Clothes

When I retired, I decided I wouldn’t touch my work clothes for a year, to give myself four seasons to figure out what I might actually wear going forward. This hasn’t been a year that is a fair test of what I might wear, obviously. But I own too many clothes and I feel the need for a purge coming on.

I did a major clothes and closet makeover back in 2012 (and wrote about it here, here, and here). I just re-read all of those posts, so you don’t have to. You’re welcome. Basically, I took all the clothes out of my room, demo’d my old closet, installed new racks and shelves but no doors, and then only allowed clothes back into my room that I would wear right then. And, I vowed to not own more clothes than fit in my newly efficient room. This was not really a big constraint, because in addition to the closet (which has room for boxes on top of the hanging racks) I have five chests of drawers in my bedroom, ranging from small to medium. Work clothes almost entirely hang in the closet, and all other clothes are in drawers.

The visual approach really worked for my work clothes - having everything hanging out where I could see them helped me get dressed in the mornings. But, looking at those clothes now, I think maybe they are getting dirty or fading, being “out there”. So I’ve just ordered a hanging curtain to block the light and keep them less dusty. But that is purely cosmetic, and doesn’t deal with deciding what I want to own going forward.

My unstable weight has contributed to the problem. I have continued to buy clothes, mostly in bigger sizes that are more comfortable now. The weight started to come on in my last two years of work. At first, I resisted buying new because I assumed I would lose the weight as quickly as I gained it. Alas, no. But then I was within spitting distance of retirement and I resisted buying good clothes knowing I wouldn’t need them all. In fact, I had a knee operation six months before I retired, and used that as an excuse to start wearing yoga pants to work. I kept that up until the end, supplemented with dresses that would work for a wider range of weights than my tailored pants.

So, paradoxically, I have too many clothes but not much in the way of good clothes that fit right now. I need a plan (having a plan makes me feel just about as good as actually doing something). How about this: save doing anything about it for a stretch of bad weather. And in the meantime, buy nothing. Maybe do laundry more often to get by.