How a yellow dress, pink coat and a shipping notification helped me cope with my grief

As I sat numbly on my sofa, waiting for my local hospital to call me back and confirm when they’d be able to proceed with the surgery necessary to remove my barely formed 13-week baby from my uterus, I ordered an Aje dress.

It was in the thick of COVID, in February 2021, a mere few weeks after finding out that after years of infertility, and while being on the waiting list for IVF, we had miraculously conceived.

The joy was short-lived. An early scan at the clinic showed an abnormal measurement of fetal nuchal fluid (the layer of fluid behind the baby’s neck) and we were promptly sent to hospital. After more scans we were ushered into the side room no one ever wants to visit, to be told that our baby boy had a major heart defect incompatible with life.

What followed was a sort of limbo while we waited to hear when and where the surgery could take place (they don’t usually offer it past 12 weeks at our nearest hospital), during which I binge-watched stupid shows and, yes, shopped.

There was something about the frivolity of a sunshine-yellow summer dress with cut-out detailing that was as far from reality that I could get, and the short-lived dopamine hit was just what I needed at the time. I even ordered some shoes to go with it (a pair of yellow gingham Tevas).

The purchases arrived a few days after my surgery and, while they weren’t enough to fill the emptiness in me, they provided a welcome distraction. I could imagine myself wearing them to happier occasions, once I had managed to pull my life back together.

When I lost my maternal grandmother, the matriarch of our family, I ordered a rather fabulous – and inarguably frivolous – coat.

This wasn’t the first time I had turned to retail therapy to cope with grief. I can attribute several outfits in my wardrobe to each loss I have experienced. A brown suede skirt and grey jumper bought in the Zara Boxing Day sale on the day my paternal grandmother died in December 2015. A splurge at the time, as I was in an entry-level job, but I loved that outfit.

A pink Raey set – a floaty cami top and tailored wide-leg trousers – bought from the now-defunct retailer Matches when I suffered an early miscarriage from our second round of IVF in 2024 (luckily, our first round resulted in our beautiful daughter being born in 2022).

More recently, when I lost my maternal grandmother, the matriarch of our family, I ordered a rather fabulous – and inarguably frivolous – coat. A mauve and pink iridescent car coat from Leset, to be precise, with some matching pink trousers and a basic white T-shirt in a futile attempt to justify the purchase. Uplifting fashion at its best.

As I hit the “buy” button, sitting on her dedicated spot on the sofa in her apartment in France, I thought this was exactly what she would have wanted. After all, she was a formidable woman in her 90s who still insisted on matching her jewellery to her outfit and her bag to her shoes, even though she never left the flat any more. Plus, waiting for the shipping confirmation email was a far better distraction than the eulogy I had to write.

We all have different ways of coping with loss. Some people indulge in food and drink, or socialise more. For me it was shopping – and that isn’t uncommon.

“Increased shopping activity can often be distracting behaviour in an attempt to ease or to numb difficult feelings,” says psychotherapist Noel Bell. “Coping with a personal loss can be a very challenging time, and shopping offers the prospect of anticipatory pleasure. It is not just the purchase, it is actually all the browsing in the build-up that is part of the emotional pay-off.”

The mood-boosting effect of shopping is, of course, nothing new. The term “retail therapy” was first used by journalist Mary T. Schmich and published in the Chicago Tribune in December 1986. It has been widely used ever since, to colloquially explain the dopamine hit obtained when you swipe your credit card (or tap your phone) at the checkout to go home with your shiny purchase.

A perhaps less widely known term is “grief shopping”. Bell defines it as “an emotional coping behaviour whereby the shopper is caught up in a cycle of increasing compulsiveness following a significant loss. The activity seeks to relieve pain and to regain a sense of personal power.”

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Although I have always loved shopping – par for the course as a fashion editor – I wouldn’t consider myself an impulsive shopper. I like to browse and leave items of interest in open tabs for weeks before I decide whether to buy them or not.

I’m not the only one to turn to fashion as an antidote to loss. Celine Dion’s fashion renaissance happened after her husband of 22 years and her brother died of cancer just two days apart in 2016. That spring she hired Law Roach, more recently Zendaya’s stylist, and together they revealed a bolder, brighter fashion persona.

In 2022 Dion came back fighting in Alaïa after a debilitating stiff-person syndrome (SPS) diagnosis. Her couture outfits during her recent Paris residency were nothing short of show-stealing, thanks to the likes of Schiaparelli, Dior and Givenchy.

There is no doubt those outfits made her feel fabulous. But, more than anything, the clothes for Dion represented a moment, an emotion. And mine did, too. I haven’t kept all of them, not because they bring back bad memories but because they served their purpose and I was ready to let them go.

They made me feel great when I needed it the most – and isn’t that what fashion is all about?

Telegraph, London

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