Wardrobe Diary

For the past few months I have been trying to adhere to the saying “wear more buy less”. As I know is the case with a lot of you, I have a wardrobe over spilling with clothes – over half of which I never wear. But why is this?

Partly I think it’s down to years of there being next to nothing in the way of plus size clothes and although now the availability is still not to the scale as straight sizes, it is markedly bigger. This means I have more variety in where I buy things from and more options which has led to me buying for the sake of buying.

My clothing spending habit is starting to affect my relationship as well. We are trying to save for a deposit – no easy thing. Yet I have at least a couple of grand’s worth of clothes sitting in my bedroom. I can see why the husband gets annoyed when yet another ASOS parcel arrives, because if the shoe (sorry!) was on the other foot, I too would be hacked off that money that could go towards getting us our dream house is being wasted on an item – usually similar to three (or more) other items in the wardrobe.

My most recent rule of “two out, one in” is working but of the “one in” items I’ve bought recently, three of them currently sit unworn in the wardrobe. So I didn’t really need them. I have been trying various different challenges over the last year but none of them are working. I often have people comment on the fact they never see me in the same outfit twice – which clearly goes to show I have too many clothes.

The other night I was helping a friend sort out her wardrobe and she was listing the items she wore day in day out. It made me think – do I have items that I always wear and if so – could I form a wardrobe from those items and reduce my wardrobe significantly? I think the answer is a resounding YES!

SO – from Monday 9 December for the next six weeks (ending Sunday 19 January 2014), I will write down the outfit I am wearing each day – down to the shoes and coat. This will include slobby weekend wear but I won’t include any “special” outfits – such as the outfit I am wearing to the wedding I am attending next week. At the end of the six weeks, I will recap and see if I can identify any favourite outfits and trends. Anything I haven’t worn, I will pack away for a further four weeks and see if I miss. If I don’t it will go, if I do, well I’ll add it back in.

I plan to do a weekly summary of what I’ve worn as well – I might even persuade the husband to take a few pictures! Otherwise I’ll be fiddling with the tripod.

Wish me luck!