Put yourself on the DO-NOT-COP list
When to take home a new jawn, when to reject an old one, plus newly reissued Spyplane-beloved chunes
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Today we’re psyched to answer deeply provocative reader questions from our last “Personal Spyplane” open call…
FIRST UP — this spy nation citizen wrote in about basically drawing up personal Powerpoint Presentations for jawnz copping, on some EXTREME NERD S**T … 😉 And yet he might be on to something !! ??
What are the pros and cons of making a “cop list” for each year / season, to make sure you go for things you truly want? — @oj96
Do people actually do this? Or it’s a thought experiment?
It’s a fascinating idea in either case: instead of just going through life “smashing the coppington” willy-nilly, you find some moment of ostensibly quiet, clear-eyed reflection to decide what it is you truly desire. Maybe you fan out some cool magazines… visit a bunch of good stores… open browser tabs to tasteful IG moodboards and brilliant Cla$$ified-Tier Blackbird Spyplane newsletters bursting with mad flavor … look at your closet to see what you wish you had more of, what you actually wear, what kinds of things you keep buying but never actually rock, what kinds of pieces you are lacking entirely… and, working empirically from these data points, you generate a “cop list” that contains no objects of “extraneous” yearning …
And as you go down your hit list, crossing off jawnz as you go, you know you will NEVER feel buyer’s remorse, because you have engineered away all impulse buys, all risky gambles, all “well, I don’t need this balloon-sleeve colorblock intarsia Jil Sander sweater but it’s 40% off so I’d be a fool not to buy it” justifications…
(We’ve discussed this third phenomenon in the context of how bogus Black Friday is, by and large, where the structural appeal of a “good deal” takes perverse precedence over the intrinsic appeal of the actual jawn you’re copping — the solution we offer is “C.H.A.O.S.” Mindset a.k.a. Cop Hardly Anything On Sale.)
My brain doesn’t work systematically enough for a “cop list” to have ever occurred to me personally. But maybe it should have: When I have mad s**t I need to get done over x time period and I start “freaking & tweaking” about it, I love nothing more than making a checklist, distributed across a day planner, so that all the amorphous tasks and obligations rattling around haphazardly in my mind become concrete, discrete, and addressable…
With that in mind, I like the idea of making and adhering to a “cop list” in theory, to the degree that it reflects an attempt to combat and corral the kind of unbridled, hyper-impulsive consumerist mania that any contemporary jawnz appreciator knows all too well …
In practice, though, as a would-be technique for identifying and possessing “things you truly want,” I’m not fully sold on the “cop list” method. First off, I don’t see how it’s ever gonna feel close to comprehensive — fire jawnz drop unexpectedly and stochastically, not with reliable advance notice you can use to plan around. Beyond that, if you run enthusiasm and desire through a spreadsheet, does it come out the other end honed and refined … or deadened ?? Do you risk killing the joy of spontaneity and the thrill of serendipitous discoveries in the name of “efficiency” and “optimization” ??
I can see the merits of a living-and-breathing list — i.e, one that’s open to amendment and deletion, and consists not just of actual individual pieces you covet but broader categories of things you have actually determined you could use … and maybe (most importantly?) it ALSO includes categories of things you do not need at all, e.g., your list says, “Yoooo, near-future me: DO NOT COP any more baggy elasticated and/or self-belted pants, even when the Lemaire sale hits, you are GOOD with the pairs you already own, b !!”
We received 2 near-identical Qs on the subject not of clear-eyed jawn acquisition but of clear-eyed jawn liquidation:
“When is it right to let go of a jawn? Whether to pass on to someone, recycle, scrap, etc.” — @pablo.nukaya
“When is it time to let old jawns go? Items you love but just don’t really fit who u are now” — @ericbonster