"I Have to Have those Chanel Pants"

    Wendy Plumb,

                    Owner, The Cottage

“I Have To Have Those Chanel Pants!”

When I was in my twenties, I lived in Monte Carlo for almost 10 years.  I married a young Italian man who spoke very good English, but whose life style was also very Italian.  At first, I didn’t work, didn’t go to school and had very few friends.  I did however have a clothing allowance and I thought that was the cat’s meow!

My closest friends were “shop girls”. I hung out in all the major clothing stores with the girls who worked there.  They were young, beautifully dressed and all spoke English, as the city was primarily based on tourism.  I always got to see the latest, newest arrivals first, and felt very privileged.  Then I would get my husband to come and buy me a few outfits, depending on his budget for the month.  I would beg and plead for just one more “pair of shoes”, because I was told the following month they would be sold out. 

After a few years of living in an apartment on Avenue Princess Grace, we moved into a hotel suite.  Space was limited and I had to put a lot of my things in what was called a ‘cave’ in the basement of the hotel.  I switched my clothing depending on the season, and spent a lot of time in the ‘cave’ looking at all my clothes and dreaming of what I was going to buy next.

One of my closest girlfriends, a beautiful young woman from Argentina, worked at Chanel.  One day she showed me the latest new Chanel pants that came in and said she thought they would look great on me.  Only a few were coming in and I had to have a pair.  My monthly allowance was already at its limit and I knew my husband wouldn’t make any exceptions.  I was so obsessed with having those pants I just had to figure a way around my husband’s budget.  I woke up at 2 a.m. one morning with a plan.  I shook my husband awake to talk about it and to negotiate.  He thought I was completely out of my mind.  It was 2 a.m. in the morning. “What was wrong with me”, he yelled!  

What was wrong with me?  My life was so empty I had no clue it was being consumed by ‘material’ things, which I had become obsessed with having. 

Not long after that I nearly had a ruptured appendix and was rushed to Princess Grace Hospital.  I spent 10 days there recovering.  I had so many flowers in my room you would have thought I died.  An American friend of my mom’s sent me books to read while I was recovering.  Ironically they were all books on “spirituality”.  I could not stop reading them; I read and read and read.  I began to realize how unhappy I was inside, how unfulfilled.  I read about how your health can be affected by storing suppressed feelings of guilt, shame and anger.  I began to realize that having a ruptured appendix might have been the sign of stored self-anger.  It was all so intriguing to me.

Today my life is completely different.  Do I still like nice things and have earthly desires?  Yes, of course!  But my priorities and reasons why I have what I have are completely different. 

My advice: Try to think before you shop.

Here is a concept most of us really don’t consider; thinking before shopping.  Take a moment and ask yourself, “Where am I in my life right now?  Can I honestly afford this purchase without regretting it - and will it make me feel good when I own it?”  As a store owner, I see this attitude occurring more and more on women, probably due in large part to our present economy.  People are more aware of what they are buying and need a valid reason for making a specific purchase.  Of course, there are many who do not, and that’s OK too; we are all in different economic situations.  But regardless of your particular circumstance, it can still be a propitious time for many to take a different approach to shopping.  When we begin to change as a community our entire environment will change.  The values we pass on to our children will change.   As I mentioned in my last blog, cleaning out my daughter’s room and passing on her excess clothes and toys to others was an absolute joy to teach to her.  I am confident she will grow up recognizing there are other people in the world less fortunate than she is, and giving when you can is a wonderful asset.  I also hope to teach her that ‘no matter what you have doesn’t determine who you are’.

My life in Monte Carlo was a true testimony to this hypothesis.  In a place where everyone seemed to enjoy such extravagant luxuries, it was amazing to see how many problems they had as well.  The amount of money a person had didn’t take away the pain.  In fact, for many, it even made things more difficult.  How can you have so much and be so miserable?  This was something I struggled with for years. Many of my acquaintances thought because I lived in a hotel suite for a few years it was the greatest luxury you could have.  But for me it was one of the more depressing times in my life.  I had no freedom to be creative; I was obsessed with clothes and I had no idea who I was as an individual.  Maybe now if I lived in a hotel suite I would feel differently, particularly with a little less cleaning and cooking. Ha, ha!

I must admit, I still struggle with how much is too much and how much is just enough.  I still love to shop and will always be drawn to beautiful things.  I can honestly say that after having my daughter many of my priorities changed.  I never thought I would bypass those great jeans this season and stick with the ones I had last year in order to send her to summer camp.  It was a profound lesson for me: not having the latest handbag or shoes for the current season.  I always prided myself on being “fashionable”, and that meant having what was “hot” for the season.  Who was I without that image? 

When we stop putting all the focus on the outside and begin to concentrate on who we really are behind our “style”, what we discover can be fascinating.  In my shop, I now notice more of the woman behind the clothes; the spirit in their eyes reveals so much.  And the confidence they exhibit when wearing their clothes.  It says so much about a woman when she can throw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt (which suits her body type) and accent it with a gorgeous necklace she may have had for years, and a vintage handbag from the seventies.

By doing your own personal inventory you can really rediscover what you already have.  So when you go make that next purchase, it can be something of value, as opposed to something you have repeated season after season, only to be stored at the bottom of your closet.

In Summary

I would just like to end with a cute little story: It was my birthday last week and my daughter loves to make cards and draw pictures as part of her gifts.  One of my presents was a drawing of a bear.  The bear was divided into different sections and she had perfectly colored each part a different color.  There was only one portion of the bear that was striped.  When her daddy asked her, why the stripes on the bear, she replied, “Daddy that’s the bear’s STYLE.”

See you again, 

Xo

Wendy

You can learn more about consignment stores and how they work at The Cottage Boutique website.