I’ve been going through my clothes. All of them. There are items that I loved SO MUCH, that I no longer care for, and I wonder, what has changed? Am I tired of wearing them? (I don’t think this is the case because there are some items I’ve worn for over a decade and still love.) Has something inside me changed? Has seeing images from the fashion industry changed that something inside me?
If an item of clothing has a specific utility, I will wear it until it falls apart. I have an orange puffy jacket from Uniqlo that I bought YEARS ago. It’s in rough shape: stained, misshapen. But I never part with it because all year round it’s weirdly the perfect color and the perfect weight and it has a hood and I can smoosh it into the bag it came with (which I STILL HAVE!) for travel and so I keep wearing it even though it’s looking ratty.
Meanwhile I have another puffy jacket that is basically brand new, a beautiful blue color that I love, and I never wear it because I’m always already wearing some shade of blue when I think to put it on, and then it would be too much blue. I’m going to offer it up at Book Club before I donate it.
I have an obscene number of jeans. Especially for a person who doesn’t wear jeans that much. Like I have five pairs of Vuori joggers (and one faux pair from Costco) but that seems reasonable since I wear them all the time. The jeans are a different story. I barely wear jeans and yet I’m always searching for new jeans. Do I think the perfect pair is going to change me into a person who wears jeans all the time? And why do I want to be that person?
I tell myself it’s because there are so many different kinds of jeans. And colors. And sizes! I probably have a 15lb range for wearing my Vuori comfortably, but jeans are much less forgiving. And I have no hips so when they get too big, they just fall down. Finding a good pair of jeans is hard. Some of the jeans above have been in my closet for years and I keep them because I love them and have outfits that depend on them. Some of them are brand new, and I already donated them. Some are skinny and I love them, but feel weird wearing them right now, because they are no longer in style (though I’ll wear them again with my Uggs in the winter). Some are baggy (barrel?!) and are in style but I feel weird wearing them because they look weird (are these really cool right now?!). Jeans are hard.
I hoped to fill an entire IKEA blue bag during the reorganizing of clothes, but I barely got there. I was disappointed. Then I gathered the clothes in the garage hallway and remembered that I already put a bunch of stuff in other bags. By the time I was loading all the bags into the car, I felt pretty good about how much I was getting rid of.
I struggled with what to do with the pieces that had small defects, mostly stains. Do I donate those to a place like Salvation Army that are trying to resell them? Do I try to find a shelter where they will be given away for free? On a related note, deodorant stains on clothes DRIVE ME CRAZY.
Also related, I donated a bunch of socks the 11yo never wore because he didn’t like the cut. But I put them apart from the socks he wore a ton, but just grew out of. Does Salvation Army want the used socks? Shoes are similarly difficult. There were shoes I was happy to donate because they were barely worn, and obviously the pairs my kids really wear are thrown away (actually I usually wait for a colleague to do shoe recycling and throw them in her big bag at school), but what of the shoes that have clearly been worn, but have lots of wear left? Again, it feels like donating those to some an organization that gives them away is the best bet, but I don’t know what organization that might be (I used to have one down by my parents’ house, but they closed).
These are just some wonderings born of my recent clothing reorganization and donation. I kind of love that I’m posting this first, before the “recent purchases I have loved” post, which definitely includes two new pairs of jeans ::cry laughing emoji / facepalm emoji::
On a (MUCH) more serious note, I’m also processing my thoughts for a post about yesterday’s Supreme Court death blow to trans rights. I hope to write about that soon too.
Fascinating. And made me think of my closet too.
Thank you.
Made me think and then have an reality check and rethink.
What do I really wear…… and why do I have those other things. Yupe. Rethink.
Support!!! and thank you.
I’ve given up on jeans. They just don’t fit my body and I don’t need that kind of shopping trauma. But, I do know what you mean about beloved clothes that you now no longer like. Like, shirts that I used to wear all the time, my favorites from summers past, somehow don’t look good anymore. Does something change them in the wash??? Also- I have similar questions about donating. I’ve started to follow my friend’s advice, which is donate it all and let Goodwill sort it out. If I overthink it, I’ll never end up donating at all and everything will sit in my garage (but every once in a while I picture all my donations sitting in a dumpster in back of Goodwill, eek.)
For me it’s not that they stop looking good, it’s that for some things I just don’t like them the way I used to. I don’t know, they just stop feeling beloved to me, even if they still fit me well and are in good condition. Does that ever happen to you?
And I have friends that say to let the donation places handle the sorting, if I’ve also heard that they throw so much clothing into landfills, which is so bad. But maybe that is where they would end up regardless, which is why fast fashion is so horrible for the world.
Ugh, I really need to go through my closet and drawers. Finding the energy to do so is my problem.