How will I survive a shopping-ban?

A week ago the city was having a taste of Spring! I took a long walk through the inner city and just enjoyed the light, the water and all the happy faces. We are a ceazy people that way, the minute the sun shines we go crazy. But it is a smart tactic – because just a few days later we had a bit of a snow blizzard, and parts of the country was snowed in. So you have to love what you get, right?

Today, a week later the snow i slowly falling again so any hope of wearing lighter clothing can be forgotten!

Anyway, I have been pretty strict and wearing only my capsule wardrobe of 35 and last month I tested something new. I turned all the hangers and then when I used something I turned the hanger around. By the end of the month I could easily see what I used and what I didn´t. Really interesting exercise, as it turns out. I didn´t use more than one dress (for a nice dinner out with son) for the entire month! And I used to wear a dress every day three years ago! My style has truly changed.

I still love dresses and three will go back into my closet for February, but mostly I am wearing combinations of jeans or trousers/ a top and a cardigan. During weekends I usually go for jeans and a big sweater. And tops under cardigan includes a crisp white shirt.

A quick look into my closet reveals I´m true to my color-map. Loads of blues,  black and some white and just touches of red and pink (mostly scarves). I DO NEED some more red and pinks and maybe violets in my wardrobe as spring and summer returns.

I have removed tops from last month that I never wore, and light cardigans that I never wore. February will be an another month of chunky knits and t-shirts.

I have however been on something close to a shopping-spree. Turns out I went in to the center of Stockholm last weekend and the largest H&M-store on Hamngatan. Unfortunately for me they had loads of pretty stuff in my SIZE (can you believe it? H&M never has my size!) so I went a bit crazy. And very guilt-ridden afterwards. Well, maybe not so much. I found some really nice things.

I paid and left the store with my big bag of goodies and walked down to Stureplan for a look in the &Other Stories-shop. And my bag started off the alarm! It yelled like it was supposed to wake the dead. Of course they had forgot to take off an alarm at H&M (on a pretty floral shirt), so there was nothing to do but to walk back. But it stopped me in my tracks, and I didn´t shop anything more that day. Funnily enough I didn´t send off any alarms when I left the H&M-store, but I did when I entered it to remove the alarm… It was my Winona Ryder-moment, except I had paid for everything!

So after that spree I decided to take a shopping-ban for two months. As I found three big bags of stuff I have put away because I can’t/won’t/will never use again, well, I have to realize I have enough stuff. And I will sell some in the two months to come. I do it very very slowly but I still do it. My goal is still to build a capsule-wardrobe and minimize my shopping and I guess H&M just helped me with that goal by not taking off the alarm!

How will I survive a shopping-ban? Let´s see…