Are We Just Promoting Consumerism Cloaked in a Style Cape?

Links, links, and more links, and with it, the demise of style patience and creativity

This post kicks off our Intentional Style Journey, together. It explains the why behind where the idea came from and is the basis behind what’s to come in the next couple of months. If you joined me recently because you wanted to dive deeper too, welcome. Let’s start our journey together. xx, Conni. Now, for a little backstory…

Clicks and links and links and clicks, I’ve been starting and stopping multiple posts because my brain is so consumed by trying to hash out what I come across that I can’t seem to finish one thing before getting distracted by something else, so I had to dive into this…

I like to follow people for their varied interests and different points of view on style but lately I’m finding that I’m getting swept up in a whirlwind of links, without even really noticing, and that is impacting how I interact with my personal style. And I’m not sure I like it. Here’s a little story…

A few weeks back I started following someone on social media that I met at a local event. We chatted via DM’s, set a date & met up at a cafe, had a great conversation, and she was truly delightful to sit with in person. There was depth. We discussed books, our shared interests, motherhood, and our love of travel. We left our cafe meet up and I had a genuine interest in this person.

Over the coming days, I’d see her reels and stories pop up on my feed. But something was nagging at me in the back of my brain, like an itch that I couldn’t figure out how to scratch. What was bugging me so much about what I was seeing? And then, there it was, like a pop of red in a sea of neutrals… over all the images, on top of a olive oil she liked, in the snack containers she was feeding her kids, the coat she was wearing, the necklace that was dangling from her neck. Every post, story, part of her online presence was linked to something she was selling. And it felt, I don’t know, in all honesty? It gave me the ick.

Maybe I’m disillusioned and social media has become a marketplace and no longer the creative outlet it once was. Is it now just marketplace of sellers? To whom are we selling? Right now, it’s each other. And my brain has turned into a churning ticker tape of links, links, and more links.

“Comment shop for my _______(fill in the blank)”

“These are the BEST ________(fill in the blank) you have to have for fall”

More, more, more.

And if we truly sat and COUNTED, truly counted, everything that we’ve purchased from someone, how much of it has caused us to feel, fulfilled. Are we addicted to style, or just addicted to consumerism? Are we REALLY, TRULY, developing a sense of style if we’re all being gifted, sold to, or influenced by a purchase which is driving a sale at the end of the day??

What would our style really, I mean really, look like if we could turn the social media influencing button down. What I think makes it SO different now than what it used to be like pre-2010’s that IT IS EVERYWHERE now. It permeates everything we do. We can’t easily put it away like we can shelve a magazine. Would we be swimming in debt from the latest thing we had to have, would we feel the desire to always be buying the next something to scratch that itch? Admittedly, I currently have on my wishlist the Row soft flat leather loafers. But where did this desire even come from??? These are the questions I find myself asking. The bar for “stuff” keeps getting higher and higher, more unreachable.

I’m embarking on a journey, in the next few weeks, here on Substack, and I hope you join me, to help us find our “personal style” by digging in and rediscovering what style truly means. I think it would be fun and meaningful to share this together with you, because depth is what I’m craving right now. It’s time to fill in the blanks with what makes our personal style truly personal to us, time to dig in deep, start asking the questions, doing the work. And it doesn’t include the word “shop”.

I want to start telling a story, and I want to do it through style. I want a way to explain why I want what I want, why I wear what I do, and a way to understand why I’m feeling so grossed out by all the - “comment fill in the blank” for my link. I want you to be able to identify your own personal tastes, so that we’re not all carbon copies of one another but yet can have that singular identity that says, I like this but I also like that because….

We’ll start next week on our multi-part style journey. The next post (post #1) and all subsequent posts will have an actionable question/activity called a style exploration that will ask you to DO something to set you off on our journey together. (If you’re a paid subscriber, I’m thinking of offering some live calls throughout the week, so if you’re interested in that, chime in and we can work our way through this together!)

What we need is A BIG SLOW DOWN, some patience, some deep work to revive our style creativity and find ourselves again. I’m ready. I want to craft this journey, with you, for you and me. Are you in?? If you’re in this with me, leave a quick note so I know you’re here. Then I’ll see you on Monday with our first style exploration for the Intentional Style Reset.