wardrobe

While the boys were enjoying a sleepover at their grandparents back in January, I finally made the time and effort to give my closet its yearly purging. To my surprise, I only ended up with a small bag of items to give away. Before I began, I’d been under the impression that I would be purging at least half my closet. But as I looked through every single item that I owned, it dawned on me what a thorough job I did the last time. Almost every item I came across was one which I’d worn in the last couple of years and/or something that I knew I would wear at least once in the next couple of years.

(The one exception are these pair of Levi jeans that I used to wear every day some fifteen years ago. For some reason, Rick refuses to let me give away these jeans, even though there is no chance that I will ever fit into them again. But what is a wife to do? Anything to keep the hubby happy.)

It wasn’t like this when I first started to seriously purge my closet a few years ago. It took me an extremely long time to work out that it’s okay to let go of clothes that I used to love wearing. The reality is that as your life changes, the type of clothes you wear will change. In my twenties, I wore a lot of pencil skirts and fitted tops for my corporate role. Now, as I look after three little boys at home, my daily uniform (second/third trimester excluded of course) tends to be jeans paired with slouchy tops and oversized garments, or a loose dress with stockings and a cardigan (and sometimes just my PJs, but that’s another story). It took me a long time to let go of those old clothes – I guess I kept thinking that my body would somehow go back to what it was, and that I would one day wear exactly the same outfits again and look just as smashing as I once did (or so I like to think anyway!). If I had to be honest, it was really quite hard to accept that my body had changed (permanently) and that my life had also changed. But about two years ago, I finally saw the light. I let go of all my clothes from my early to mid twenties. I’m not kidding – there were bags of the stuff. I gave them away to friends whom I knew would fit the clothes, enjoy wearing them, and (hopefully) take good care of them.

Quite frankly, it was one of the most liberating experiences of my life.

But back to the January just gone by, it wasn’t just the clothes that I went through with a fine-tooth comb. I also took stock of all my jewellery, bags and shoes. But again, there was very little to get rid of. Since I knew that I wouldn’t be buying anything new for a while, I was happy to hold on to a number of things which I “might possibly use or wear” in the next ten years or so. I didn’t mind adopting this rather loose criteria, since it wasn’t actually all that much stuff at the end of the day. Plus, I wouldn’t have to worry about making room for extra stuff anyway, so it was all good.

Whilst going through the motions of working out what to purge and what to keep, I found myself becoming re-acquainted with what I had in my closet. This was such a great thing. It meant that I was reminded of items which I had – and loved – but had momentarily forgotten about. In a way, it was like re-discovering qualities about one’s partner which we are sometimes guilty of losing touch with or forgetting about. In re-acquainting myself with the actual contents of my closet, I was once more truly thankful for what I already had.

In addition to the purging (and the re-acquainting), I also took the opportunity to re-organise certain items like my scarves, and also to make everything tidier and neater – for example, folding my basics properly so that they fit properly in their compartment without overflowing. Somehow, this itself made the clothes seem… nicer. I guess that’s why they iron and fold everything so neatly in clothes stores!

All in all, it was totally worthwhile taking the time to purge, get re-acquainted, re-organise and tidy things up, because at the end of the day, my closet truly felt like a happy closet.

Tell me, have you done any purging recently?

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Other posts you might be interested in reading:
The Happy Closet, Part 4 (on not buying anything for a year)
The Happy Closet, Part 3 (my tips on buying less)
The Happy Closet, Part 2 (the basic principles)

You can read all of The Happy Closet posts here.

So I did it.

I survived an entire year without buying any new clothes, shoes, bags, jewellery or any other accessory item you can think of. I didn’t shop online or offline. I didn’t go thrifting, I didn’t swap any clothes with any friends, I didn’t ask for anything on my birthday. I didn’t even ask to borrow any of my mum’s clothes (she’s a trendy lady, my mum).

A few fun facts and figures:

• While I didn’t spend much time on Pinterest, I still loved reading the style posts every week by my favourite bloggers like Bri, Miss James, Kendi and Elsie & Emma. There was absolutely no need for me to boycott reading the blogs I love to ‘avoid temptation’. If anything, I enjoyed living somewhat vicariously through others’ amazing creativity (and still do).
• Even without adding to my closet, I’m quite sure I still only wore about 30%-40% of my wardrobe, and perhaps even only about 15% of my accessories. To me, this simply goes to show that I still have more items than I really need. I do take into consideration, though, that getting pregnant halfway through the year meant that I couldn’t wear a substantial portion of my wardrobe for a few good months.
• My most worn items of clothing: my jeggings from Urban Outfitters, my black dresses, this jacket, my grey t-shirt, my white t-shirt with a random print (shown here), my (very old) white shirt (shown above), and my yellow maxi dress (again shown here).
• I adorned my feet with primarily three pairs of shoes: my silver ballet flats and my black ankle boots during the colder months; and my military green sandals during the warmer months (almost all my maternity posts have been ‘styled’ with these sandals). In fact, with the exception of possibly two occasions (including the announcement shoot), I think I’ve worn those same sandals every day for the last 3 months. And the awesome thing is that, my feet have not felt lacking whatsoever. As strange a sentence as that is. Again, this proves to me that I have more shoes than I actually care to wear.

As a reward for my year-long hiatus…

…Rick bought me a beautiful basket bag at Christmas from the local Warriewood markets here in the northern beaches. The basket is roomy, has comfortable handles and was beautifully handmade in Morocco. I’m so pleased with it; it’s the only thing I actually felt I possibly needed last year. I love that it stands upright, and is big enough to fit my normal bag as well as a nappy change kit, sun-hats, and the three water bottles I tote around for the boys.

The biggest reward, however, has been learning contentment.

Truly, it has surprised me how easy it turned out to be, to not spend money on myself. I think I mentioned it here before, but what I found was that the more I didn’t buy, the less desire I had to buy anything. And so it got easier and easier, until it simply became my default mindset.

I’ve loved pulling out old clothes and wearing them. They may not all be perfect, but that’s okay. I can live with that.

For so long in my life, I felt like I was somewhat of a slave to what I saw in magazines, on the television, at the shops, on the internet. It was something I truly struggled with, and even as I handed over my credit card details time and time again, I knew at the back of my mind that what I wanted most of all was not the leather jacket from Sass and Bide or the beautiful handmade bag from Etsy; instead, deep down, I knew what I wanted was simply to free myelf from all that consumerism.

And now, miraculously, through this somewhat accidental experiment of mine, I feel like I’ve accomplished exactly this. Without the desire to acquire new things, I feel liberated. I feel lighter. I feel thankful. I feel happy. I feel content.

So what now?

I still don’t see any need to add to my closet, so the zero spending shall continue. (This goes down nicely with our budget for this year anyway.)

In fact, what i want to do is to trim my wardrobe even further. So over the next month or so, the plan will be to go through my closet with a fine tooth comb and take stock of what I own once more. The goal will be to work out what can be further purged from the closet to make it an even happier one.

Jackets, cardigans, shirts, pants, dresses, scarves, t-shirts, stockings, socks, shorts, jumpers, jewellery, bags, shoes, gloves, belly bands… no rock will be left unturned.

I shall keep you posted, my friends.

You can read all of The Happy Closet posts here.