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Photo by Salt Water New England |
You are heading out the door. It is a bit chilly so you reach for a sweater. You have to make a split second choice between your favorite sweater or something less precious. Which do you take?
Far too many of us far too often reach for the lesser item. We want to save the best examples.
This is, most of the time, wrong.
Wearing an item is a great way of testing it. You think you like something? See if you are right. You may find that you don’t like it as much as you thought. Some items we love in theory, even how other people wear them, but they just don’t work on us. It is also a way of evolving your tastes. You want to learn from experience to make your next purchase more intelligently.
And clothes are not always like fine wines or a great scotch. If you are not wearing an item, it seldom gets better with age.
The items we love and don’t wear today end up clogging up the closet within a few years. Pretty soon we can’t give them away. In other words, the rule of thumb that you should get rid of clothes you haven’t worn in one to three years is true. (Society is more interested in listening to thoughts on cleaning than on clothes but the message here is the same.)
I do have a few exceptions. When I find clothes I really like, I tend to do some gentle stockpiling, especially if they go on sale. I have backups, and backups of backups, of various shirts and trousers that I currently wear.
And I do have a handknit Aran clan sweater still in its box, but even now I am thinking I should just wear it.
The truth is that we change. Our tastes evolve. We find better or alternative examples. We more comprehensively understand what works well with what we want to do. We move. Our hobbies change. Our bodies change, even if they don’t get thicker. Our skin tone and hair color changes.
So wear what you love. Take pleasure in getting every stitch of value from it, not in archiving it. It will improve your world in more ways than you think.
Shown: