The Great Clothing Cleanse

It was a long time coming, and I wanted to postpone it for yet another year, but it was time. Last weekend was the Great Clothing Cleanse of 2015, you know, sort of like celebrities do before awards season. But this wasn’t about drinking a kale and carrot smoothie to lose weight; this was all about getting rid of clothes to gain space.

This spring, instead of simply shuffling seasonal clothes and shoes from a basement storage area to my closet, switching them out, and then hauling the blacks and grays of winter to the basement, I decided to really purge, so everything could fit in my bedroom closet. I am so over having clothes dictate my life. And how did I ever end up with 17 mock turtlenecks in my life? It was time I took charge.

“You wear 20 percent of your clothes 80 percent of the time,” says Peter Walsh, organizational guru, of Oprah’s Clean Up Your Messy House Tour. Well, I sort of get that as I’ve developed a bit of a daily uniform in retirement. I suspect many others have as well.

“Then what do I need to hang onto all of this other stuff for?” I asked myself. Beyond the funeral clothes for each season, special event items for the occasional dress up affair, and church clothes that sort of bridge the two, I really don’t need much, and it was past time to trim down.

Once I decided my strategy – a pile for Goodwill, a stack for a local professional clothing closet and lastly, much against my inner voice, a load for the consignment shop, it was time to begin the wardrobe ridding process.

Gone were the pants that were hopelessly too small, and nicer clothes were quickly plucked to get into hands of women who could benefit from them. And finally, I was left with the outdated, worn out or pathetic impulse purchases – usually described as gaudy, tacky and tasteless. These all fall into the head scratching, “what was I ever thinking” category.

It did make me wonder though about how or why we connect with clothes. The best decisions I’ve made are those classic, better made items – you know the ones that never wear out, and you paid so much for them, you have to tolerate a different style of the leg or cut in the jacket. The worst decisions – easy, usually purchased before I went on vacation, and the minute I got home, they got shoved to the back of the closet, never to be worn again. Sometimes, I think vacation is a time to try something different. I always regret it!

Regardless, my closet feels pounds lighter, but I didn’t meet my goal. A handful of winter clothes will summer in the basement, and who knows, in the fall, I may be able to cull out excess summer clothes – I’ve got more tropical print shirts and too tight khaki capris I want to give one last chance.

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