Every year, the same thing happens when you want to shop Black Friday.
The emails flood in. Everything’s marked down. You see things you love – beautiful pieces, great prices – and you buy them.
Then they sit in your closet untouched because they don’t work with anything else you own.
Listen, I’m not here to tell you not to shop the sales. I love a good deal as much as anyone. But after 30+ years of styling women, I’ve seen what happens when you shop without a purpose. And I’ve also seen what’s possible when you do it deliberately.
Here’s what I mean.
These Freda Salvador loafers – I got them for half the price 😍.
But here’s what’s important to know about this type of sale shopping.
The Difference Between Deliberate Shopping and Impulse Buying
I knew exactly what I was looking for – the style, color, brand. I’d had my eye on them for a while, went into the store to confirm my size. And then when the opportunity arose – I was ready to pounce.
Very different from being bombarded by “BLACK FRIDAY SALE” emails that lure you onto sites, shopping for things you didn’t want, hitting buy because you’d save 65%.
It’s like what my client said…
IF YOU NEVER WEAR IT, IT WAS A WASTE OF MONEY!
This is the pattern I see constantly. You find something you love, you buy it because it’s on sale, and then it sits in your closet because it doesn’t go with the rest of your wardrobe. Another piece that looked perfect in the store but has nowhere to go in your actual life.
I’m not here to tell you to refrain from sale shopping. And I am definitely not against finding an unexpected delight that’s marked down.
I just want to make sure that you are buying for the right reasons. Which doesn’t include “because it was cheap” or “I saved so much.”
Why Shopping Without Purpose Doesn’t Work
Shopping is hard, I know.
I hear it every day from women I speak to – successful, smart women who can run businesses and manage complex lives, but can’t figure out why their closet doesn’t work.
You buy things you genuinely love – maybe on vacation, maybe on sale – and then you get home and realize they don’t fit with anything else. Because you’re shopping for what looks good in the moment, not for what you’re building toward.
This is why with my clients, we don’t even get to store shopping until after we’ve worked together for a bit. I need to know exactly what we are looking for – what’s her style, what she needs for her life, what will work with the rest of her wardrobe – before we hit the stores.
Shopping without this purpose is how you end up with a closet full of individual pieces that never come together. You keep buying, hoping the next thing will be the answer. It never is.
But the reward, when you do it deliberately – is a cohesive and versatile wardrobe made up of beautiful pieces that not only work for you, they work with each other.
And hopefully, you’ve also been able to include some discovery as well so you have a collection of new brands that are right for you.
“I now have MY brands,” a client told me recently.
These are brands she’d never heard of before we started working together, but now they’re her go-to because they fit her life, her style, and her wardrobe perfectly.
When we started, she was in an expansion phase in her business and needed pieces that communicated her sharp elegance. So that’s what I helped her with. It didn’t happen overnight. We took our time to make sure that everything she bought belonged in her wardrobe. And the fact that some of them happened to be on sale was just a bonus.
This is the difference between random shopping and curating a wardrobe. One gives you a collection of things. The other gives you a wardrobe that makes life easier.
So before you buy anything during these sales, I want you to have what I use with every single purchase – for myself and for my clients. These are the questions that separate impulse buying from strategic wardrobe curation.
My Deliberate Shopping Inquisition
Save this to your phone and use it this week.
Click here to see the easiest way to tell if you made a good purchase.