Inspiration Over Acquisition
Not everything beautiful has to be bought
I really love spring. I know it’s basic/cliché to go on about tulips and cherry blossoms, but it really does fill me with so much happiness each year. The colors…the light…the way people emerge with new energy after months of cold and darkness.
I didn’t fully appreciate spring until Covid. Before that, I would always make a loose plan to see the cherry blossoms in the botanical gardens, but rarely make it there. Then I’d get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of day-to-day in the city that the season often passed me by. But when the world shut down in late February/early March, there was nothing to do but notice the changes outside.
We lived in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and with nowhere to go, we fell into a daily rhythm of long walks in the park. My son was five months old, and each morning and evening, we wandered the neighborhood — watching the dogs run off leash, grabbing to-go cocktails with friends from a distance, and noticing the small changes around us each day. It was the first time I truly appreciated spring for what it is.
At the same time, photographer Jamie Beck was in the South of France doing her Isolation Creation series. Like many others, I was totally captivated by her daily photographs, often of flowers, nature, and objects she foraged. It provided a sense of solace (community, even), in such a fraught and isolating time.
The world feels fraught again — economically uncertain, with many people feeling cautious about spending. On top of that, I’m five months pregnant — not in a place to be buying much in terms of clothes — so I’m trying to just enjoy gathering inspiration, without the constant urge to buy and own.
Early last year, I started this newsletter after feeling immense holiday burnout. I stopped using Instagram because I was so overwhelmed by constantly feeling like I needed stuff. And I fell in love with Substack because it reminded me of magazines — consuming fashion and style content with context, so I could enjoy it without an ever present urge to buy things.
I’ve always loved fashion and style content. Before everything was online, I would devour magazines, cutting and pasting my favorite things into scrapbooks. I have a couple from 1999 and — honestly — I still like most of the looks. I didn’t really think I would ever buy any of it, I just loved to pull it together.
As fashion and style moved from the pages of magazines to the web — and then to social media — everything became instantly attainable. Without even realizing it, we got used to the idea that if we liked something, we could have it right away.
Somehow, moving the images into a visual space disconnects me from the feeling that I have to own them. It’s enough just to keep them.
Over the past year, I’ve shifted the way I consume style content. Instead of adding things I like to wishlists or shopping carts, I pull the images into look books and mood boards (I use Freeform on my Mac, but anything will do). It’s less about creating a shopping list — and more about building a visual inspiration board for styles, colors, and looks that resonate with me. Somehow, moving the images into a visual space disconnects me from the feeling that I have to own them. It’s enough just to keep them.
I’ve saved so much — scattered across random apps and folders — that I almost never go back to. My interview with
— the queen of the mood board — was a great lesson in how to find connections and inspiration in what you have collected:I save things in three places: Instagram, Pinterest, or my camera roll. Say I'm designing my living room and looking for inspiration—not specific furniture, but the feeling I'm after—I'll look in those three places and pull anything that jumps out at me. It could be something literal, like somebody else's house, or something abstract, like a piece of typography that feels tonally in the realm of what I'm after.
After pulling things (it could be 10 or 300), I go through them all and pay attention to any themes that come up. I zoom out a bit and blur my vision to notice what comes up over and over. Colors will jump out, or I might see that I'm really gravitating towards a lot of wood, or something that feels kind of 70s. You start to get a sense of what it is you're attracted to.
The Essential List is technically a newsletter about "stuff" — but it's always been about more than that. It's about the conversations, the creativity, and the connections we build around the things that inspire us or bring us joy — especially in moments when focusing on "stuff" alone can feel a little strange.
So in the spirit of inspiration over acquisition, here are some things I’ve saved that inspire me — a reminder that not everything beautiful has to be bought — with a few basic tulips and cherry blossoms thrown in, of course. (Links and sources are at the end of the post.)
From the Archive
Frame 1: Laura Burke, T Magazine, Horty Store pants, TOINO ABEL bag, Reformation cardigan
Frame 2: Beata Heuman, Anico Mostert, POSSE, TOVE dress, LAIA ALEN bag
Frame 3: DÔEN dress, Delia Hamer, Milne Watson necklace, DISSH dress, Bembien bag
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Yes to all of this!! Consumption culture has made it so that I often find myself desperately covering a very specific item rather than trying to figure out how to translate that into my style or interiors with what I already have, or finding a secondhand piece that reflects the same vibe. It’s a mindset shift I have to remind myself of frequently. And also, CONGRATS!!! 😘