Today’s blog post is a bit of an embarrassing area for me to write about…the state of my closet. First of all, if you are a sane person, you probably don’t really care AT ALL about what my closet is like, and I would applaud you for not caring. Still, I am going to write about it, because it’s probably a little bit like going to an accountability group. It’s healthy for me to admit that I have a problem, face the issues and in the face of witnesses, vow to change my habits.
The summer before seventh grade, I attended my very first band camp. Not knowing what to pack, I loaded up the very biggest suitcase that my family owned and filled it to the brim. Hairspray, hair dryer, clothes for every occasion I could possibly think of, makeup…every girly thing I could fathom using went into that suitcase. It didn’t even matter that I didn’t use 75% of those items on a regular basis, the fear of being without it for an entire week possessed me to bring it along just in case. You can bet what I’m going to say: I hardly used any of it. Not only that, it just made my life a bit more hectic trying to find what I was looking for and was impossible to keep organized. But the thing that really topped it off was my embarrassment when one of the high school boys helping us with the luggage literally could not pick the stupid suitcase up because of how much it weighed. I vowed then and there to change my ways. To this day, I still feel a little pride surge up in me when someone comments on how lightly I pack.
The last time our family moved across the country, we had the luxury of using a professional company to move our belongings. It really was nice; all we had to do was say what stayed and what was going, and everything was loaded up into boxes. When it came time to load up the clothes, I felt the old familiar wave of embarrassment come over me as the poor man stood gaping at the closet stuffed to the brim with my clothing. I had invested in every organizing mechanism that I could fit into the closet, and still items were pouring forth. It only got worse as box after box kept being filled, and I had to come to terms with the fact that I owned far more clothing than I had cared to admit to myself. To top it off, I had to take him on the walk of shame to the upstairs bedroom where I stored my out-of-season clothing, which was also filled to the brim.
How had I accumulated so much? Just a few years prior, my clothing had been able to fit neatly into a tiny dorm room closet. How had it expanded to take over multiple closets and dressers? Why did I even have this much? Should I not be embarrassed to have an issue with owning too much? Once again, I vowed to change my ways. I began purging my closet and donated bags and bags of clothing in my pursuit of simplifying. For the past year, I have taken pride in having all of my clothes, in season and out, fit nicely into one closet and dresser.
Yet even so, my habits were still not changed. Although I had downsized the space I was occupying, I still had the bad habit of bringing in new clothes, so now I was working in a circular-door method: bringing in new, donating the old. I still did not necessarily have a method behind my madness. If you read my last entry, you already know that I was purchasing solely based upon price and rarely looked at the tags to find out more information.
Enter the great clothing count of 2016: in an effort to look this issue squarely in the eye, I went through every single piece of clothing that I owned and notated where and when I purchased the item, the country of origin, and the fabric content. The damage? I own 11 coats, 36 dresses, 9 button-up shirts, 5 long sleeve tees, 15 short sleeve tees, 11 blouses, 17 tank tops, 16 scarves, 10 belts, 13 purses and bags, 7 skirts, 3 pair of dress pants, 5 pair of shorts, 4 sets of pajamas, 12 lounge bottoms, 12 pairs of jeans and 5 pairs of pants, 5 sweatshirts, 12 sweaters, 11 cardigans and 38(!) pair of shoes. All in all, I own 258 items of clothing, which averages out to having purchased around 37 items each year of my marriage; probably more than that if I consider that I had already made a number of large donations. Now, out of those 258 items of clothing, only 13 items had been made in the US, and 3 of those had been made by me.
When it came to quality, my clothing was abysmal. I was shocked to find that the very best-looking item that I owned was probably also my oldest: a red cashmere cardigan crafted in Scotland that my mother bought for me in 1997. While many of my clothes were already pilling after a few wears, this cardigan had stood the test of time and looked just as good now as the day that she bought it. I also found that quality was not necessarily restricted to price point. While it was true that the items I had bought for a song did show signs of poor construction and quick wearing, some of the more expensive garments were not necessarily any better made. Many were made with the same fabric contents and often even quicker methods of seaming.
My husband thought that I was nuts for going through and notating all of this. He is probably right. But if there are a few lessons to take away from it all, I hope to learn these:
- I am not saving money by spending money on great deals. There will always be great deals. Every time I go to the store, I can count on great clearance prices and doorbuster sales. That is no longer a special occasion; it is the norm. I am obviously not hurting for anything to wear, so the best way to save money is to not spend it on impulse purchases in the first place.
- If I need an item, I hope to make it worth the money I am turning over for it. This means having a plan and considering purchases as investments. I need to follow trends less and invest in high quality timeless pieces.
- I hope to take care of the items I do own. Too long have I trained myself to treat my objects as disposable. By purchasing cheap items that wear out quickly, I feel no remorse by treating them poorly. That also means that I have not learned the discipline necessary to take care of items that are well made. I have not once taken a pair of shoes to get maintenance work done and I rarely get around to mending those items that need mending. I hope to lengthen the life span of the clothing I do own.
- I hope to inspect items with greater care before purchasing, and be aware of the fabric content’s tendencies.
- I hope to teach my daughters how to shop and dress with greater care than I have shown myself.