capsule wardrobe vol. 1: the moment of truth

Lately I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I have. It’s not an uncommon thread in the story of my life, but it’s really been tripping me up lately. I simply have too much. I tend to get stuck somewhere between “but I paid $___ for that and I should use it” and “what if I need this someday?” and that’s a tough place to get stuck.

If you’re me, at least.

This is an area of my life that has been under near-constant improvement efforts, despite an almost 100% failure rate. Every time I move, I take more truckloads to the donation center. And yet I still have so. much. stuff.

One area where this has been bothering me particularly is my wardrobe. My wardrobe is a funny thing. I have loads of really nice clothes that I almost never wear, and piles of not-so-nice clothes that I tend to wear. It’s time for that to change.

Part of the reason I have so many clothes is that my current clothing pile covers everything from size 8 to size 14. I was a 12/14 for a while (and I was probably actually bigger than that, just wearing clothes that were too small – which is a miserable way to live, by the way) and last year I lost about 40lbs, taking me down to an 8. About mid-year I gained half the weight back, and I’m sitting right now somewhere between a 10 and a 12. (You’d think a week of not being able to eat anything would have led to some downward momentum on the scale, but you’d be wrong. I think I’ve actually gained weight, thanks only to what I presume is inflammation.)

When I got healthier, I tossed a lot of my bigger wardrobe, but not all of it. Some of those things were just so nice, and I felt like I should hang onto them “just in case.” I won’t blame the beautiful black pants from Brooks Brothers for me letting my weight loss slip, but I also won’t deny having the thought that “at least I can probably wear those pants again.”

Special “big clothes” aside, I just have too much. The other day, as I tried to cram one more shirt on a shelf, I threw my hands in the air. Maybe it was the delirium or the frustration of being sick that sent me into “this must change immediately” mode, or maybe it was just time to do it. I sorted through every single thing in my closet and had a “get real moment” with each one. I rearranged the shelves to make more sense for how I dress. I pulled out some things that I just won’t wear. Even some nice things. And then I sent an email to a bunch of friends to begin coordinating a clothing swap.

Ultimately my goal is to build a capsule wardrobe – or at least a “modified” capsule wardrobe. More on that soon.