Have prices killed "Serendipity Shopping"?
also: why it matters, what we can do
In the new year I gave myself some shopping parameters; I wanted to take a critical look at my personal consumption. “One of my 2024 style/shopping resolutions has been to shop less in a holy-grail way and more in a serendipitous way. I don’t want to go down a mastery hole. I don’t want to get hyped up. I want to be inspired, encounter things, have slow moments.” I’ve been calling this approach, this feeling of organic, open, meandering, discovery … “Serendipity Shopping.”
Right now I’m in the midst of my one-item March. And I had kind of an aha last week that threw me a little! It started on Tibi’s last weekly style live. Amy Smilovic talked about how the shopping in Paris got very intense. And about how at a certain point people were walking into designer stores, holding up an image on their iPhone, asking if they had it, and if they didn’t, turning around and walking out.
Wow. That really made me feel a certain kind of way.
Sniper Shopping
What she described is the exact opposite of Serendipity Shopping, and I’ve started to think about it as “Sniper Shopping.” Uber intense, highly specific, with a tactical, precision element. (Notably, the tool you can use to secure an item on eBay is called Auction Sniper and I’ve felt really proud using it.)
This goal-oriented shopping is where you can get really obsessive. There is a hyper gaming element that sets in where ultimately, in a calmer state, you might even question: “Wait, do I even want this thing, like, genuinely?” And I’ve seen how easy it is to get into Sniper Shopping mode. In fact, I’ve bragged about it. “I sniped the last XX on sale on the Bergdorf site.” or, “This fall I’m laser focused.” I was thoughtful, I stuck to my list. I crossed x off my list and didn’t veer off course. That my shopping is “smart” and “targeted” has allowed me to feel “virtuous.” (It’s funny except when it’s not.)
Isn’t all shopping just shopping?
Short answer: It’s not. Not if you check your gut.
Already my March one-item only month has brought this realization. What I realize I miss most aren’t these sniped kills. In fact, knowing I can’t participate in that feels like more of a relief than a challenge! So that’s information. And what I miss are the spontaneous shopping moments, getting brunch with friends and then wandering into Veblen, the shop I love for men’s Balenciaga tees but also all sorts of secondhand discoveries and interesting encounters. Every time I walk in there, instead of an anonymous sniping experience, a picking off of wishlist items, I am guaranteed only that I will think and feel. That I will be exposed to things I could not have imagined. That I will experience a bit of creative inspiration. That I will smile.
Back when I lived in Boston, I shopped in person with a personal shopper at Saks for convenience and to save time. Sure, Saks is hardly a true, inspired shopping experience like Veblen, but it’s a different experience than what I do now. Shopping with another person at Saks, shopping multiple designers, it made me much more likely to encounter things I didn’t snipe-seek for myself and to challenge my perspective. I started shopping at Saks with a picture of a Dolce skirt I wanted that had red peppers all over it. That was the sniper mentality. But what happened was I built one and then a second relationship, getting introduced to different designers and pieces than I would have found for myself and trying new things, including new ways to style.
Now, I live blocks from the Design District, and I am much more in the snipe-realm. I am watching runway shows, thinking about pieces I want, parsing and considering, and asking for the pieces in the individual stores or seeking them out online, ideally for less. I’m not exposed to interesting (or any!) curated pulls. I lean on newsletters and IGs (and recently a styling session!) for styling inspiration. Shopping somewhere like Veblen or Capsool is where I get a shot of wonder and another perspective; these are the moments where I am not the one driving what I see.
The spontaneity killer(s)
I’ve realized that two things that kill spontaneous shopping are totally linked. Initially, I thought the biggest issue was the investment dressing mentality. A decision to think not just about the moment and not just about how you feel but about lifetime usage, and maybe even future salability. That’s why you might be picking off this piece and that like those people Amy mentioned in Paris. But I wasn’t asking myself why this mentality sets in.
Sunday, as I read more complaints about Phoebe Philo’s prices and read Becky talking about how far out of reach fashion has become, it made me realize it’s probably prices. The shame we have around “making a mistake” is that much greater when it’s a costly mistake. How can experimenting be fun when it’s such high stakes?
Of course we should be thoughtful about purchases, maybe even acting as if they were all astronomical for reasons of excess and environment. I’m seeing higher prices at Tibi, a brand whose pieces I love, which creates less price differentiation from that highest priced echelon of designer-led brands. And I notice how this makes me slower and more discerning in how I shop it. I start thinking in that investor way rather than feeling — hearing myself ask “will this sell out?” “will this be an ‘it’ item or can I safely just wait for sale?”
If you can only buy a certain number of things, which at these prices becomes more and more of a reality for more and more people, then of course you think strategically and pick out the items yourself ahead of time.
BD or NBD?
I think it’s kind of a BD. Shopping this way like can become like ticking off a grocery list: milk, and eggs and paper towels. Or more accurately, like an Amazon list. And this box-ticking, I need X kind of shopping is the kind of shopping that can become obsessive. Where wanderlusty shopping, touching and feeling, not knowing whether you’re going to come home with anything, doesn’t carry the same risk. It’s a different species, really, focusing on experience versus acquisition. It doesn’t speed your heart rate. It doesn’t have the same must-have intensity.
It’s that intensity that takes us out of who we usually are and can feel heightened and addictive. And shopping online can add dramatic fuel to a sniper shopping mentality. Online shopping means things can happen at greater speed and with world wide reach. Suddenly you have access to an overwhelming, uncurated search pool within which to snipe. Things happen fast, and marketers combine with tech to ratchet up the urgency with things like that “only one left” notation close to checkout.
I like (and invested in) Dora Maar precisely because it brings some curation via “muses” and has tight control over the quantity and quality of what comes in. In this way it’s much more of a spontaneous shopping experience, where you can discover a brand you didn’t know or happen upon a piece you love, rather than one where you’re just hunting down your specific items. You see things more clearly when you also see the Muse who has brought them together and learned some of their personal story. So while you might equally go to ssense not to check a box but to discover, say, an interesting new small brand or sneakers that feel special, you’re still fully the driver in an anonymous, solo experience. If something doesn’t grab you, there’s no muse, friend, advisor or store owner or associate to unearth its magic for you to see. It’s another feature of these obsessive shopping moments that they tend to happen while you’re alone with your feelings and rationalizations.
So what can we do?
Seek out spontaneous, IRL shopping moments when they make sense for you practically
When you find yourself shopping in an item-seeking way, stop and make sure you really viscerally love that item and aren’t just swept up in a notion of an important investment or something else
As in other areas, avoid self shaming in your words, thoughts and actions, including attaching morality to shopping (“I was bad”) - great piece on that and quotes within it from Kelly Williams here.
Train yourself in any context to take a more spontaneous approach, bringing the best of spontaneity into your shopping by
Minimizing anonymous and solo shopping
Looking for ways to experience curation versus sniping brand by brand, item by item
Creating a sense of wandering even online — drop in and leave at will, breathe deeply, check out new brands instead of sorting by those you know and searching specific items
Allow yourself to miss out on items and live through it as a regular practice
Check yourself and walk away when it feels tight, intense, sweaty, rote. Unless it’s actually bread and paper towel level shopping, it’s supposed to be enjoyable. And ideally even meaningful.
A note: I’ve kept this piece ungated because of the important message. Shopping should be life-additive. When it isn’t, consider a change in approach. We don’t have to have this, do this, or do it in any one way, you know?
XO, Rachel
The luckiest person is the one who has you for a slow shopping companion. Best curator and most fun. XOXO
This resonated with me as your pieces usually do, but especially because it also brings up the thorny issue of can you afford it? Frankly it terrifies me to see people mortgaging their futures to obtain more and more really expensive stuff. Sure you may be able to sell stuff later, but the vast majority will not be a profit or even a break-even proposition. We have normalized high fashion because it is so attainable, 7 days a week 24 hours a day. Shopping should be a slow experience that considers all the points you listed and then says what (if anything) will I go without to have this?