Scarves Scarfaholics Anonymous - shopping and mental health

[tina_catsandscarves]

It's been a while since I've posted here. I've stealthily made a disappearance off all social media (...again) after seeing all those scarfspiration pictures fuelled my buying in unhealthy ways (and also I really don't like facebook).

I'm also experiencing some changing life circumstances, I'm expecting a baby girl this summer (my first). So I decided to go through my scarf collection and cull a bit, since I was feeling overwhelmed by it, felt like i didn't give everything enough love and I had the weirdest phenomenon that looking at some colorways made me nauseous crazy, huh? smells wasn't bad for me but some colors lol

anyways. I went through my a bit over 30 scarves without judging when I bought them, and to my chagrin, many of the ones I let go were more recent purchases. So here's the hall of fame of the ones left behind, some of which are probably surprising, some aren't. Some of the main reasons were they don't make my heart sing, I don't feel like "i can't wait to wear it again" or they literally make me nauseous (flowers of SA, chemins de corail especially). Others I could only wear one way (Acte III) or they somehow worked on me but not with my wardrobe (artisanes). Many were too high in contrast for my soft autumn coloring and felt separate from me. Many are CSGMs - I seem to have a strong preference to wearing 90s and CSGM take a lot of wear to bring down cost per wear, but are also showing wear more quickly.

With the abysmal hit rate I've had with my recent purchases I'm really staying on ban island at the moment and fortunately, this season's collection is making it easy because there is nothing I remotely like (yay!).

obviously it's kinda wasteful to be buying and then reselling so quickly but my net final cost per wear for many of these is sub 10$ which to me is a luxury I am willing to splurge on (and is learning money I guess). I'm hopeful that I can bring down my avg cost per wear with the rest of my collection which i cherish even more after this most recent cull.
Please don't judge


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Oh wow, congratulations! I bet kitty (sorry I can’t remember her name!) is looking forward to a little “sister”
Your daily outfit/scarf pics on IG are missed, but I certainly understand your reluctance.

Now, about your collection...did you already let them go or you still contemplating (sorry if I’m being dense; it’s been a tough...year). And yes, had you posted them on IG I probably would have snapped up more than one!

 

[blydia]

Oh wow, congratulations! I bet kitty (sorry I can’t remember her name!) is looking forward to a little “sister”
Your daily outfit/scarf pics on IG are missed, but I certainly understand your reluctance.

Now, about your collection...did you already let them go or you still contemplating (sorry if I’m being dense; it’s been a tough...year). And yes, had you posted them on IG I probably would have snapped up more than one!

thank you!! kitty Shiva will be sooooo jealous lol
the scarves have moved on, all but the two CSGMs which are maybes but I'm wobbling hard on those two. probably I'll give them another go.

 

[BagsRGreat]

I am so happy for you, @blydia! You are having a baby princess! How positively wonderful! My only words of wisdom to offer are to enjoy every single, precious moment with your child, take more pictures of her more often than you think you should to chronicle her life as she will grow so very quickly, and perhaps most importantly, be sure to give your daughter lots of "tummy time" for her physical and neurological development. (That is something I wish someone would have told me almost two decades ago...)

But back to our obsession with Hermes scarves-- I admire your ability to curate your collection, and reduce it to only those scarves and shawls that make your heart sing, and complement your wardrobe. I have recently greatly reduced my scarf and shawl purchases, as I find I do not wear them as often as I would like. If I am staying at home, I just don't wear a scarf or shawl, unless it is particularly cold inside my home, and then I toss on a shawl for warmth. That's where my CSGMs come in handy. I do enjoy wearing a 90 cm scarf out to a restaurant, though.

Nowadays, I will only consider purchasing a shawl or scarf if I am totally in love with its artistic design or depiction, and every single one of its colors. I am now much more fussy about a stray color that I do not like in a scarf, and sometimes there is a scarf color way with just one color in it that ruins my enjoyment of the design. Now I will avoid purchasing those items with discordant colors entirely, no matter how much I love the entire design. In truth, I now have more than enough Hermes scarves/shawls/maxi twillys to wear and enjoy for the rest of my days. Perhaps I should look to frame a particular 90 cm, if I feel I inclined to purchase any new designs. We shall see. If I purchase another scarf, it is going to be one that makes me practically scream out loud at the beauty of it.

 

[blydia]

I am so happy for you, @blydia! You are having a baby princess! How positively wonderful! My only words of wisdom to offer are to enjoy every single, precious moment with your child, take more pictures of her more often than you think you should to chronicle her life as she will grow so very quickly, and perhaps most importantly, be sure to give your daughter lots of "tummy time" for her physical and neurological development. (That is something I wish someone would have told me almost two decades ago...)

But back to our obsession with Hermes scarves-- I admire your ability to curate your collection, and reduce it to only those scarves and shawls that make your heart sing, and complement your wardrobe. I have recently greatly reduced my scarf and shawl purchases, as I find I do not wear them as often as I would like. If I am staying at home, I just don't wear a scarf or shawl, unless it is particularly cold inside my home, and then I toss on a shawl for warmth. That's where my CSGMs come in handy. I do enjoy wearing a 90 cm scarf out to a restaurant, though.

Nowadays, I will only consider purchasing a shawl or scarf if I am totally in love with its artistic design or depiction, and every single one of its colors. I am now much more fussy about a stray color that I do not like in a scarf, and sometimes there is a scarf color way with just one color in it that ruins my enjoyment of the design. Now I will avoid purchasing those items with discordant colors entirely, no matter how much I love the entire design. In truth, I now have more than enough Hermes scarves/shawls/maxi twillys to wear and enjoy for the rest of my days. Perhaps I should look to frame a particular 90 cm, if I feel I inclined to purchase any new designs. We shall see. If I purchase another scarf, it is going to be one that makes me practically scream out loud at the beauty of it.

Thank you so much! And yes, I wholeheartedly agree with your philosophy. for me, too everything has to be a screaming YES!!! to purchase more scarves going forward. I'm also considering ordering them online, so I can play with them in the quiet of my home with my wardrobe and don't have a SA hovering over me and don't have the mental barrier of returning something in store rather then just sending it back.

 

[blydia]

So I thought I'd share this fun thing I like to do with stylebook. First off, I track my scarf cost per wear (I'm nerdy enough to have an excel sheet for that) and I pulled out all scarves that have a CPW above 25. Then I also pulled out my tops with the least wear (as captured by my stylebook logging) because I want to give them a bit more love. From there, I took the color palette created by those tops and completed it with some bottoms and some covers (my formula is bottom- sweater/tee - cover (cardi, jacket, blazer) and scarf). I came up with this little spring capsule wardrobe that I'll now use for the next month or two, rotating through the scarves and whenever I hit CWP 25 on a scarf I'll store it away, gradually reducing the number of scarves. I did the same thing a year ago and I came up with so many great outfits, so figured I'd repeat the game. Here's my capsule:

and in action (forgive the ugly iron lol)
edit: I'll use this time to give Plumes and Kawa another good go to see if I start loving them more.

 

[Langsam]

So I thought I'd share this fun thing I like to do with stylebook. First off, I track my scarf cost per wear (I'm nerdy enough to have an excel sheet for that) and I pulled out all scarves that have a CPW above 25. Then I also pulled out my tops with the least wear (as captured by my stylebook logging) because I want to give them a bit more love. From there, I took the color palette created by those tops and completed it with some bottoms and some covers (my formula is bottom- sweater/tee - cover (cardi, jacket, blazer) and scarf). I came up with this little spring capsule wardrobe that I'll now use for the next month or two, rotating through the scarves and whenever I hit CWP 25 on a scarf I'll store it away, gradually reducing the number of scarves. I did the same thing a year ago and I came up with so many great outfits, so figured I'd repeat the game. Here's my capsule:
View attachment 5021073View attachment 5021080
and in action (forgive the ugly iron lol) View attachment 5021097
edit: I'll use this time to give Plumes and Kawa another good go to see if I start loving them more.

Brilliant!

 

[laurenad]

thank you all so much! It was a long journey here and we are over the moon to finally be expecting a little addition to our family

on popular request, here's my current collection, screen shotted from stylebook. You can see the Kawa Ora CSGM and Plumes CSGM are still in there because they sit in trial separation, may still change my mind on those.

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There is a ton of cohesion in this collection - you can see what colors you really feel comfortable with! Congratulations to you!

 

[hpryohwa]

So I thought I'd share this fun thing I like to do with stylebook. First off, I track my scarf cost per wear (I'm nerdy enough to have an excel sheet for that) and I pulled out all scarves that have a CPW above 25. Then I also pulled out my tops with the least wear (as captured by my stylebook logging) because I want to give them a bit more love. From there, I took the color palette created by those tops and completed it with some bottoms and some covers (my formula is bottom- sweater/tee - cover (cardi, jacket, blazer) and scarf). I came up with this little spring capsule wardrobe that I'll now use for the next month or two, rotating through the scarves and whenever I hit CWP 25 on a scarf I'll store it away, gradually reducing the number of scarves. I did the same thing a year ago and I came up with so many great outfits, so figured I'd repeat the game. Here's my capsule:
View attachment 5021073View attachment 5021080
and in action (forgive the ugly iron lol) View attachment 5021097
edit: I'll use this time to give Plumes and Kawa another good go to see if I start loving them more.

This is amazing! CPW tracking is a great idea! I love my scarves so much, but most of them are just sitting in the closet waiting to be worn. I'm going to try assembling a few outfits as well. Thanks for sharing