Buying Clothes Won't Make You Fashionable

On the personal style v. shopping debate

I know what you’re thinking. This is a fashion newsletter. Isn’t the idea of avoiding buying clothes a little…counterintuitive?

When I started Long Live almost three years ago, I started it as a fashion newsletter, not a shopping newsletter. It’s never been shopping I felt like I could talk about for hours, spend an afternoon in a museum admiring, or write about two times a week. Sure, it’s a part of the process, but it’s never been the end goal.

Fashion in our intimate lives manifests as personal style. This is what you put on to walk to a coffee meeting or change into for a fancy dinner. Shopping is consumption. Personal style is consistent—every day, at least once per day, you’re faced with what you’ve collected or inherited or held onto in your closet. All you have is what’s in front of you.

And this isn’t an indictment of shopping at large. Believe me, my eBay order history would say otherwise. It’s a reminder that without stepping back and slowing down, adding to cart repeatedly will never replace the work of building a strong sense of self when it comes to getting dressed.

Personal style is a lifelong project. And it’s not for everyone! Some people outsource it. Other people study it. If that’s you, I’d suggest The Allison Bornstein Newsletter as your 101 and then her book, and then I Love Your Style, and the brilliant podcast, Covered, by

Ruby Redstone

and

Natalie Brennan

, and movies like The Talented Mr. Ripley and To Catch A Thief. And for anyone in between, here are two simple ideas that take an amorphous idea like personal style and break it into digestible/actionable steps.

Restraint:

Or, in the words of my high school best friend’s mom, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” Trends can feel SO urgent, especially online. This fall, I feel like all my dusty Levi’s are shaking in their boots at the idea of “barrel jeans.” And when I’m out in Soho, I see so many people wearing them and think to myself, “They look so cool.” And then I don’t do anything about it.

Prada SS 1989—A truly breathtaking skirt and a reminder of the dozens of midi-length skirts I’ve owned before and never worn. I’m just a mini girl!

Other trends, like sweater shorts or cropped button downs, I’ve been less staunch toward avoiding. That’s ok! But this is also why it’s so important to take as much inventory of what you’re donating when you’re cleaning your closet as you are of what stays behind. The clothes we let go are a good litmus test of trends we maybe could have just avoided from the jump.

Repetition:

I’ve used the Jane Birkin basket bag example a thousand times, but if it’s not broken etc. Jane Birkin could have carried a basket bag one time. That would have been darling, yes, and maybe it would have been photographed and stood the test of time, but instead, she wore a basket bag all the damn time. She created a signature item. And now, when you see a friend on the street walking to dinner in a little dress and a basket bag, you’d say something like, “Jane Birkin core.”

The basket in question

How can we curate this in our own lives, assuming we don’t have a future Hermès bag to inspire? Find what works for you (my personal example is a Mark Cross Box Bag) and wear it all the time. Try to keep your blinders on when something new or just a bit different comes on the market, and remember the importance of reiterating what makes you feel like you.

@erikaveurink#personalstyle vs buying new clothes and it turns out one is a bandaid for the other #fashiontiktok

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Thank you for reading Long Live. It means so much to me. You can shop my favs here, follow along on Instagram + Tiktok, shop my Notion template, and as always, respond to this dispatch for my direct line x