← Her Style Podcast | Shopping, Color Palettes, Fashion, Wardrobe, Outfits, Clothing
Her Style Podcast | Shopping, Color Palettes, Fashion, Wardrobe, Outfits, Clothing
321 | Why New Clothes Feel Exciting… Until They Don't
00:20:39
Loading summary
Transcript6 lines
- [00:00]
A
As a reformed shopaholic, one of the number one questions people ask me is how I learned to shop with intention instead of impulsiveness. And the first thing I'll admit to you is that it wasn't easy. I know that post purchase rush all too well. There's actually a quote from Sophie Kinsella's Confessions of a Shopaholic that still resonates with me. If everyone could just wear new clothes every day, I reckon depression wouldn't exist anymore. So the second thing I'll admit to you is that if I could wear new clothes every day, I might. I still love to shop and follow trends and wear beautiful things, but in reality, I don't have the luxury of wearing new clothes constantly. I don't have that much time to shop these days, and my bank account is very grateful that I've learned to tame my shopping habits. And so, even though I understand the lore of the new buy, I will never go back to my old ways. Today, I want to talk about this cycle and why it happens. Why you can feel so excited about a piece of clothing one minute and sew over it the next. Why you have gorgeous garments hanging in your closet, sometimes with the tags still on them. Why it's actually not about you making bad shopping decisions and what to do instead. So the things you buy keep feeling good even after the initial excitement wears off. If you're ready to understand and finally break this vicious buying cycle for good, then settle in and get ready to take some notes, my friend. I've got you covered.
- [01:30]
B
Welcome to her style podcast where we're all about empowering you to show up and get dressed every day with confidence. I'm your host, Heather Riggs, a 15 year and counting certified image consultant and color specialist ready to build a wardrobe and a personal style you love.
- [01:50]
A
Let's get started. Okay, while I'm on this tangent of admitting things to you, I think we can all agree that there's just something about new clothes that hits differently. And if I could justify buying a whole new wardrobe every season, I mean, I would at least be tempted to do that. I love to shop. I love fashion. That should not surprise you. I would not have this podcast if that weren't the case. And of course I do get a tiny taste of that newness with my newly rentals each month now. But six pieces really only gets me so far because at the end of the day, your core wardrobe is what you actually live in. And if that's not working, no amount of newness is going to fix It. So in this episode today, I'm really excited to break down why new clothes feel so irresistibly exciting in the first place, why that feeling then fades so quickly, and how to actually start building a wardrobe that keeps feeling good over time, not just in the moment when you have the shopping haul or you bring in something new. So to start, let's talk about what's actually happening when you buy something. Because I really wanted to understand this for myself. I didn't want to just guess. I wanted to know what is actually going on in our brains here. And what I really knew all along and am now able to back up with, the science of this, is that it's not random. There is a reason that shopping feels so good. There's actually research showing that your brain releases more dopamine in the anticipation of something than in the actual experience of it. And so I want to stop and just think about that for a second. The moment when you're about to check out and you've got your shopping cart loaded and you're seeing all these great things, or if you've already ordered something and you're waiting for that package to come in the mail, or when you're trying something on and you're picturing yourself when you're wearing it in the future. Those moments are the peak, that is the ultimate high of the experience. It's not when you're actually wearing the thing to school drop off or a meeting or out to dinner. In fact, one neuroscientist by the name of Wolfram Schultz talks about this idea that your brain is constantly predicting how rewarding something is gonna be. And that prediction is often a little exaggerated, which makes so much sense, right? Because what you imagine it's going to be like when you wear something is usually better than the reality of just living your normal life in it. And I think that this is so important to understand because it takes us out of that spiral of shame, like, why do I keep doing this? What's wrong with me? Why do I keep buying more and more things and still not feeling content with what I have? And so we've got to uncover the fact that there is nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with the way that you're shopping. It's just that your brain loves new things. There's even a term for this, too, which is called the novelty effect. And that basically means that we're wired to respond positively to new things. It boosts our mood, it makes us feel more motivated and more inspired. And even though A lot of that research was done around things like new technology. As I was reading some of these studies, I was thinking, okay, but this is exactly what happens with our clothes, too. You get something new, and suddenly you feel like you can get dressed faster, you can put things together easier, you're more excited to get dressed, and then a couple weeks later, you're kind of right back to where you started. It's the same way with technology. Maybe you got the newest phone and you felt so efficient for a couple of weeks, and. And then it just became your phone. And psychologically speaking, there's this concept that we basically get used to things really quickly. We kind of always return to that initial baseline. Even things that we were so excited about have a way of becoming commonplace to us after a little bit of time has gone by. I actually had this experience in a much bigger way with our house. It took us. Oh, my gosh, I don't even remember now. I wanna say maybe three or four years to find it. And when we moved in here, I was so, so incredibly happy. I live just a few houses down from one of my best friends, which is one of the biggest perks for me. And my husband and I both have our own home offices now, which, if you could see how much time we spent working from home and how annoying I am constantly on client calls and recording podcast episodes, you can understand why that felt like a dream in and of itself. And I remember those first couple of weeks after we moved in here, I could barely sleep. I would lay in bed for hours and just in disbelief that we were finally here and feeling so excited, almost like an anxious level of excitement about everything. I would get up in the morning and just have those quiet minutes to myself, taking it all in and feeling this overwhelming sense of excitement and gratitude. And of course, everything about it felt new and full of possibility. Right? And now after just. I mean, I guess it's. We're coming up on two years. Wait, are we coming up on two years already? I don't even know. That sounds crazy, but it has been a little bit. And at this point, and even before this point, it's just our house, right? And of course, I still love it. I am so grateful that we're here, and I truly believe this is exactly where we're meant to be. And the wait was so worthwhile, but it feels normal. It feels like this is home. And that newness and that excitement level really did wear off very quickly. And on a much smaller scale, that is exactly what happens with your clothes and so what do we do? We go out and look for something new again. And we want to recreate those feelings of excitement and possibility. And that's where the cycle starts. And it typically ends up repeating itself, because that new clothes feeling is not meant to last. It can't. We adapt quickly and our brain normalizes new things really fast. And then there's one more piece layered on top of all of this, which is that when you're shopping, whether you're in a store or you're looking at things online, you're seeing those pieces in isolation. And usually they're styled perfectly, they look effortless, and you're imagining the best case scenario version of how you're going to wear it. You can picture it, you can see yourself in it. But once it's in your closet, it has to integrate into your real life. And that is often where things start to shift or kind of slip and fall apart a little bit, because excitement is very easy in isolation. But satisfaction comes from being able to fully integrate it in a way that feels good and works for your life again and again and again. And this is the distinction that I really want you to take away from this episode. Excitement and alignment are not the same thing. Excitement is a feeling. Alignment is a filter or a benchmark of how you can really decide whether something has a place in your wardrobe. So excitement is gonna sound like, this is cute, this is new, this is different. I would love to wear this for these different things coming up. Alignment says, this actually works with my life. This supports my wardrobe. This feels like me. I can make lots of actual outfits with this piece. And the tricky part is that excitement is emotional and it sometimes feels like a yes immediately. But alignment is more practical. It's a lot more grounded and realistic, and it doesn't always give you that same rush in the moment, but it's what actually holds up over time. And if you think about your own closet, the pieces that you wear on repeat, they're probably not the ones that gave you the biggest dopamine hit when you bought them. They're the ones that just work. They go with everything. They fit well, they feel like you. Of course, there are probably characteristics that you love about them, but I ask my clients inside her style collective every single time to share their top 10 wardrobe items with us, and most importantly, why they love them. And nine times out of 10, looking at these lists, they are not usually the most dramatic or trend forward pieces in a person's closet. They are generally made up of the everyday basics, the comfort pieces and the practical things that they need to feel good in their real lives. And I think that tells us a lot about the value of alignment and longevity. So when we're shopping, we really need to think beyond that initial rush of excitement and focus more on the long term wearability of something. And I want to zoom out a little bit, because once you understand all of this, you can start to see the pattern. And it usually looks something like this. You feel bored with your wardrobe or like nothing is working, and so you're gonna run out and buy something new. And it gives you that spike of excitement and adrenaline and creativity and possibility. And for a minute it feels like, okay, this is fixed, but then a couple of wearers in, you are right back where you started. And so what do you do? You have to go look for the next thing and the next and the next. And this is why I will not stop reminding you that you don't need more clothes. You need more clarity and creativity. Because if your wardrobe doesn't work as a whole, no single piece is going to fix that. And believe me, I know that trends are so tempting. I know that shopping is so tempting. And it is really fun to see what new things are coming out in stores every season, because there's just this beautiful package novelty to it. And I will even give you full reports of what's in and what's new each season, which often creates that feeling of desire and it might stir your craving for newness. Unlike a lot of influencers who have a personal incentive to get you to buy more things, my goal in recapping the trends for you is because, of course, as I just said, they can be so much fun to follow. And it's also important to keep your outfits feeling current. But more importantly, they're a great way to add some excitement and interest after you have a solid foundation built. And so that's why for every one trend episode that I put out on her style podcast, there are at least a dozen that drill in the style foundations that you need to have in place in your wardrobe first. So if your wardrobe is feeling disconnected or you're having a hard time styling your pieces and it feels like nothing really goes together, adding more trends or more new pieces is kind of like putting a really cute throw pillow on a very uncomfortable mattress. It might look better for a second, but it doesn't change how the whole thing feels. And so I want to help you make this really practical, because I don't want you to walk away from this episode thinking, okay, great, so I just can't enjoy shopping anymore. That is not the goal. I love shopping. I'm telling you that shopping is okay, but the goal is to make sure that the things you do bring into your wardrobe will actually work for you long term. And last, I want you to enjoy getting dressed every, not just right after you have a major shopping spree or even right after you buy one new thing. So here are a few simple shifts that you can start making right away for a noticeable difference in your overall wardrobe. And when you go to get dressed, the first thing, which is not new. I have shared this before, and it's so important to pause the moment of purchase. And before you buy something, I want you to ask yourself, am I excited about this because it's new or can I actually see myself wearing it three different ways in the next week? Now, you don't actually have to wear it three different times in the next week, but I want you to take it beyond someday, beyond the isolated vacation or the hypothetical event that's happening in your fantasy life. I want you to actually picture how you could wear it in the next week in a couple of different ways with the pieces in your existing wardrobe. That one question or challenge to yourself is going to filter out so much and to minimize the what's called the reward prediction error, which I mentioned before, which is that the imagined reward is usually greater than the actual reward. In order to close that gap, I highly encourage you not to buy things immediately. I would rather see you pin 100 items to your Pinterest window shopping board or put them on hold if you're shopping in person, or just let it hang out in your cart for a couple of days. Slow down those purchasing decisions and that novelty will often fade out before you even hit the buy button. There have been so many times in my life where I was really excited about a potential purchase. My imagined reward was heightened. And I was thinking of all these incredible ways I would wear the thing and why I had to have it, and just taking even an hour of time in between that diminished so greatly when I looked at it again. I was like, oh, I mean, this is okay. But it. That newness, that novelty, that excitement just from seeing the new thing really wears off so fast that most the time I decided I actually didn't even want it as much as I thought. And it can save you a whole lot of shopping mistakes or buying things that aren't really going to move the needle in your wardrobe. So definitely slow down. Ask yourself if you can actually see yourself wearing it. In three different ways in the next week in your real life, and then just pause the whole process. Give yourself an hour, a day, a week before you actually buy it to kind of bring back the reality and eliminate that shiny object syndrome that can really lead you astray. Okay. The second thing is to reverse engineer your favorites. Look at the pieces you wear all of the time and do some investigating. Ask yourself why they keep getting worn on repeat. Is it the fit? Is it the color? How easy it is to style? Your best purchases are not random. There are patterns there. And once you start recognizing what's working and why it's working, you can stop reinventing the wheel and start doing more of that. Just like my clients inside her Style Collective. You might love shopping for lots of frilly, feminine, beautiful pieces and then be really surprised to realize that you actually prefer to wear the more comfortable, versatile items in your closet. Or it could be the opposite. Maybe you keep default buying the same basic tees, but what you actually want to wear on your typical day is something that's a little bit more creative or exciting in your closet. And the key here is just to pay attention to what's really working for you. There is so much insight to be found in what you're doing on a daily basis and what your favorite things are in your existing wardrobe. Even if you're just wearing the same couple of things on repeat, there is valuable information to be discovered in that. All right, the third tip is to shop for your real life. This one is everything, because so many of us are shopping for a version of our life that we're not actually living day to day. So ask yourself, where am I actually going this week? What do I actually need outfits for this season? Because when your wardrobe matches your real life, you. That is when things will start to click. And I also want to say this. You can create that feeling of newness without buying something. I want you to try wearing your pieces in new combinations. Try dressing something up that you usually wear casually and vice versa. Find a new place to wear something that you love. And you tend to save for a special occasion. Because sometimes it's not that your wardrobe is boring. It's not that it's outdated. It's just that you've been styling things this time, same way, all of the time. And you need to break it up. You need to have more fun and be more playful with that. And that's why I said earlier that you do not need more clothes. You need more clarity about what's working, and you need more creativity. To look at what you have in new ways. So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, okay, this makes so much sense, I understand why I'm caught in this cycle, but I don't actually know what I want my style and my wardrobe to look like yet. Maybe you're struggling with that alignment piece. This is exactly what we work on together. Inside her Style Collective. It's not about shopping more. It's about understanding your style. It's about building outfits that actually work for you and creating a wardrobe where everything feels cohesive and intentional so you're not relying on that temporary high or excitement of the new purchase anymore. You actually love and utilize what you've already bought. And then when it's time to shop, you will know with confidence what you need and you'll be sure that it's a smart investment that's going to last. I would love to help you have
- [18:29]
B
fun when you get dressed and buy
- [18:30]
A
pieces that feel good beyond the first wear. If that's something you want to team up on, Then head to herstylellc.com collective to get started. And just to bring this episode full circle, the goal is not to stop loving new clothes. That's part of the fun. I do encourage you to fill in gaps each season to bring in a couple of trends with intentionality. If you love to shop, you are a girl after my own heart. But the goal is to understand what's really happening in those moments so that you can make better decisions after that initial excitement wears off. Because when your wardrobe is aligned, it doesn't just feel good in the dressing room or when you're looking at your shopping cart online. It feels good on the random weekday when you are getting dressed without overthinking it and everything just works. And that is so much better than chasing that five minute shopping high over and over again. So start taking some of these steps that I shared with you to break free from this buying cycle. Before you know it, you are going to be in the same spot as me. Enjoying what you already own, having more fun, experimenting with what's in your wardrobe, and being a whole lot pickier about what makes the cut and earns its place in your closet. Trust me, you will not want to go back to your old ways either. And if you need some extra support getting to that place, you know I am always here for you.
- [19:52]
B
Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you want to stop copying everyone else's style and start dialing in your own swoon worthy signature look, head over to take my free 5 minute personal style quiz which you can find at the link in the show notes. If you've enjoyed our time together, please be sure to rate, review and subscribe to her style podcast so you never miss an episode. Finally, I invite you to make this a two way conversation and send me a DM over on Instagram eatherigstyle to let me know how I can best support you on your style journey. I'm always here for you in style and service. Until next time.