the paradox of choice
have you ever thought the reason you have nothing to wear is because you have too much to wear
If you follow me on IG, then you know last month I took a quick trip to NYC for a Fashion Week kickoff event with Remake. Since I don’t travel much, I went to my parent’s house to borrow a suitcase and my mother; who had no idea this simple question would put in motion the events that would spark this piece, said, “Lord Shanna, you just going overnight, why do you need that big ol’ suitcase?” and my response of course, “So I have room to pack options mother” and then I left to pack. By 10 PM; when I should’ve been in bed sleeping to make my 5 AM train, in typical Shanna fashion - no pun intended, I was workshopping a few looks to take with me and the situation was getting dire.
A wrap dress and a hat. Navy blue trousers and a knit cardigan. Then that look with an antique doily collar - immediately no! A red jacket with jeans and a red hat. A few looks I didn’t even take pictures of.
As the clock struck 10:30, partly because I was tired, partly because I was getting overwhelmed, I decided to just pack the navy blue trousers, a blue cashmere sweater, the knit cardigan, a white Doen blouse, the antique doily collar to pair with either a pair of loafers or a striped blue and white heels. I threw in a pair of jeans for good measure because when all else fails, I can never go wrong with a pair of jeans. My mind was in complete overload - from the anxiety of thinking I wouldn’t wake up in time, to that sudden dread you get when you think you left your oven on; I cut it off, stressing about what I was gonna wear needed to come off the list. I was gonna have to make a look work with what I took and in the end, the look was looking if I must say so myself!
As I was on my train ride home I started to think about the “Paradox of Choice”; a concept popularized by psychologist Barry Schwartz in his book, The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, and how that applies to our wardrobes. Schwartz argues that an abundance of options can counterintuitively lead to less happiness, less satisfaction, and hamper the ability to make a decision because; quoting from Schwartz’s 2006 Ted Talk, “despite having all the choices we desire, we find it difficult to choose at all.
Quoting research from a 2022 Vouge article written by Emily Chan, researchers found that a “sufficient” wardrobe consists of 74 garments but according to an informal survey done in 2020 by Gold Zipper, the average wardrobe globally consists of 148 garments. And if you factor in that on average US consumers buy 53 new garments per year; roughly one piece per week, you can see how it doesn’t take long to have a closet filled with stuff that can lead to overwhelm. And I know just looking at the numbers it doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you compare it to the 40 pieces the average French wardrobe had in the 60’s, that’s a 270 percent increase over the last 64 years; a growth rate of 4.5 percent every ten years.
And there are a lot of things that have contributed to this.
We’ve been conditioned to buy stuff as a way to showcase financial abundance. The more stuff one has equates to their amount of wealth and it turns into a vicious cycle of buying to prove you have the money to do so. When it comes to clothes specifically, there’s an added layer of “looking the part” as clothes have been positioned as the great equalizer to the ruling class; something I go into a bit of detail about here.
The sizes of our home closets. A video by TikTok creator Elliot Duprey, talked about the size of modern home closets and our buying habits. He argued that our clothing consumption growth can in part be tied to how much bigger our closets have gotten and while there’s no data to back it up, when you do a bit of research, it makes sense.
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According to research in this Medium article by Leileier_Home, before the mid-ish 1800s, it was standard for people to store their clothes in wardrobes or chests. When built-in closets would come along, they would be small and simple but nearing the end of the 1800s, wealthy homeowners would start to have custom walk-in closets built and by the mid-1900s they would become a staple in middle-class homes as well. Today, they’re a selling feature for most house hunters.
Social media; because of course. And I don’t feel the need to go on a deep dive about how it has contributed to hyperconsumerism and overconsumption because it’s analyzed and dissected daily; there is nothing new I can bring to the conversation. The one thing I will say is, that while it’s fair to blame social media, it doesn’t deserve all of it. Rampant consumption existed before its existence, this medium just fanned the flames until it turned into the inferno we’re dealing with now.
These; and 100 other factors I’ve left out, have created a cycle of buying far more clothes than we need, with the potential for us to become overwhelmed with the choices triggering us to buy more stuff because we’re not happy with the choices we have. Again quoting from Schwartz’s 2006 Ted Talk, “….and if we manage to overcome the paralysis and make a choice, we end up less satisfied with the result of the choice because if the choice is not perfect its easy to imagine that you could have made another choice that would’ve been better.”
I can remember the days of standing in front of my closet willing an outfit to jump out because I was already ten minutes late, getting increasingly upset, until I finally threw on look a that I wasn’t a fan of, and feeling uncomfortable all day while thinking to myself, “I don’t have anything to wear” triggering me to go by more stuff only to repeat the cycle again and again and again until my closet was so full of choices, I would choose the same things over and over because I was overwhelmed. Over the years, I’ve significantly paired down my closet and while I still have moments I can’t think of a look to save my life, those moments are few far, and in-between, and can’t help but think it’s in part to the fact I have less to choose from.
You hear a lot of, “Oh you have nothing to wear because everything you have is trendy” or “You just don’t know how to style the things you have” or “You don’t know what your style is” and these things can be true but have we ever examined if we just have too much and are overwhelmed with the choices?
Dear reader, this is not my pitch to the masses to adopt a minimal 30-piece capsule wardrobe by Marie Kondo-ing your closet to death; I tried it and it DID NOT spark joy, or am I flexing some moral superiority because I’ve managed to create a fulfilling closet with less, I’m just asking the next time you think you don’t have anything to wear, maybe its because you have too much.
Shanna! How did you know this was on my list to talk about..you worded it better than I ever could. More clothing more problems I'm seeing ha