Some thoughts on minimalism.

While I was on maternity leave (we are talking one and a half year ago), I started noticing that minimalism, although not a new concept, was gaining heat. Lead by a couple, or maybe only one, suddenly popular blogs, everybody was doing their attempt at minimalism. Suddenly, it was all about having x pieces in the closet. Why not x+1 or x-1 was the first question that came to my nerdy mind. Then, it was a sea of black white  and grey. I don't know if it was the peculiar set of blogs I was reading, or if the internet was really having a minimalist moment, but that was what appeared from my feed. My feed is now quite different, by the way.

Don't get me wrong. I think consuming less should be a general goal of the western world. Less food, less water, less resources, and less clothes, which are ending up in the landfill often because we are tired of them, not because they are useless.

But at least, this whole trend sparkled some reflections, and I decided to buy only items that I thought have a decent staying power, well made and if possible made from natural fibers. And this opens a whole other discussion, since often methods for bleaching cotton or exctracting rayon are not really nature-friendly, but I had to start somewhere.

I started to try wearing all I have in my closet.

One of my main problems with this whole shift of behavior is that a lot of the clothes I can buy have a very short lasting time. Often they last one season only. But often I just can't afford better made ones right when I need them: I need to plan and save for my most expensive purchases. I wear my clothes heavily, I have a small child who often likes to clean her mouth on my shoulder, so my clothes need to be washed more often than they did before baby.

I know this is a very "first world problem". I have clothes, I have the means to buy new ones (even if I don't always want to), there is nothing really to complain. Maybe I am just longing for the " old days" when things were expected to last a few years. 

No conclusions here, just some ramblings.

Above is an old picture(2011) of my coat. I hope it will last me some more years. I still have the bag and the boots, too!