If we take the Barbara Kruger maxim I shop therefore I am and take it not only to be true but also to mean that we buy things to prove our existence–to ourselves, to the world, to our heirs–well, then shopping is not all that trivial a pursuit. It’s as human an impulse as cave art; receipt-keeping is just another form of record-keeping. True, buying things is for people who can’t make (or make do with) things. But even if you can make things, you either don’t have the time, and even if you have it, you don’t have that much of it. Somehow, though, there is always time for shopping, like room for ice cream. Then also, shopping isn’t just/always buying things. Shopping is to buying things as having sex with another person is to having orgasms. It’s a lot more fun, and sometimes more painful, but generally less guaranteed. This isn’t to say you should shop with another person. Recently I went with my littler little sister, and that was fine, because I was only buying clothes–and those first great ink-blue Docs ($115)–for her. Otherwise I go it alone for fairly duh reasons. Most people only rush you up or slow you down or talk you in and out of the wrong things. Then again, I just could be better off alone than most people are (see: previous), in which case, ignore this and go with whoever you like who isn’t the same size as you. This is both a very petty and serious consideration. My favourite and least favourite part of shopping with a friend is when they stop, gasp, tug on the sleeve or the toe of some bizarre(ly expensive) thing and say “oh, this is so you.” When you agree it’s a thrill of admittedly stupid self-affirmation, or idea-of-self-affirmation, rather; when you don’t, it’s the queasiest moment. I guess you knew that? But you shouldn’t not think about it before you go shopping with someone you don’t 100 percent trust. And besides, only buying things because they’re “you” is a good way to never change, which only makes sense if you’re already the best. At a precious but inured 25, I know myself, and my tastes, and the massive area where those things overlap pretty well. I also get fucking tired of myself. The other day at Rac Boutique’s pop-up sale shop (198 Walnut Ave., til Sept. 7) I bought a knit muscle tank ($115, and that’s on sale, Jesus) that is frankly ugly. I mean, it combines a camouflage print with eye-searing neon, and did I say “muscle tank” already? But it turns out that three wrongs make a very satisfying extra-wrong. I wore it with dirty little jean shorts and old boots and people looked surprised by me (I might’ve made that up, but that doesn’t actually make it less true). Further to the above, you should read my friend and former work-pal Kate Carraway’s National Post column on shopping, in which she says that with every dollar, we young adults are voting on versions of ourselves. Even further to the above, which is now above the above, Cathy Horyn recently wrote about the five things you need for fall and said this: “If fashion in the last 10 to 20 years has taught men and women anything, it is that one element of your look should be a little wrong.” (I’ve said this too, so many times, although I can’t say how well I do it.) Dressing used to be about expressing yourself. Now it’s about expressing your selves. And so don’t fear the sale rack. People snottier or tonier than me dislike sale racks because–I’ve actually heard this said by more than one fashion editor–too many potentially unsavoury people have touched the clothes. Other things people say are “it’s on sale for a reason” and “because no one else wants it.” Exactly. And that makes it all the more special when you–nobody else, just you–do want it. Yesterday I found amazing semi-high black leather mules ($47 taxes in, whoa) by some random brand at Heel Boy. I love them almost more cause I paid less, but never mind, that’s my mom in me. Another mom-thing here: try everything on. It’s not the clothes you’re trying; it’s the effect of the clothes on you. I behave almost the same in change rooms as at art shows: I look, then I close my eyes. If I don’t feel anything, I just walk away, I don’t look back. Yesterday I was in Bicyclette, a lovely girly shop that stocks lower-end trend lines (dresses from $130; not cheap, okay, but at contemporary-fashion stalwarts like Jonathan & Olivia, they start at more like $450). I got all hot over a banana-candy silk Equipment shirt ($225), wanting to buy it straight off, but when I put it on and held still in it, my crush evaporated like drunkenness in extreme cold. I bought instead a flouncy black-and-navy skirt with perfect pockets that felt at once girlish and slouchy, like adolescence. I have a poorly tested theory, by the way, that young-adult style is defined by the teenager you never were. Girls I knew who dressed “slutty” or whatever turned out to be sweet, demure dressers as adults; on the other hand I, having been a sheltered nerdleen, will never resist an inappropriate hemline or braless opportunity. That’s also why, although I maintain a steady love for pleats and stripes and sweatshirts over oxfords, I’m continually yearning for the bleached, holey illusion of grunge. (I never really knew what it was. Probably still don’t.) Finally, go shopping now. This is the week–well, the second week out of four weeks–in which everything changes. Summer clothes are the cheapest; fall clothes are the newest. Whichever way of buying makes you the happiest hungriest existential-consumerist rat, you can find it now.
