Hello again friends, it's the new year which means it's time to add up how many items of clothing I bought in the past year.
This tradition started after I saw an episode of Hasan Minhaj's show where he said that in the 80s, the average American bought a dozen new clothing items per year, but in the modern era the average is 68!
Since we all know fast fashion is super destructive, I think it's a good idea to focus on quality over quantity wherever we can, and get a few quality pieces that will last rather than many shoddy pieces that fall apart quickly.
In past years, my totals were:
2019: 8 items
2020: 16 (counting masks as a clothing item)
2021: 3 items (counting masks)
2022: 7 items
Drumroll, please:
2023: 6 items
Two hoodies, one pair of jeans, one pair of pajama pants, one denim jacket, and one pair of sneakers.
This is, admittedly, not counting the several socks I received as gifts this year. I'm not sure why everyone decided I needed socks? But I received socks as gifts like four times when I'm usually barefoot and already had a drawer full of socks. Perhaps people thought I was barefoot because I didn't own enough socks? LOL
So I'm pretty happy with my numbers. Again, I would get a few more things if I had more money, so if given the funds I'd probably be more on that 80s average of a dozen or so items. I could use some underwear and thermal shirts at this point, and I've had my eye on another hoodie with a betta and a cat on it so with my two snail hoodies, I'd have hoodie animal fam representation, hee hee. I live in hoodies these days.
But I'm just not one of those people that enjoys clothes shopping. I like to keep it simple. If fashion is really your passion, then cool, but I think for a lot of people it isn't and they just buy so much due to the nature of cheaply made, cheap to buy clothes and our disposable society.
So how many clothes did you buy last year (for yourself, not counting for other family members)? Are you an 80s American or a modern American on average, lol?
Happy new year and have a wonderful week! :)