Sometimes purchasing an item that’s almost perfect makes sense, and sometimes it doesn’t. You can be extra patient, picky and practical with your purchases when you have a fully functioning, well established wardrobe with few wardrobe holes. You can hold out for something that ticks off all the boxes.
This is why I returned the Quentin Chelsea boot from Dune. I’m looking for another pair of very comfortable cognac boots with a one inch heel because I’m wearing my equestrian Prada boots into the ground. The Quentins had enormous potential. Very comfortable, fab heel height, great fit around the ankle, well made, excellent sale price, lovely colour, refined, robust, looked good with my outfits, and not too casual. But they were also a touch too masculine. I would have loved them a few years ago, but not on this leg of my style journey. Back they went.
But there are situations when an almost perfect purchase is the right way to go. Here are five of them:
- Time Pressure: You need the item for a trip or an event and need to settle.
- Dressing Your Body Now: You ALWAYS dress the body you have right now in wardrobe items that fit correctly. If you’re in the process of losing or gaining quite a bit of weight, you need to put together a few temporary capsules to see you through to your goal weight. That usually means you can be a little less picky about the purchases since they are tiding you over.
- Experimenting With a Trend: When you’re unsure of how you’ll like a new-to-you trend or colour, you can purchase a version that meets most of your requirements because that’s all you need to assess whether you’ll purchase deeper into the look the next time.
- Opportunity to Alter: It’s a fabulous idea to purchase an almost perfect item that you can alter to perfection. You have to be willing to put in the extra expense and effort though.
- Need: Sometimes, clients have very large wardrobe holes, and there isn’t enough time to hold out for absolute perfection when we’re shopping. For example, when a very casual stay-at-home Mum unexpectedly lands a job that requires daily business casual and business formal attire – she literally has nothing to wear for her new job which starts in a couple of weeks. In this case, we put out the fire by pulling together a few appropriate mix-and-match capsules to tide her over. Over time though, we build on what we got, and hold out for even better items.
Over to you. Can you think of instances in which you’ve said yes or no to an almost perfect purchase?
