Margin Notes: The Aesthetic of Enough
On overconsumption, permanence and why buying better feels like clarity.
There’s a kind of luxury I only discovered when I started wanting less. Not the kind you can post. Not the kind you can unbox. Not the shiny ‘quiet luxury’ co-opted by marketing teams, selling £200 plain T-shirts to women still healing from burnout. I mean real luxury, the kind you feel in your nervous system. The filtered light through sheer curtains and uncluttered air. The subtle sound of good glass against porcelain. A fridge that’s clear. A shelf that makes sense. A wardrobe you don’t have to negotiate with every morning.
It didn’t always feel like this. I used to crave clutter disguised as aspiration. More clothes. More products. More supplements. More proof that I was ‘improving’, but nothing stuck. The purchases, the routines, the habits were all performative. Until I realised the craving wasn’t for more at all. It was for coherence.
We live in a time of compulsive self-renovation. Late-stage capitalism dressed as self-care. TikToks telling us to buy three new outfits for one dinner. Morning routines with fourteen steps and seven powders. The constant pressure to ‘build a better version’ of yourself: a sleeker body, a prettier kitchen, a more palatable online persona. Maintenance as identity. Carrie Bradshaw with 600 pairs of heels and no savings - modernised with Muji storage and a spreadsheet of adaptogens. The aesthetic has changed, but the overconsumption hasn’t. What used to be labelled materialism is now wrapped in oat milk and beige loungewear. What used to be impulsive is now marketed as intentional. It’s still about filling a void - just in softer colours.
But here’s the shift no one talks about: wanting less isn’t failure. Choosing fewer things isn’t a lack of imagination, it’s precision. I no longer crave to own everything. I want to live inside a mood, not buy fragments of it. Enough has become its own aesthetic. A life design. A boundary.
There’s a phrase I’ve been carrying around lately: buy it nice or buy it twice. It might sound reckless if you’ve ever spiralled through a shopping cart, but it’s true. If you don’t buy the beautiful, well-made version of something, you’ll end up buying it again (and again) until you do. The trench that unravels after one winter. The perfume you never quite love. The glassware so flimsy you avoid using it. Placeholders multiply, and they never satisfy.
I used to think this was just about consumption - ‘quality over quantity’. But it’s a philosophy. Buy it nice or buy it twice means compromise is exhausting. The temporary makes you restless. And sometimes the expensive, beautiful choice isn’t indulgence… it’s clarity. I know it works because the few pieces I’ve invested in have proved it. My Italian wool cream turtleneck that makes every pair of trousers look intentional and well put together. My Gucci slingbacks - the only heels I don’t kick off the moment I get home, and the ones I rewear endlessly, whether day or night. My L.L.Bean mini tote that turned out to be the most useful bag I own, small but perfectly proportioned. Even my good cotton white tee - just a basic, but cut so perfectly it replaced every other version in my wardrobe. I got rid of the rest, because I knew I’d never reach for them again. One piece, less stress, more space, more certainty. These are the things that last. They make the rest feel disposable by comparison.
Autumn, of all seasons, is the moment for clarity. It’s when wardrobes sharpen, interiors settle, rituals deepen. Summer’s provisional choices suddenly feel inadequate. September asks what’s worth keeping close, and what isn’t. So my wishlist this year is pared back, precise, and chosen with permanence in mind:
Diptyque Ambre (full size) - because the travel candle is already gone and this scent has become atmosphere, not accessory.
A suede brown bag from The Row - warm, velvety, and tactile, a piece that feels as seasonal as knitwear and candlelight.
Cashmere socks in proper colours - camel, charcoal, forest green. Not another multipack of thin black or white ones I’ll resent.
Brown leather gloves - sleek and timeless, the kind that keep me warm on cold walks without ruining an outfit.
A Toteme coat - this has been on my wishlist for years. It’s sharp and sculptural, the kind of coat that becomes a signature. Not five almost-right versions, but the one I’ll keep reaching for year after year.
Maybe that’s the real heart of it: wanting less and buying better. It isn’t austerity and it isn’t indulgence. It’s permanence. It’s refusing placeholders in wardrobes, in interiors, in the small rituals that make a life. Autumn isn’t provisional. It’s coats, candles, routines with depth. And this year, I’d rather want less, choose better, and let it last.
