How can I choose which clothes to keep?

[glitterbiscuits]

I have too many clothes. I can’t get them in the wardrobe.
I need to purge but I open the wardrobe doors and I look at them and I like them. Then I think about how much money they cost. There lots of different styles. But then I have something for any occasion!
I don’t need to sell them. I don’t have a close enough friend to help me.
I had heard about facing the hangers the other way and if you don’t wear them in a year then you give them away. But I can’t wait a year to shut the wardrobe doors!
Any top tips?

Take out anything that is stained, lost its shape, is bobbled or isnt really your style or size. Everything that is summer or holiday clothes pack away. Pack away occasion clothing. Seperate work and home clothes. Then you can have a better look.
Try on everything and see if you like it as much as you think you do and make up some co ordinating outfits.

You will then get a better idea of what you dont need. Good luck, need to take my own advice!

Good idea about coordinating outfits. I’ve got some lovely patterned skirts ( possibly more than 30!) but tend to wear them with a plain black top. That’s a very dull combination.

I’ve also got lots of sleeveless things I won’t wear without cardigans because of my massive bingo wings.

Have you worn it in the past 6 weeks ?
Will you wear it in the next 3 month's ?
Do you keep it just because it looks nice/ was expensive/ a gift?
I do this with my clothes and found purging so much easily my wardrobe and DPs are practically capsule now we've cleared out and it saves on laundry
Purge purge purge !! You'll feel so liberated

If I haven’t worn something in the previous two years then I get rid of it unless it’s a formal dress etc as I know that no matter how much I might like it on the hanger I won’t wear it again if I haven’t for two years

There are things in there I had when I left my previous job 15 years ago. There’s dresses I wore once to weddings but the though of giving £80 clothing away makes me feel so guilty.

The clothes I wear every day are not in the wardrobe because there’s no room for them.

That’s very telling isn’t it?!

With the dresses you wore to weddings you have to think - if i were invited to a wedding or a 'do' would I wear it or would i buy something new...

If the latter then give away. I find the same - i buy dresses, wear them once or twice if i'm lucky then they sit in the wardrobe for 8 years becoming increasingly out of fashion.

I'm being ruthless at the minute, the clutter in my house is really getting to me. I'm taking a drawer, wardrobe etc every day and going through everything in there. Trying things on and if they don't fit or don't make me feel good then it's going. If I haven't worn it recently then it's going too, unless it's a nice dress or something I've just not had the opportunity to wear.

I've had 2 babies in the past couple of years and feel like I've changed a lot and don't want to be still wearing the same clothes that have been in my wardrobe for years. If I can get down to only having items I really like and get use of, then I'll slowly start building up a new wardrobe with nice pieces.

It's the sunk cost fallacy. That money is gone forever. Just give the clothes you don't need to charity. Think of it as helping someone else enjoy that particular piece of clothing.

Once the items have gone you won't regret it. I have to declutter my clothes in stages. Each time I do it I let go of more things. I can't quite do the Kondo throw out all at once but I know deep down if I like something or am keeping it because it cost a lot of money/was an expensive gift etc. The hanger thing doesn't work for me either.

Wedding clothes change over time. Imagine you had a wedding to attend this year. Would you wear that dress or outfit? If not why are you keeping it?

It's pretty hard sometimes but listen to how you feel about an item. Take a picture if you need a memory/ reminder then let it go!

Good luck!

Cross posted! Sorry about the long post but good advice ^^

Love 'sunk cost fallacy' that's so useful.

Kondo method is good for clothes you have to get together every single item and go through them and ditch everything you don't love.

Also seasonal stuff can you store it elsewhere?

I'm in the process of doing this to everyone's clothes in the house, and it's hard!
I tend to look at something and think "if I saw this in a shop now, would I buy it" and that's really been helping me to decide if I really do like an item.
Some sentimental things I have packed away, but only some, and I rotate summer/winter clothes in storage too.
I also think what events/weddings etc I have coming up in the next few months and think if I'd wear any of what I already have, or would I want to buy something new?
I've also tried to de-bulk my wardrobe too - like I had many black cardigans, they were all a bit different but the end of the day they were all black cardigans... I picked my favourite 2 and donated the rest.

My method is to look at every piece of clothing and think, ‘is there another piece of clothing that I would always go for before that one?’

And it’s amazing how often you’d decide, ‘well, yes’. It cuts across all feelings of ,’but it’s nice material/good colour/cost me a lot’ etc etc. If it’s always going to be your second choice, you will either never wear it, or wear it because you feel you should - and then feel out of sorts all day.

Chuck
chuck
Chuck.

Yes it's very hard to do . I'm the same I have a wardrobe of clothes that is so packed full I never open it. Boxes of clothes under the bed. Black bin liners in the spare bedroom ,yet I'm re wearing the same few outfits that are in a pile on the bedroom floor !

I volunteer in a charity shop and it is amazing how many 'wedding outfits' we are donated, many have clearly been hanging in the wardrobe for years - they are so out of date/style that they are not even 'vintage' .

@friskybivalves I get where you are coming from but doesn't that mean you only end up with one garment per category? One day dress, one pair of jeans, one pair of trousers etc.

I like your idea though, can you elaborate as I'm sure you must have more than one of each ☺

To elaborate on my theory(how grand that sounds)

I do allow myself more pairs of trousers. Eg, I have two pairs of ‘go-to’ black work trousers that work with any heel and are thicker so good for winter. Two pairs of cropped work black trews for summer. One pair wintry navy trrousers and one pair navy summer.

And I have jeans in different colours.

Those are staples.

It’s more the slightly random but still nice tops/jumpers/dresses I’m talking about. I used to have loads that loitered around on hangers and my hand would drift towards them and then always veer away to something else. Because I preferred them. And that’s that.

So I got rid of them all. And every so often I have a very fleeting pang. But very rarely and it passes because I’ve still got the top/shirt/jumper that I always preferred wearing in any case. The ones I get rid of are the ‘what ifs’. What if I’m invited to a winter wedding and feel the need for tweed trousers ? Answer: i would still go in my black trousers because I’m happier in them - which is why I wear them most days of the year.

Look at your stuff in your wardrobe now and hold up your favourite nearest equivalent. Ask yourself which you’d choose to wear. There will always be one that comes out on top.

Promise last post -

I still have loads of things to wear. For different occasions/weather/moods. And frankly I need to do another prune because like everything the method only works if you actually apply it (ahem). But it’s a good rule.

I did this last year, OP.

I loved the idea of backwards hangers then get rid in a year but, like you, I didn't have a year.

I took everything out. I started off by getting rid of everything that I hadn't worn in the last 6 months. No excuses of "I might wear it one day", nope, if it's not been out of the wardrobe in 6 months, it needs to go.

Of everything remaining, I grouped everything that was similar (e.g. all black cardigans together, all blue jeans together, all summer dresses together) and forced myself to pick one of them to keep because I don't need 6 pairs of blue jeans and 10 summer dresses.

It also helps to try things on as you're doing it and brutally asking yourself "does this look good?" For me, half the time the answer was no!

You need to be brutal.

I only gave myself 90 minutes to get it done so that I had to make snap decisions and couldn't dilly-dally over individual items.

So I could hold a Tshirt World Cup? Pick 2, choose the winner. Reject plays the loser of the next pairing? This could be a way to spend a whole weekend?

It doesn't matter how much money you've spent.

Whether the garment is stuck in the wardrobe for ever and a day or whether you pass it on to a charity, the money is lost.

You lost the money when you paid for the garment.

Pick each garment out.
Try it on and then ask yourself

When did I last wear this?
When would I wear it again?
Does it fit?
Why haven't I worn this since [whenever]?
Why do I avoid wearing it?
Does it need mending?
Is it pilling?
Does it need specialist cleaning?

If you don't like the answers, pass it on.

YY, OP. World Cup of t-shirts. You will still end up with lots. But not ones in iffy colours or that are too tight or just not as nice as your one from Cos or that you might wear but only under jumpers as an invisible warm layer (I had loads of these and you may as well only have a couple)

Point being, there’s often no good reason why you haven’t worn it for six months because it’s perfectly ok - you just don’t like it as much as your go-to thing. And that won’t change.