"Wardrobe changes are an invention to make us buy more clothes."

BarcelonaWith the change in temperature, many people are starting to consider doing the famous wardrobe swap. A concept that we have become familiar with twice a year and that involves organizing that, in some cases, can take a few hours. But is it really necessary? For people like Patricia Eguidazu, author of the book The day she stopped buying clothes (Destiny 2025), changing your wardrobe is simply an invention of the fashion industry to encourage compulsive shopping.

"The fact of not having all the clothes we have in sight leads us to buy things we think we lack; changing our wardrobe is an invention to make us buy more clothes," explains the author. Normally, this occurs during the gap between the hottest and coldest days or vice versa, when there are garments that we cannot find, but that we actually have. Given this, Eguidazu recommends always having all your clothes in sight, and this is achieved with a wardrobe where all the garments are versatile and can be dressed throughout the year "in layers", with different textures and textile compositions.

In fact, this is one of the many tips explained by the author, who is also the creator of the Triziazu method, in which she teaches us to understand how the world of fast fashion, which seeks compulsive clothing shopping, and learning how to shop and dress sustainably, according to one's body type and morphology. A method that arose from her experience one day when she wanted to clean out her wardrobe: "I filled five garbage bags with clothes, many of which I hadn't even worn yet," she laments. So she decided to sell them through secondhand apps, thinking that by offering them for two or three euros, she was doing other people a favor. But her astonishment came when she realized that it's almost impossible to sell anything. If this had happened to her, how serious could the situation be in other homes?

This is how she began to investigate and collect alarming data about the fashion industry, considered the most polluting in the world. "One hundred billion garments are produced every year, half of which end up in landfills within twelve months of being purchased," she laments. Or sometimes they haven't even been worn yet: according to various studies reviewed by the European Environment Agency, 21% of manufactured garments end up unsold. The rapid and dizzying changes in the world of fast fashion wreak havoc on the environment, a problem that the European Union wants to try to regulate with measures such as banning the destruction of unsold clothing, accessories, and footwear, starting in July 2026.

The greater the variety, the worse

All this madness begins with the arrival of low cost in the fashion industry, when brands and trends blur our silhouettes and, consequently, our wardrobes, explains Eguidazu. "We consume out of anxiety, we don't control what we buy, we stock up endlessly and we still get frustrated and continue to have the feeling that we have nothing to wear more than half the days of the week," she laments.

One of the perversions of fast fashion, according to the expert, is the message that you can buy many items for very little money. This is very tempting in a world where we have been taught that repeating an outfit too often is a negative thing. "People don't feel proud of repeating clothes, when they should be proud of wearing a garment more than thirty times, because that means you've planned well and that you're giving it a sustainable outlet," she emphasizes. If we only wore the clothes in our closet twice as often as we do, we would reduce the carbon emissions generated by the fashion industry by almost half.

But none of this is addressed by the numerous influencers from Instagram or TikTok that dazzle their followers with the so-called hauls either unboxings, which are basically videos where they show a bunch of clothing packages they've received from brands like Shein and comment on them. The number of videos of this type and the naturalness with which they encourage the abusive purchase of low-priced clothing prevails on the networks.

It's clear that the industry is always attentive to the concerns of its customers, and if they detect that they have an environmental concern, they immediately remedy it. Labels that assure that a garment is made of organic cotton can calm the conscience of buyers, even if they are not entirely true. They also play with the deception of sizes and pattern making, according to Eguidazu. "They tell you that they make size 46 or plus sizebut they're always out of stock because they're much more expensive to produce," says the author, who in the book explains how the fast fashion industry, and not so fast, produces clothes that fit most people poorly. And, at the same time, she produces garments to address the self-esteem complexes she herself has created: camisoles. "Anything so that millions of women who are self-conscious about their silhouettes can cover up as much as they want," she denounces. "Sizes," she emphasizes. In other words, poor pattern making can destroy any woman's self-esteem. "If an online store doesn't have information about the sizes of a garment, I won't even look at it," she continues. When a person knows their morphology well and what types of patterns suit them, they are already well on their way to feeling good about their own. If they are also very clear about what type of fabric is pleasant to the touch, if it produces itching, heat, or discomfort, the purchasing options are reduced but also increase in quality.

Shopping shouldn't, under any circumstances, be something you do for entertainment or just to have a good time with friends. Quite the opposite: "It should be a completely solitary and conscious act in which, just like when you go to buy rice because you've run out of rice, you go out and look for a shirt in a certain color because you've realized you need it to match other pieces in your wardrobe," she concludes.

More secondhand clothes

However, not all is lost. More and more studies are emerging that claim that the new generations are more aware of the dangers of consumerism and environmental issues. According to a Wuolah survey on the consumption habits of Generation Z, 60% of young people born between 1995 and 2010 make fewer impulse purchases and prefer to invest their money in experiences rather than material possessions. These figures are consistent with a 2024 Cetelem Observatory report on sustainability and consumption, which reflects the rise in young people's concern for the environment, in parallel with an increase in the purchase of secondhand products, especially clothing and footwear. Furthermore, popular figures like Marie Kondo have also popularized concepts such as minimalism and the idea of valuing, using, and maintaining what one already owns without the compulsive need to buy anything else.