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WARDROBE ANALYZE – AND HOW TO EXTEND LIFE OF CLOTHES
Recently, I talked to a woman on the phone according to my upcoming working project. Over the conversation she mentioned that she owned way too much shoes that some of them she hasn’t never even wear. The woman told me that she wanted to, but in real life she was wearing a pair of sneakers when she needed to walk during a day from a meeting to another. To put it shortly: she owned shoes that in real life she wasn’t using.
Hands up if you recognize this situation? I mean, most of us this is a reality. We western women own too much clothes, and it is a fact that we only wear approximately 10 per cent of the content of our wardrobe, and most of the stuff is just waiting to be used in one day. This overstock causes a problem, because we have too many choices but in the same time we find nothing to wear. Why did we end up in this situation? According to Clare Press’s book Wardore Crisis – How We Went from Sunday Best to Fast Fashion (2016, 42) it is because of the low prices of clothes and the fact that 40 per cent of our in-store purchases are unplanned.
In these past two years I have followed conversations on sustainable fashion and read books about the subject. So far I have learned that one of the best choice we can do is to lengthen a life cycle of clothes that we already own. So I thought about sharing my tips, how I try to do it.
Organize and be aware what is inside your wardrobe. Do wardrobe analyze and get to know yourself by just looking at what you have. Think about your shopping manners. What colors you prefer to buy? Or what shape of clothes? Do you own way too much pattern clothes that you end up on a situation that you don’t know how to wear them? Or maybe you have notice that you don’t own basic clothes like a black jacket or pair of smart pants? It is interesting to ask yourself these questions and learn more about yourself. We tend to buy same style clothes and by seeing it through your own eyes, you might think: I have enough of this style of clothes.
Same rule goes to party outfits, which tend to stay in the closet most of the time. Especially now when we are heading to a big party season, you can easily start to mix party clothes with basic ones to spice up your style.
How to do it? For example wear a white t-shirt or turtleneck shirt underneath a black shoulder strap dress. Then add sneakers to the outfit and you are far away from going to a fancy party. Just try!
Take care of your clothes, I mean make a real caring practice like you do a beauty routine on your skin. This is one of the best ways to lengthen a life cycle of clothes. Wash clothes only when needed, often a little dustup is just what clothes need. Invest to a brush for shoes and woolen clothes and look for tips of how to do the caring process rightly on Internet.
My to-do list: I have a suede pair of boots that has some liquid on it (a little accident happened when they were in a suitcase) and some old COS merino wool dress that has a little holes and naps on it that need some taking care. Lets see if I can make them wearable again.
Lets go back to that conversation with that woman who own too many pair of shoes. What did I told her? Well, I gave an advice to start wear some of the shoes more often. How? By adding on pair of high heels in her bag and switching them on before the next meeting. Here in Finland, when most of the year it is impossible to wear high heels, I tend to follow the same rule: I put on pair of high heels in my big bag – just in case. You never know where you end up!