Before you add to cart, read this.

Over the years, my online shopping adventures have been a mix of delight and disaster. A blouse that looked ethereal on the screen but arrived feeling stiff and lifeless. Trousers that promised perfection, only to crease horrendously the moment I put them on. I have also ~ and this is the really embarrassing one ~ convinced myself, repeatedly, that a single purchase would fix something or magically transform my wardrobe. Spoiler: it didn’t!

But you do learn. Slowly, and oftentimes, expensively. Here’s what I know now.

1. Read the descriptions like a stylist. The photo is doing a job. Soft light, a model who’s 5’10”, fabric caught mid-billow. It is not showing you reality… it’s showing you potential. The description is where the truth lives. Fibre content, care instructions, lining or no lining. A “relaxed fit” on a model is usually not the same as a relaxed fit on your own body. Read every detail carefully.

2. Your measurements matter more than hers. I have mine saved in my phone. Shoulder width, waist, hip, inseam, and the exact skirt length that works on my frame. Not because I’m obsessive, because it cuts through the wishful thinking faster than anything else. The model is not you. That’s not a problem. It’s just useful information.

3. Set secondhand alerts before you buy new. Found something you love but can’t quite justify? Add the designer to an alert on whatever secondhand shops you use: Designer Wardrobe, TradeMe, Vinted, The RealReal. Then forget about it. Six months later, there it is ~ same thing, half the price, barely worn. This has happened to me more times than I can count. Patience is a genuinely good shopping strategy.

4. Only buy from stores with a good return policy. And then actually use it. This sounds obvious. It isn’t, really. How many of us have kept something that didn’t work because returning it felt like admin, or guilt, or both? If it doesn’t fit, if the colour is wrong in real light, if it just feels off: send it back without delay. Your wardrobe only deserves the pieces that are a full-body YES.

5. The one-week rule. Add to cart. Close the tab. If you’re still thinking about it the following Tuesday ~ not in a frantic I-need-it way, just in a quiet I keep coming back to it way ~ then consider buying. Most things don’t survive the week. That’s the whole point.

6. Moodboard it first. Before I buy anything, I drag the image into a Pinterest board alongside the things I already own, and the style images I love. Half the time, it looks wrong immediately. Clashing, or just… not mine. The other half, it slots in like it was always there. This takes about four minutes and has saved me from many, many mistakes.

7. Hold your phone up to your wardrobe. Literally. Open the image, stand in front of your clothes, look at them together. Can you see it with five things you already own? Not theoretically ~ but actually, right there? If you’re squinting and trying to make it work in your head, that’s your answer.

8. Find your designers. Stay loyal. There are brands that build quietly and well, season after season, without chasing anything. When you find them (and you will) go back. Learn their sizing, their fabrics, what cuts work on you. There’s a kind of ease that comes from buying from someone whose designs and styles you already trust.

9. Keep a list of what you actually need. Not a wishlist of beautiful things you want. A very specific list: cream linen trousers, a black merino cardigan, flat knee-high boots. When you’re browsing and something catches your eye, check it against the list. If it’s not there, ask yourself whether it’s the thing, or just the feeling of wanting a thing.

10. Learn to tell the difference between longing and need. Longing is the scroll. The open tab. The but maybe. Need is quieter. It doesn’t try to convince you. When you start to feel the difference ~ and it does become something you can feel intuitively ~ everything changes. You’re not filling a gap anymore. You’re just choosing well for yourself. And thats the difference.

Shopping online can be a complete mess of impulse and regret, or it can be something you do deliberately, even pleasurably. It’s mostly a matter of slowing down long enough to hear yourself think.

If any of this resonated… the slowing down, the choosing with intention, my book Intuitive Dressing might be for you. It goes further than shopping tips: it’s about your relationship with your wardrobe, with your body, with the way you want to feel when you get dressed. Essays, journalling prompts, space to figure out what you actually want. Printed here in Aotearoa, in limited numbers. I only have a few boxes left, and when they’re gone, they’re gone.

→ Get your very special copy here

Love, Eleanor xxx