Late last year I did a poll asking how much your wardrobe is worth – and here are the results.
Now, the question to ask is how much of your wardrobe do you wear regularly? Most people wear around 20% of their wardrobe 80% of the time. Even if you regularly wear 50% of your wardrobe, the other 50% is often ill thought purchases, or holding onto clothing that no longer suits your lifestyle, personality or you physically.
When you figure out the cost of the clothes that you don’t wear – that’s between $1000 and $10 000 (easily) in your wardrobe that is potentially a waste. What to do?
1. Audit your wardrobe – figure out what you love and what you don’t wear
2. Get rid of the clothes you don’t wear because you don’t love them and they don’t make you feel good – sell them on ebay or to a consignment store, give them away to friends/family or a charity.
3. Alter the clothes that are almost there, that you would wear if they fit correctly, so that they do make you feel fabulous.
What percentage of your wardrobe do you regularly wear?
This is quite timely ! Due to circumstances I have had to sort out my wardrobe. I found it difficult but necessary to do away with some garments I have been hanging on to because of sentimental reasons. It is surprising how much room these garments needed. Whilst it was a big decision to let them go , I feel much better for it. I can now get down to the business of only keeping my current lifestyle. I now hope to have a more “user friendly” wardrobe. Hopefully more in the 80-/- of your poll!
Hm, I wear about 80-90% of my clothes so I guess Im one of those few women who are not in the 20% group. haha 😛
Im very picky with my purchases, looks for bargain and thrift shop “fun pieces” like non-everyday shoes and bags, edit and organize my wardrobe a few time each seasons and most things Im buying are classic, simple and neutral which a few off-season bargains here and there. I rarely buy trendy pieces for full price because I already know I might not wear them. Also, I love everything I own. The only wardrobe dilemma in my case Im still trying to figure out is dealing with are “storing more than you wear” or the building a wardrobe based on a”fantasy lifestyle”.
Im currently studying about clothes and styles (which was a saviour move. Im still shoppholic but thanks to learning about different styles and about proportions I finally learned to not shopping spontaneously and not let friends or family take over your decision on what you want to wear) which make me think that I “NEED” formal-, office- and fancy wear even though Im just a student living in a rural area which I dont unless Im eating out somewhere fancy or get a job. I cant exactly strolling around in stilettos and fancy dresses on a road where farmer lives! :S
The remaining 10-20% are just clothes that does not suit my lifestyle at the moment, those clothes suit a city girl more. Fortunately, I like to dress up so I dont mind to dress them down and wear when eating out, but I only wear them once or twice every second year (dont change size so I can wear most of my clothes for a decade if they are durable!) which is a bit waste of money (again fortunately a bargain hunter…) and take up storage room.
Oh well, I guess I will learn that mistake at one point later in life (Im just 24). 😛
I dont think 10-20% dressy clothes are not as bad as not wearing 80% of your wardrobe and I love everything I own.
This is hard for me to judge. I have a good portion In my closet that doesn’t fit. I’m almost 18 months postpartum with baby #3 and my clothes don’t fit! I’ve had to get a new wardrobe after each baby due to body changes (even if I was at my prepregnancy weight!) anyways. But I want to get to prepregnancy weight to see if they fit before I get rid of them (my weight loss has finally started again after months of nothing! Yay hormones :/). Anyways, I do wear most of my wardrobe that fits. Partially because I don’t own very much. Partially because I don’t fit into most of my clothes and don’t have much money (therefore my closet is definitely worth less than $2000!) also, I don’t really like shopping! Finding clothes that fit well and look good is a challenge. 🙂 We also move a lot and I’m tired of moving stuff so I keep possessions to a minimum.
Great post! I grew up with hand-me-downs and thrifted clothes due to financial difficulties. I still love hand-me-downs, who doesn’t like free stuff? And thrifting. It’s thrilling to get a dress or purse with the tags still on and pay a fraction of the price.
I do like nicer things, and go for quality over quantity, but that doesn’t mean paying a lot of money. People think that the more expensive an item is, the better the quality, but that’s not necessarily true. I love Biu Biu clothes, though not their spring/summer collection this year. I’ve also bought a couple items from Heart Breaker Fashion. I’ve realised buying great bras makes a HUGe difference (Freya Deco!) and you can buy those cheaply enough at Bratabase, Braswap, or Nordstroms Rack.
All my clothes easily fit into a wardrobe and I never have issues with not having enough to wear. On the contrary, I have SO much to wear!
I think I wear about 90-100% of whatever season it currently is. It’d be nice to not have to store multiple season’s worth of clothing. I have been working harder on finding pieces that can transition from winter to spring and summer to fall so I don’t have quite so many uni-taskers in my wardrobe.
I make an effort at the end of every season before putting things away to take out everything I wore and see what is still hanging in the closet/sitting in the drawer. That stuff goes because clearly I don’t have much interest in it if I didn’t bother to wear it since last season. It’s easiest to sort when what I wore is still fresh in my mind rather than go back later and decide to keep something out of caution.
After a large weight loss and a change in hair color, I had to remove quite a few items from my “current” wardrobe to my “storage” wardrobe. My goal is to sell the gently used items and donate everything else. I do have a box of sentimental items that I’ll probably never wear again, but I’m comfortable with that. There were probably a dozen such boxes at one time, so I’ve done a pretty good job of paring down my collection of such items.
With a lot of guidance from Imogen, I’ve chosen very carefully for my current wardrobe and have given myself the personal style challenge of wearing everything in it at least once a season. So far, so good for the the winter/fall season. Some things have been easier to wear than others and I’ve tried to be mindful of why something that fits well and pairs well with other items in my wardrobe is not being worn. Sometimes I’ve found wardrobe holes, which when filled, resolve the problem. At this point, I’m able to easily wear almost everything I’ve bought which in the past year includes: over a dozen pairs of shoes, several purses, about a dozen pairs of pants, about a dozen tops, a half dozen tank tops, about a dozen sweaters, more than a half dozen jackets (I wear them year round), 2 down vests, and several scarves. All said, I think I’ve done a pretty good job, but I’ll know more at the end of the season. My main concern is that my weight will change too much to have items altered. I’m hoping to get a lot a wear out of this expensive investment. I’m estimating I’ve spent less than $3k for everything, with shoes being the most expensive items, far and away. I’ll have final numbers sometime in January. My husband understands because over the past 3-4 years, he also has had a large weight loss that necessitated the purchase of a new wardrobe, which was planned and executed almost solely by me. It’s been a lot of work!!