Are You Wearing All Those Clothes?

When the season changes, I am always excited to rediscover the clothes I haven’t worn in many months. For the summer, that means short-sleeved and sleeveless tops, as well as shorts. (I have a few dresses for when I have to get fancy, but otherwise I’m not a dress kind of gal.)

At the start of this summer, I found myself gravitating towards my favorite summer tops. I went for the ones that were the most comfortable and the most flattering. After a while, I started wondering why I still had some of the others, because I wasn’t wearing them. So decided to wear all of my tops in order and make a decision about whether to keep them.

My summer shirts live in two places. Most of them are folded and stored one of my dresser drawers. For years I have been folding them so that they stand up. The short-sleeved tops go on the left, the workout t-shirts on the right, and the sleeveless tops and workout shorts go in the middle. When I do laundry, the clean shirts go in the back, so the ones I haven’t worn recently are always in the front.

I started wearing the short-sleeved and sleeveless shirts from front to back. I identified a couple of them that weren’t as flattering as others and I plan to donate them. I also have short-sleeved and sleeveless blouses hanging in the closet. I’ve now worn almost all of them, and have put a few in the donation pile.

I also had an interesting experience with my dressy pants. I wear jeans most of the year (blue or black) and only break out the nicer pants when I need to be a little more dressed up. I wear those nicer pants so seldom that they tend to collect dust. I solved that problem by getting some dust covers for them (see my post Clothes You Don’t Wear That Often.)

I recently decided to put on a pair of nice black pants for my anniversary celebration. The first pair I put on were less comfortable than I remembered.  I decided to try on all of my nice pants to see which ones still felt good. I ended up giving away three pairs of pants. I am thinking of giving away more, since those pants are worn so infrequently.

Are there clothes you own but are not wearing? (Hint: if they still have tags on them, that’s a good clue. One of the pants I gave away still had tags on!) Try the exercise of wearing everything in order. See what feels comfortable and looks good. I guarantee that you will find some things that are ready to check out of your home. Life is always easier when you have more room and fewer choices.