New Season, New Closet
Spring cleaning (really, every season cleaning) for me applies not just to my home, but to my closet as well. Each season, I take an afternoon to go through my entire closet, including shoes and accessories, and I put aside everything I have stopped wearing in the last few months, no longer love the fit of, or has ‘gone out of style’. Fashion is cyclical, so sometimes it is worth hanging on to things, but that’s why I have learned that if you buy more that fits within your personal style (vs. what is fashionable), regardless of the trend, you will likely wear it for so much longer. I reorganize my closet to put all my seasonal favorites in easily accessible cupboards or on hanging racks. I store all the not applicable seasonal pieces in a few cubbies (or in big plastic boxes under my bed or at my in-laws’ place, because lets be real, who has enough space for this in their teeny NYC apartments). This process not only allows me to take stock of what I love and want to wear in the upcoming season but allows me to pull out all the clothes that I don’t wear but are crowding my closet so I can’t find what I actually love to wear and then decide I need to buy new clothes - read: I end up with three identical cream colored turtleneck sweaters and don’t actually wear any of them.
Then I do one of two things with the tossed aside pile:
If the items are from fast fashion retailers, the resale value is usually very low. If they are still in exceptional condition or if it was an item that was very popular when it was in season, I try to resell it on Poshmark. If I’m feeling lazy to take the pretty pictures and write enticing descriptions, I request a ‘cleanout bag’ from Thredup x Reformation. I, for one, LOVE Reformation, so the fact that I get store credit for things they accept is a huge perk, but for whatever they don’t take, they will be reused or responsibly recycled or you can even choose to have your items returned. It’s like you are being rewarded for being responsible about the purchases you shouldn’t have made in the first place! But note, you usually get a very small fraction of what you originally paid, so this should be no excuse to buy irresponsibly.
If the items are not from fast-fashion retailers, and are from contemporary or high-end/luxury fashion brands, I leverage The RealReal. They have easy options like doing a quick in store drop-off (the last time I did this it took 8 minutes from start to finish), requesting a prepaid mailing label, or actually having a specialist come to your home and evaluate/pickup what you are looking to sell. Once you have an account on The RealReal, there is a very easy to use seller interface and you can see every step - the warehouse pricing the item, it going live on their site, when the item sells, etc. The seller makes a commission off every sale and the more you sell, the more commission you make. Seriously, they make it VERY easy for you. Again, you are making back a fraction of what you originally paid, so this should be no excuse to buy irresponsibly either! But you get the satisfaction of knowing that items won’t be thrown into a landfill but rather are possibly going to have a second life in someone else’s closet.
Now, sustainability in fashion is very much at the forefront of the conversation in the industry - perhaps we’ve finally reached a tipping point in the climate related natural disasters popping up all over the world, which has many of us taking a closer look at our own practices and how we are contributing to the problem. Not just in terms of sustainable production practices, using materials that are more resourceful or ethical, but also in terms of how much we wear of what we already own. Being an ‘outfit repeater’ was once a bad thing (I can hear myself saying “But I already posted a picture in it”) but now its being said proudly - as a sort of badge of responsibility.
So this is my small contribution- investing in fewer better pieces, taking exceptional care of what I own so that when I am no longer using the piece as much I can resell it through companies like The RealReal for someone else to then own and love.
