Julia Nousiainen realized that her way of shopping made no sense. That started a year-long challenge, during which a radical change took place.
Julia Nousiainen27, calls himself a former impulse shopper. Shopping for clothes had become a habit for him and new clothes were ordered every month in large quantities. Especially a lot of clothes shopping was done during sick leave, when online orders act as a boredom buster.
The number of clothing purchases and their contradiction in terms of environmental issues important to Nousiainen had been weighing on his mind for a long time. The decision to change consumption habits was finally confirmed when Nousiainen went on sick leave again in early 2025 after hand surgery.
At the end of 2024, he had spent time at his parents’ house in Kuopio, where clothes had to be bought from the discount sales during the holidays. When he returned to his home in southern Finland, the suitcase was packed full, but there were also packages that had been ordered there waiting at home.
– At the time, I was on one hand and had to stop by the clothes. When I couldn’t even match the clothes I bought, I thought if there was any point in this.
That’s when Nousiainen decided that a change should be made to buying clothes. Beginning in 2025, there would be a maximum of five clothing purchases.
– When that sick leave started, I had a different feeling. I would rather read books and watch series or movies instead of sick leave causing me to get hooked on browsing online stores again, says Nousiainen.
27-year-old Julia Nousiainen made a significant change in her spending habits last year, and would never go back to the old ways. Julia Nousiainen’s home album
The five-clothes-a-year challenge
A year of five clothes is a journalist and influencer Julia Thurénin and Planetary wardrobe Instagram account maintaining Aku Varamäki a challenge in which the participant commits to buying a maximum of five new clothes within a year.
The goal of the challenge is to get the participants to consider their clothing purchases. The clothing and textile industry has significant climate and environmental impacts and accounts for its share of global emissions about 4-10 percent.
According to Thurén and Varamäki’s challenge, second-hand purchases, socks or underwear and children’s clothing are not counted.
Nousiainen also included second-hand purchases in his own rules, because flea market shopping had once been too much for him. For him, the challenge did not include shoes or accessories, because he was not in the habit of buying them anyway.
He also stuck to the challenge. During the last year, Nousiainen bought five new clothes and one second-hand one.
I experienced such a mental conflict between my own lifestyle and outlook on life.
Nousiainen’s awareness of the environmental impact of the clothing industry was also a factor in favor of the change.
– For many years, I have been involved in consumption and environmental issues. I experienced such a mental conflict between my own lifestyle and outlook on life.
The five-clothes-a-year challenge showed Nousiainen much more.
– The challenge taught me how much money I have wasted. It has been financially unprofitable, he says.
During the year, the clothes decreased, but the fashion hobby by no means remained. On the contrary, Nousiainen feels that reducing clothing purchases has had a positive effect on the hobby.
– When the closets are full of clothes, you simply don’t have time to wear them all and it’s really absurd. The year helped me see my own wardrobe much more creatively. When you have a lot of clothes, you can endlessly combine them and come up with new outfits, he says.
Nousiainen makes fashion and clothing content on her Instagram account. He has brought out the challenge visibly and feels it is an important source of motivation.
– Especially when you make clothing content on social media, it has even more weight. I got to show that even someone who makes outfit videos on social media can reduce their consumption, he rejoices.
Nousiainen, who produces fashion content, noticed that even with fewer clothes purchases, you can make outfit videos. He makes videos on his Instagram account @julentylı. Julia Nousiainen’s home album
For the coming year, Nousiainen has not made such exact restrictions, but he is not going back to being a greedy shopper.
– I never want to go back to the old way. Last year raised quite acute needs in clothing purchases, especially for winter and as a dog owner. I’m going to do a five-clothes year so that I don’t count outdoor, sports, or loungewear. I really need them and I won’t buy more than I need.
Nousiainen does not make strict restrictions on second-hand purchases for the current year either. He tries to keep his shopping as necessary, and he doesn’t want to fall into impulse purchases, even on impulse.
Nousiainen even considers the growth of flea market culture to be desirable.
– When people move more to second-hand purchases, that market also grows. Examples of this are, for example, Copenhagen and Stockholm. That would be a really wonderful thing, he says.
