Happiness is…

It’s hard to write about fashion every week when you are based in a region that has a struggling fashion industry. However, it’s even harder to really happily enjoy fashion if you are not totally happy within.

This week I got to thinking whilst sorting out my wardrobe, and I found myself going through the shameful materialistic and sad reasons for the procurement of some of the clothes I own.   My reasons stretched to silly and shallow things like: it will make him like me more; or his family will accept me if I dress a certain way.

For me, my now happiness is determined by how much I love, share and learn. If you had asked me this question four years ago, my answers would have probably been: TopShop dress, Kurt Geiger heels and monthly ASOS fix.

The reason I chose to write to you about this today is because I remember finally adding my first pair of Charlotte Olympia’s to my shoe collection. It was something that all the bloggers I love had. The shoes were part of this happiness illusion. I honestly and shamefully got caught up with the illusion of happiness. The big question I kept asking myself is what really is happiness in this very commercial world?

Is it visiting Aruba because everyone else is doing it? Is it owning a Fendi Bag? The truth is that we are so caught up with materialistic items that we ourselves are baffled by this term happiness.

As bizarre as this may sound, I remember thinking to myself during my adolescent years how secure I would be and feel as an individual if I just got that one designer shoe or bag. Only the heavens know how much I was counting down to start university, to get a fine taste of financial independence and to really explore one of the four main international hubs for fashion.

Though I still find myself buying things to make me a little happy when I’m sad I have really come to the conclusion that they can’t make you genuinely happy for over five minutes or maybe ten.

They say when you grow you mature and you really begin to value life. For me, the digital age has transformed how we perceive what happiness really is. Is happiness really new vacation pictures in from Mexico or an Instagram image of your new Kenzo’s? Sometimes it feels so. It seems to me that our society, myself included, has been perceiving happiness to be different. We no longer openly celebrate the things worthy of celebration.

Sometimes I feel like the social media age has given us social media happiness and we are now on the pursuit to fill this happiness gap. It takes a really mind-nibbling reality check to realize how to be truly happy and how to be social media happy and also that the former is much more important.

As cyber Monday has left us and we enter into the Christmas season, I urge you to shop with caution, care and love. Invest in items you truly love. Not items that you have seen down your Instagram timeline 50 consecutive times. Be honest and be fair to yourselves.

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