How I Tried, And Mostly Failed, To Buy A New Fall Wardrobe

Please do come on this online shopping journey with me.

This will never be me. (Photo by freestocks on Unsplash)

A couple of weeks ago I got real depressed about having nothing to wear and also being broke and possibly also about being in the throes of middle age and so I decided that I would try something new: I was going to give myself a budget for new clothes and buy them all at once, with the hope that by doing this I would somehow manage to get stuff that would feel a bit more cohesive and not just like, a random top that I impulsively bought because I saw a Facebook ad that told me it was on sale. I would also try not to think about how I was putting these clothes on a credit card that really didn’t need anything else put on it.

So I did, and I stayed up way too late one night buying stuff online. My timing turned out to be great, because a lot of stores were having random fall sales! So I bought:

• 3 oversized button-down shirts

• 1 shirt with a Peter Pan collar

• 1 sweater

• 1 pair of jeans

• 1 blazer

• a pair of silver loafers

• a pair of satin-y Mary Jane flats

You can see everything I bought here.

This was it! I was positive that I would finally have a series of outfits where I would feel somewhat on-trend but still like I was in my 40s and not 15, that looked nice but also were versatile enough that I could wear different places, and that would go with a few of the clothing items that I already had in my closet.

HAHAHAHAHA. Oh, I was so naive.

Here is how everything went:

The Mary Janes came first. They were too wide. It turns out that I have a wide toe box but narrow feet!? It’s a great combination, really makes it easy to buy shoes. (I AM BEING VERY SARCASTIC.)

Then the loafers came. I guess getting loafers was wishful thinking because they fit me length-wise but my heel slid right out of those shoes, like it had zero intention of ever staying put. I got some heel pads but let’s be real, heel pads have never actually worked in the history of the world, right? At least not for me. (They did not work.)

Next up was the Peter Pan collar shirt. I took it out of the package and thought, oh dear. And oh dear, indeed! I had failed to read the reviews that said it runs very small, and I could barely button it. Also the material felt itchy. Big NOPE.

The jeans came next. This time, I *had* read the reviews, which said that they ran a little big. But they ran ENORMOUSLY big, like at least two sizes too big.

At this point I was starting to get a little nervous. Nothing, so far, had fit. The next thing that arrived was the blazer, which perhaps not coincidentally, was the most expensive item on the list. It came via FedEx from France, wrapped in scented tissue (normally this would gross me out but it smelled SO GOOD). I put it on — it felt substantial. Maybe it was a tad large? But I also kind of liked the oversized look. It was a keeper! My first!

The final package arrived a couple of days later, with the three button-down shirts and the sweater. The sweater was nice — it fit well and I liked that it was a thin merino wool, because the window for wearing heavy sweaters in Los Angeles is extremely small. The shirts were not great. One of them had been billed as oversized but it was basically a dress, and not a flattering one. Another had been billed as the “perfect shirt” but it was too small. The last one — the “classic shirt” — was okay. I think in an ideal world, I probably would have sent it back, but at this point I was feeling so desperate for something new in my closet that I have elected to overlook what seem to me to be cartoonishly large cuffs and collar and make it work. Will I come to regret this decision? Oh, most definitely.

My big takeaway from this experience is that I wish shopping in person was a more pleasant experience, because shopping online for things you need to try on is really not. I don’t like having to front the money to order multiple sizes, not to mention the environmental impact of returning stuff. I also like the immediate gratification of shopping IRL: you try it on and you buy it. But the whole reason I’ve been shopping online is that shopping in person is so frustrating! The stores have limited inventory and even more limited sizes; “I can order that for you” defeats the whole purpose of my going to the store in the first place. And I’m someone who generally wears straight sizes. It’s a thousand times worse if you’re “plus” size or petite or anything besides being 5’4” to 5’7” and wearing a size 0 through 12.

I’m not pretending to have an answer, either. I get why it’s not cost effective for stores to keep a gajillion things in stock! But I remember the days when I used to love to go shopping. I’m sure age is also a factor; a lot of the stuff in stores just doesn’t feel like it’s for me, and I know, I know, anything can be for anybody in theory, but in practice, I’m just not going to wear a tube top and low-slung wide-leg jeans to preschool drop-off! If you are, I of course only have the utmost respect for you.