End of Year Clothing Audit
Source "Shoppers in the UK buy more clothes per person than any other country in Europe"
Inspired by this post by @phoenixwren, I did a quick tally of my clothes purchases in 2021, which came to 57 items (59, if pyjamas count as two items). Just nine items less than the average American. Eight items were scarves (one second-hand) and another twelve were underwear.
In 2020, it was nine items, including a puffer coat I had saved for, two t-shirts and a scarf. I can't find any receipts for 2019, but I would have bought replacements for things like underwear. My big consumption in those years was yarn and, more recently, fabric, which led to a ban in the Saturday Savers No-Buy month in September. The sock yarn has got out of hand, with at least ten skeins waiting to be knitted up.
My downfall this year has been buying clothes in charity shops or online through Oxfam. I did get a smashing Barbour International biker jacket from Oxfam which I have been wearing constantly since, but the other items either don't fit or come into the "aspirational" category.
One of them was a long, nineties raincoat of uncertain colour (I think I had a very similar one at the time). I had just been to see the 80th Anniversary showing of The Maltese Falcon and under the influence of early twentieth century film noir, had to have it. I have a beret to go with it, although I am tempted by a Pop-eye Doyle style pork-pie hat. Now I just need the duplicitous beauty and the double-dealing partner and Peter Lorre and I'll be right.
Then there was the short white trench-coat - I know where that idea came from: every second Sunday Alyssa Beltempo does a break down of a stylish outfit and then, using the elements (structured/casual etc) attempts to recreate a similar outfit using what she already has in her wardrobe. I enjoy watching them each month, and I was blown away by this one, featuring a black and white outfit:
complete with styling details:
Here's Alyssa's interpretation:
... with the silk scarf in the jeans back pocket:
Here's the whole video explaining her analysis and then how she put the outfit together using items she already had in her wardrobe:
You can see how a white trench-coat would come into it.
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57 items seem like a lot, I don't know if I buy that much (although maybe if I count everything surely yes) 😅. It is always good to have basic garments to put together any outfit like this, although I cannot avoid feeling a fascination for prints.
It's true, I did go a bit crazy with the scarves 😂. The three year average is much better, though - about 25 a year including underwear. I like prints, I have a couple of print skirts which I love, they've been in my wardrobe for years.
Are you joining the Saturday Savers Club this year? We've just started again: excellent way to organise more resources for travelling 😎:
Saturday Savers Club Launch
How interesting, I didn't know about it. It seems like a great idea to me, I'll try to do it in my savings. Thanks 😃.
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!LUV
@shanibeer(4/5) gave you LUV.
Google "the hanky code" if you don't know what it is - essentially it was/is (but probably less known now) queer community code to say what you were into without saying it out loud in an era where that could be dangerous (and still is, in some places). Kerchief in the back pocket is how that works, and the color of the hankie is what tells what you're into.
Little bit of related fashion trivia there! ;)
I wondered about that, too.
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@shanibeer(5/5) gave you LUV.
Just been back and checked the comments: several other people highlighted the hanky code, interesting the generational gap in knowledge (sorry to lump you in the same generation as me 😜)! But it also seems in Japan it is common to carry a very lightweight handkerchief to use as a hand-towel/tissue, and some people picked up on the styling for carrying fabric face-masks. I really liked the idea, although one person commented that a scarf in a back pocket meant you wanted it stolen 😂.
Ha ha ha, I'm 43 so technically I'm an Xer but I identify more with the "Xennial" idea, kind of a mini generation with some things in common with Xers and some things in common with Millennials, the "analog childhood/digital adulthood" being our experience as we came of age as the world changed.
I do sometimes use handkerchiefs at home but usually I don't take them when I go out; the reason is because stuffing a snotty handkerchief in my pocket just keeps it wet, lol. At home when I use one I hang it up, I don't put it in my pocket. I haven't set it up in the new apartment yet but in the old apartment I kept a ring on a hook next to my bed and that's where my hanky went, so I could use it in bed and then hang it up to dry. I would then wash it when it was pretty full. xD I do put half-used tissues in my pocket and they dry? But I think it's a matter of how thin they are compared to a thick handkerchief. x3
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Wow amazing job weldon thanks for sharing @shanibeer
Hello @smilestitches, how are you?
Am fine thank you @shanibeer
So good to hear 😍
Are you joining the Saturday Savers Club this year? I would love to see you there!
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@shanibeer(5/5) gave you LUV.
Good idea to keep track of one’s purchases (we started a Kakeibo book this year). I think we already wrote about this some time ago, I used the app Stylebook to keep track of my purchases, create outfits and check how often I wore a garment. But the whole process got too laborious for me, especially after a big wardrobe clean out which would have forced me to delete a lot of outfits which included garments I gave away as they did not fit any loner and to take new photos and and and..
But while reading your post I think about reviving this app and starting new (right now I infrequently make a photo of outfits I love and of new garments and store them in a folder on my phone).
And with the amount of garments you bought… I am not sure if the pure amount is important or if it would be more important if they added to your joy and/or if they served you well. But its not easy to formulate a balance, I mean how long should a garment bring joy so that it counts as a good purchase (and I am not thinking necessarily that wear alone is a indicator, perhaps the garment is connected to memories, ideals, aspirations etc).
I also think that purchasing less to save the environment is important, but sometimes I get a bit exhausted my the moral imperative behind it. I often feel forced to justify garment purchases (perhaps because of my ingrained Protestant conscience) and than I end in cycles where i count up that I do not journey nor have a car nor eat meat nor smoke etc… and after thinking about this I am back that environmental solutions must be on a bigger scale and that I cannot really get a grip in some topics (like its better to use a cloud solution or paper, or using glass bottles or linen bags, if I do not use them often enough…)
Tada… here you have a perfect example of how my brain works: I am able to over-complicate everything, I even do it in a comment.
Back to your purchases… For me both - a Trenchcoat and a raincoat- sound like lovely garments which could be used in a lot of outfits (especially with a beret). And the bigger amount of clothes you bought in 21… I remember you wrote your figure changed and that you lost weight, I imagine that you wanted to have good fitting clothes and that either means tailoring or buying.
And with books, fabric and yarn, I fear there I have no words, as I am nearly unable to resist, especially books.
Again I feel the need to apologies for this long comment, feel free to skip the middle part 🤪
Thank you so much for your lovely comment 😍. I feel these are all important things, so its good to be able to discuss them.
A short answer for now: there seems to be a trend, perhaps initiated/exacerbated by social media, for documenting everything that we do, rather than simply living 😂. By the time we have recorded our finances, clothes, food, creative endeavours and (my personal bete-noire) productivity, we have a lot of data, a second tier of mediated life, going on. My own approach to this dilemma is to focus on one or two things and to do spot checks now and then to see how things are going and whether I need to adjust.
With regard to fashion, clothing, self-identity and expression and their connection to sustainability, I feel there is something else going on as well, which is about an acknowledging and healing process that allows us (especially women, but not exclusively) to understand and accept ourselves, our being, our embodied wholeness. I'm thinking about your little sculpture oozing blood and the counter to that, as I'm writing.
Separately, I like the Kakeibo book concept. Are you joining the Saturday Savers Club this year? What I like about the Club, especially now I am a little more organised, is that I just turn up each week and do what is necessary. I don't have to keep re-thinking it, although I may review and revise things now and then.
Joining the Club would mean writing a comment once a week about how things are going with your savings plan, in this case, Kakeibo.
We are still filling it out :-D Hope the enthusiasm holds for a bit longer. We are planning to do it for some month just to get a more precise overlook what we are spending (although our bank account tells us its nearly every month the same , we seem to be creatures of habit).
ANd by pure chance: I heard a podcast two weeks ago about data collecting (sadly in German, because I think you would have like it) and some pretty dark results. Katika Kühnreich writes about the impact on society through social credits. She started to research in China but later found a lot of concepts to influence moral, monetary, health etc. behaviour are also used in „western“ countries, China is only a tad better in implementing it. I found one image she described very telling. She says there is no longer a „big Brother“ who is watching and controlling, hated and feared, but a „little sister“ with a tiny warm hand sticky from sweets which we want to have with us all the time (aka the cel phone, gamification, cashback etc.). I found a lot of concepts she presents very understandable, but do not share her very (veryveryvery) dystopian view of the future.
I try not to get too obsessive about data collecting (I'm talking about self-tracking here), I like to check now and then, as with the clothing audit or with my expenses, and make any adjustments I want to, but then I let it alone and get on with life.
I tried one of those wardrobe/make outfits things, but too boring and time consuming and I deleted it. I like a youtuber - slaphappysewing - very down to earth and nearer my age (@cryptocariad may follow her). She mentioned that taking pictures and filming herself had changed her perception of herself and she suggested trying it for your own evaluation, regardless of whether you were going to publish anything.
The website you linked looked interesting - my masters degree was on a very similar theme: digital media and society.
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@shanibeer(4/5) gave you LUV.
You made me think - for a long time. Hmmm, only two pair of shoes and several pair of bamboo sneaker socks. Not a lot... but I hate buying clothes even in good times. I love your example because it shows that you don't need to buy new things "exactly like that", but you can use your own wardrobe to get the achieved goal, the style/look you like.
When I lived in Berlin, I often went to second-hand shops - there were so many of them. And even the small town I live in has two: one with clothing only and the other, bigger one, is more of a department store for used things. When I broke the glass lid of my biggest pan two years ago, I went there every few weeks and then I had one that fit :)
Hello @muscara, happy new year, I hope you had a restful holiday over the festivities 😍.
I enjoy those videos - as much for the analysis of the look, so I can take the ideas and then apply them when I see a look that I like. Some work better than others, of course, but it is good fun (and an excuse to play dressing up). I think it helps to identify where there are specific gaps and encourages a more focused approach to buying additional items.
You're right about second-hand shops, my whole first home came from them including things like an ironing board (I still have it forty years later). It is so satisfying when you are able to find the exact thing, like the replacement lid for your pan. I was very pleased with myself when I made a new handle for a pan-lid using Sugru 😂. Sugru is great, I have used it for several small jobs around the home.
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Your post motivated me to see my expense on clothing last year. And scarves and sock yarns 👍
I know, it's very addictive when you see a post like this 😁
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