The Million Dollar Purchases

I'm only making Million-Dollar purchases this fall. I'm sure that this sounds like my shopping list is something along the lines of LearJet, Krupp Diamond, and a 24-karat mink, but let me clarify: I'm only buying things that make me feel like a million dollars.

Two things made me arrive at this decision. Firstly, I have New York Fashion Girl Syndrome - a petite West Village apartment with little closet space and a big wardrobe with illusions of grandeur. I store my out-of-season clothing with Garderobe, my closet fairy godmothers who that expertly store all my treasures (as well as cataloguing them for my online viewing pleasure and giving them all the TLC that they need). Some people send their children to summer camp, I send my Alaia, McQueen and Vuitton to a cedar-lined closet in New Jersey, but it makes no sense to expertly archive ill-advised bargains or things picked up at a sample sale and never worn. Considering that their other clients are couture-collecting Madames and Middle-Eastern Royalty, it was more than slightly mortifying when they referred to my wardrobe as LARGE, so I had to start cutting the wheat from the chaff.

Secondly, I work hard. Correction, I work like a dog. And I got really bored of working so very hard in order to end up with a closet of clothes that I didn't want to wear. Every time I opened my closet I groaned and reverted back to the same skinny jeans and sweater ensemble rather than stepping into fashion Narnia. When we're getting bogged down by our possessions, they have then started to possess us. Luxury loses its very definition if it is no longer a pleasure.

Hence, I have resolved to buy only pieces that I really and truly love. No more will I consider so-so pieces that I convince myself will be great to run around in on a Saturday, great if I was thinner, great for my fictitious life. I'm only buying things that are unconditionally happy. They have to look a million bucks as soon as I put them on, like the L'Wren Scott pencil skirt that will have at least one person ask if I used to be a model, the Manolo Blahnik BB pumps that inspire my newsagent to give me gifts of candy with my Vogue, the exquisite beaded vintage coat that brings joy even a rainy day and a broken umbrella can't dampen ('scuse pun). In short, I will no longer give closet space to anything less than perfect. I have a tendency to make mistakes with cheaper clothes or at sample sales because I don't have to weigh up to the same degree whether or not I really really LOVE the piece. In one's closet, as in life, cheap thrills never look so shiny in retrospect.

I remember a lecture in my St Martins student days by Caryn Franklin, who even back in '98 pronounced the future of fashion being about quality pieces lasting us for life - longevity and restoration rather than disposability. This was quite a foreign concept for me as an 18-year-old wearing a Top Shop silver satin pantsuit. I won't bore on about French women buying once, buying well and being immensely clever with Hermes scarves, but they do of course look amazing for a good reason (other than being very thin). When I was a child, my mother had a cashmere sweater - it was shocking pink and as soft as kittens. Now, every sweater that I own is $89 cashmere, vaguely-soft and and badly pilled. I replace them yearly. They are the snackwells of fashion - unsatisfying yet oddly more-ish.

Not to get too crunchily right-on, but if you've ever watched The Story of Stuff (and if not then then I suggest you do http://www.storyofstuff.org) you'll realize that a cashmere sweater for every day of the month isn't making you happy. More isn't always better, but better is always more - more flattering, more special, more covetable and that one thing that you really enjoy wearing is worth ten that you don't. So unless a dress transports me to the land of Amazing as soon as I put it on, I'm not taking it home with me because it's a one-way ticket to the land of Meh, and not on a Lear Jet.