Goodwill (Wardrobe) Hunting

 I have a theory about how ugly Christmas sweaters came to be, rooted in a bygone day of American thriftiness: HOW UGLY CHRISTMAS SWEATERS CAME TO BE You buy a Christmas sweater that's stylish, colorful and fits well. You wear it with pride. Next year, your Christmas sweater is not quite as stylish, but it's still colorful and fits well. By the fifth year, your Christmas sweater is noticeably out of date, not quite as colorful, and - let's face it -  no longer fits quite as well. But hey, you only wear it once a year and you paid good money for it. By the seventh year, this sweater is ugly! Voila, the ugly Christmas sweater is born. Now you can buy your ugly Christmas sweater right off the racks, like a pair of pre-washed jeans. Why wait for your Christmas sweater to become ugly? AN ALTERNATIVE TO UGLY SWEATERS The obvious answer, and the one you would expect from me, is to purchase your ugly Christmas sweater used. This is certainly a viable answer. I'm wondering, tho...

 Most of us, let's be honest, are drowning in stuff. While minimalist Joshua Becker's post was written several years ago, I suspect that the statistics he cites, described below, have only gotten worse. TOO MUCH STUFF 1. The average household owns 300,000 items. Wow. 2. 32% of households only have room to park one car in a two-car garage (one in four can't park any car in their garage). 3. One out of ten of us rents offsite storage to deal with our excess stuff. As of March of 2020, there was 5.4 square feet of offsite storage space for every man, woman and child living in the U.S. 4. Even with all the stuff we have, we don't have enough money . I created this blog to encourage us all to be more conscious consumers of clothing - to consider buying quality clothing second-hand and to be more thoughtful about how much of it we really need. The goal is to keep our clothing from becoming just more stuff that's out of control. Naturally, these concepts go beyond cloth...

 I'm taking a break from talking about used clothing this week to focus a bit on history. I recently saw a photograph of women from the 1920s, and it occurred to me what an amazing transformation had happened for women's clothing in just 30 years. Here's an image of what women wore in the 1890s. Note the long sleeves, high necklines and rear bustles. These outfits would also have required a corset underneath and petticoats. I found this image at ThisVictorianLife.com .  The couple who runs the site wears Victorian-era clothing in their everyday lives. Here is an image of what women wore in the 1920s. Note the (relatively) high hemlines, short sleeves and more contemporary necklines. Also note the low heel on the shoes. I found this image on a Pinterest page. While I personally prefer clothing that's a bit more figure-flattering, imagine the freedom these women from the 20s experienced compared to their 1890's sisters! Have things changed as much 100 years later? Ma...

 I culled my closet a couple of weeks ago, inspired again by Courtney Carver's Project 333  to limit my clothes only to what I intend to wear over the next (in my case) four months. Everything else got put into drawers or taken to an unused closet upstairs. While I'm sure I've gotten some things wrong (I just haven't figured out what they are yet), it feels like a revelation to walk into my closet:  Not too much, and not too little, it's exactly enough. The "Fulfillment Curve" from Your Money or Your Life (Dominguez & Robin) What does having "enough" clothing look like? When I left my job as a financial advisor, I no longer had "enough" clothes. I had plenty of clothing for meeting with clients in person; I also had workout clothing and a couple of more formal dresses. But I didn't have anywhere near enough clothing to meet my new daily circumstances of hanging around the house, meeting with a friend or running errands. I'v...

Confession:  I have only rarely tried to purchase jeans used. My preferences are usually so specific that I despair of ever finding that needle in a haystack. But having recently done research on how devastating the manufacture of denim is to the environment, I thought I would rescue  a pair of jeans from my local landfill if I could. Here are some steps you can take to locate your own great pair of used jeans: Don't just shop I didn't properly prepare when I first went shopping. I naively assumed that if I just tried on a bunch of jeans I'd eventually find a pair I liked. That might work in a more traditional store that offers new clothes, but I didn't find this approach helpful (plus, as I write this, we're in the middle of a pandemic, and you may not wish to try clothing on at the store). After visiting my local consignment store first and trying on nine different pairs of jeans, only to strike out, I got more strategic. Review your criteria I reviewed the tags ...

When I was a senior in high school, rumor had it that the student who won the "Best Dressed" award wore a different outfit to school every day. As I've noted before , I went to high school in a very wealthy community  (the link takes you to images of some of the mansions there), so it's entirely possible that the rumor was true.  How often do we believe that the only way to really dress well and win compliments on our appearance is to have lots of nice outfits, with an emphasis on the "lots"? Less is more Courtney Carver, author of the blog, bemorewithless.com , created a minimalist fashion challenge called Project 333 . This challenge asks you to select 33 items to wear - including your shoes, jewelry and other accessories - for the next three months, and give away or box up everything else until the next three-month period. A self-confessed shop-a-holic who used retail therapy to de-stress, Courtney found that having lots of clothes created more stress, a...