How to stop fast fashion: "Sometimes we don't need retail therapy, we need real therapy"

Fast fashion brands have been peddling the promise of shiny new outfits driving happiness for over two decades, which is just long enough for most of us to recognize that happiness is not really what fast fashion offers. But given how cheap and easy it is to buy, and a cocktail dress or a pair of shoes can follow us around the internet, breaking away from fast fashion can be difficult for even the most conscious consumer.

According to psychologist Chris Cheers, sometimes the first step to changing your behavior is to notice the beliefs behind it. He says that, psychologically, fashion can be based on comparisons or meeting expectations, your brain can understand clothing as a space where it must avoid the threat of not dressing the way you want. In other words: fit in.

" So maybe you're thinking, "If I don't buy this, I can't go to that party. . Or, 'If I don't buy this, people won't think I'm sexy or people won't want to date me,'” he says. The key to addressing and changing this behavior is noticing the thought and understanding that you don't necessarily have to believe it.

Cheers says a helpful exercise is to follow the thought to the end. If your brain suggests that you will be more popular or more desirable in the new purchase, think about what is happening in reality. Is a new top really going to give you the meaningful life you want? "Sometimes we don't need retail therapy, we need real therapy," he says.

In the meantime, you you can put in place some strategies to change your buying habits. . Here, people who have successfully stopped buying fast fashion explain how they got there and stuck to it.

The rule of three

In 2019, Lauren Bravo, author of How To Break Up With Fast Fashion, challenged herself to go the whole year without buying anything “new-new”. On the last day of 2018, she panickedly bought five dresses from a fast fashion retailer (and returned four). “Realizing that none of those dresses really satisfied my craving was a big deal,” she says. It helped her review her shopping habits.