July 2020 Shopping Reflections

via Unsplash

I'm somewhat surprised to report that July ultimately turned out to be a no-shopping month for me in terms of clothing, shoes, and accessories. (I'll also admit, however, that it was very much not a no-shopping month for me in terms of my new fountain pen hobby.) I believe this is only my fourth fashion no-shopping month since January 2015, when I first began writing these monthly shopping reflection posts. While it's certainly not a big achievement to go just a month without a new addition to one's closet once in a while, it's clearly a bit out of character for me!

As K and I go into our fifth straight month of practicing fairly strict social distancing with no real end in sight - due to how badly the US national response to COVID-19 is going - I've found myself completely losing interest in shopping for new-to-me things to wear. I had a bit of a "false alarm" about feeling this way back in March, but it ultimately lasted barely two or three weeks. This time around, though, the feeling seems to be here to stay a while. I ordered the Jasmine Chong scrunchie from June quite early in that month, and haven't really browsed in earnest for any clothing, shoes, or accessories since. So it's been around six or seven weeks now that I haven't been interested in new-to-me things for my wardrobe. That's definitely not impressive or anything, in the grand scheme of things, just highly unusual for me. 

I'm technically still waiting on my Elizabeth Suzann ("ES") order, for the Bel skirt in silk, from the very last day they took new orders back in late April. (I reported it as a May purchase, so it's already accounted for in my monthly shopping posts.) That's my only currently pending fashion-related purchase. Given ES's planned shutdown schedule, I'll probably receive a shipping confirmation from them soon, right before this iteration of the company finally closes by August. I'll miss ES so much, as I really admired the way the company was run!

Given my well-documented and extremely robust shopping history - and my known tendency to be a bit impulsive about purchases when I see something I think is really beautiful, no matter how much I try to plan out and spend time thinking through shopping decisions before I make them - I definitely can't reliably predict that my no-shopping period for my closet will last much longer. It's certainly possible that I might have another no-shopping month or two coming up. But I do know that if I saw something I thought was pretty and fit my criteria for something I thought would work in my closet - and if on top of all that, the price was right - I'd probably still decide to order it in a heartbeat. 

How was your shopping month? If you're based somewhere in the US, is the ongoing botched COVID-19 response here affecting your shopping habits?