The cards reveal that 2025 is going to be the year we ask ourselves a fairly simple but hard-hitting question: What is the cost of our style? Is it worth it? For those of us who wish to chuck the kool-aid of capitalism, the cards give us equally simple and hard-hitting solutions to save the world. This is your guide to getting sustainably stylish in 2025.
The 10 of Pentacles asks you to be secure in what you own as well as of your own style. And if you’re worried about log kya kahenge, then remember the lines from the classic hit “Kuchh toh log kahenge, logon ka kaam hai kehna” and add this line to it: “Tum apni dhun mein mast hi rehna.” You, sir/ma’am/mx, are the prime candidate for #NoBuy2025. And IF you really, really, really need to buy something (cause y’know, your Aries vibe can make you stubborn from time to time) make sure that you’re buying from brands that pay fair wages because no other card supports the First of May more than the 10 of Pentacles.
The 7 of Pentacles is ALL about the hyperlocal. If you are not buying from small, especially family-run, businesses, if you are not being there for your wardrobe by supporting your local tailor, darner, then sir/ma’am/mx, you are going to earn a lot of bad karma and Santa will get you dust bunnies for Christmas 2025. You get more karma points if the small family-run business makes traditional handmade clothes. It is not just about supporting the small business, it’s about preserving an artform and a lifestyle. It is you participating in the fight against the machine. (Else don’t blame us if AI steals your job.) Alternatively, your grandmother’s wardrobe is the perfect site for a heist this year.
The Ace of Pentacles tells you to acquire some financial wisdom or as they say in Hollywood movies, “Follow the money.” If you have the time, you can be a gumshoe and start by tracking the money from the retail shop/online store all the way to the CEO and their salary, to the labourers and their pennies, OR you can be a smart cookie and read Fashionopolis by Dana Thomas, Slave to Fashion by Safia Minney or Overdressed by Elizabeth L Cline (or all three of them because you, Gemini, need more words than most). You can also put aside some money every month and donate to or invest in small businesses that support fair wages and artists that make wearable art.
This is the year all your bad fashion choices will come to haunt you. And no, we don’t mean that people will judge your style and sensibility. The universe will repay your karmic debts to the fashion industry. If you have been a good fashionista following sustainable fashion the best you can, you will be rewarded with minimal maintenance expenses and exclusive wearable art. If you have been indulging in fast fashion and not loving your clothes: wardrobe malfunctions, irreparable damages, never finding anything you want to wear, etc. Your penance will be a hard commitment to #NoBuy2025. Make it work with what you have. Repair what you can. Else, borrow. Your friends and family will stand by you in your commitment to fix your fashion karma.
The Messenger shares with us two important notes: Anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff said, Doing is believing. And habit researcher Wendy Wood said, We are what we repeatedly do. 43% of daily behaviours are performed out of habit. So yes, we may believe that fast fashion is evil but the question is what are we doing to change it? Else we are nothing but doomscrollers scrolling our way to hell, possibly in a handbasket made of petroleum derived plastic. The Messenger comes with the ultimate power to help us make or break habits and thus making or breaking ways in which we break or make our world. Make it a habit to repair, to borrow, to buy pre-loved, to ask where our clothes are coming from. Break the habits of chasing sales, buying from gargantuan fashion conglomerates, sending our clothes to landfills.
The original meaning of the word ‘synergy’, unsoiled by corporate jargon, is “cooperation of human effort and divine will”. 2 of Cups says it’s time we reclaim the word synergy from the corporations, own it and change the world. Do we discard, disregard ourselves (or our loved ones) or feel shame if we/they have been loved by others before? Then why treat our clothes that way? Pre-loved is the mantra of 2025. As Virgos, it should come naturally to us. Do not buy clothes if they are not pre-loved. If we don’t like what we find, then don’t buy till you do. As the popular and often covered song goes, “True love will find you in the end.”
The Page of Wands is the restless energy of a bee or a humming bird, jumping from flower to flower. That’s how our desires related to attire will be in 2025. However, what we can learn from the bee or the humming bird is the idea of intent. Their intent stays the same despite their fickle nature — to pollinate the flowers, to make ecologies flourish. We can use this same energy to open a hundred e-commerce tabs and buy and throw away clothes at the smallest change of mental states. Or we can use the same energy with the intent of better, sustainable and eco-friendly living. Make a list of the many things we can do to help make the fashion industry better. And when we do feel that change in energy or mental state, instead of opening a new tab looking for a new outfit/accessory, do something from that list.
The Ace of Cups is what we feel when we meet a crush for the first time. That eye contact that allows us to dream a thousand dreams — each one of them telling us a thousand ways in which this crush can become a love story that makes our life wonderful. That is how we must approach every item of clothing we own or we look to buy — What are the many ways it can be paired and made part of an ensemble, what are the various occasions you see yourself wearing them to? If the possibilities don’t feel infinite, we don’t truly love that item. We are just fulfilling an itch of owning or buying the piece of clothing. Those we own for the itch must be given away to those who will truly love it. Those we plan to buy for the itch must be avoided.
The 7 of Cups is the ultimate guide to being mindful of our options in any situation. The basic operating principle of 7 of Cups is that of a coin toss: We only truly know what we want when the coin is in the air. So when we look at all the clothes we own and try to find something to wear, we will never find something. We will always think of buying something new. It is only when we really need to be somewhere and haven’t planned what we will wear that we will know how we desire to be seen. As Sagitarrians, this is our bane. We always want to plan ahead. But we must quash that instinct and make our ensemble from what we have on the last minute to save ourselves from buying something new.
The 8 of Cups is all about containing our anxieties by either drawing good boundaries or by leaving spaces and people that persistently make us feel terrible by stepping across our boundaries. The thing to remember is that fashion anxiety almost exclusively makes us buy utter garbage. This year, if we’re planning to buy something to quench that anxiety, we must cancel immediately. If we’re planning to buy something because we feel we will be judged about what we are wearing, cancel the buying or even cancel meeting the people who will make us feel that way. The 8 of Cups asks us to be comfortable with leaving whatever makes us feel anxious. Reminder: ALL of us have anxieties. If we’re already not aware of them, we must immediately get into therapy.
The Star is all about evolution by repair. This is the year we discover how much we can evolve ourselves, our wardrobe as well as our fashion sensibilities by just pursuing repair, alterations, upcycle and care of what we own. The cosmic stars evolve from one state to the other and almost always the next state is dependent on what are the elements that make up the previous state. So if we add that spoonful of love and care to our clothes when we repair, alter or upcycle them, it will show when we wear them. It will make us as comfortable when we wear them as we do when standing close to, carrying or hugging a loved one. And we look our best and carry whatever it is we are wearing if people seeing us can see our comfort. Bonus: We might find our aesthetic.
Rest. We have done enough. We have bought enough. We have fought enough. We have a wardrobe that has us satisfied and fulfilled. We have an aesthetic and style that makes us feel comfortable, loved and envied. Every time, that voice in our head says, “Let’s buy something new,” take a nap instead. That way, we won’t have bought something new AND paid off a part of our sleep debt. We must avoid all urges to tell people how they must buy and wear their clothes. They’ll find their way. This year, we sleep. Let the other 11 signs carry the load of saving the world for a year. Tricia Hersey of The Nap Ministry says, Rest is a form of resistance that disrupts and pushes back against capitalism.
