-term way to rid oneself of the desire to shop is to locate the roots of the impulse and disentangle them. Dr. Katherine White, a professor at the University of British Columbia who studies consumer behaviour suggests a process called ‘laddering ’in which you continue to ask yourself why you want something until you have figured out the underlying reason. By continuously asking yourself ‘why?’ you can unearth what Dr. White calls, “the shining carrot that will get you to change your behavior.”

If you shop because you feel like there’s a part of you missing, you may be experiencing a condition shamanistic cultures refer to as ‘soul loss,’ says psychotherapist Eric Windhorst. According to Mr. Windhorst, whose practice is informed by ecopsychology, humans are born whole from a shamanistic perspective and then cut off parts of themselves in order to live in society. By the time we reach adulthood, many of us have lost touch with our true selves, and fill the void of what is missing with habits like material overconsumption. It is only through extensive therapy, and perhaps for the woo-woo inclined, a ‘soul retrieval ceremony’, that we can find our way back to who we are supposed to be.

I admit that I still find myself mindlessly scrolling through clothes online most nights. I could try harder to curb the impulse by putting down my phone and reading a book or watching a movie instead when I feel the itch to shop, but I don’t. It turns out that looking at beautiful things just happens to be one of my main hobbies. But at least I have something to work on: finding total contentment with my palace in the world. Just like the dads in their Patagonia fleeces, I know that one more sweater, or one more dress, isn’t going to bring me closer to that goal.