My recent posts about my shoes (HERE and HERE) got me thinking about something very important when it comes to my closet (and possibly some of your closets as well). To a certain extent, it really doesn’t matter how many clothes, shoes, or whatever types of items we own. What matters are the things we’re actually wearing. The rest is simply “filler” that gives us a false sense of security that we have a sizeable wardrobe or “enough” to wear. In today’s post, I expand upon this concept, using the example of my shoes (since that’s fresh in all of our minds) to illustrate my points.
Do you THINK you have more viable options in your closet than you actually do?
The Number Isn’t the Real Issue
As I mentioned in my May 12th post, I currently own 28 pairs of shoes. This often feels like too many shoes given my present lifestyle, but if I were wearing all of them at least semi-regularly, I wouldn’t worry that much about the number. I’d likely put the brakes on new shoe purchases to cap the number that I own, but then I’d just wear what I have and let the overall number gradually decrease by means of attrition. As shoes wear out, or when I stop liking particular styles, I’d purge them and get my collection down to a more appropriate level for my needs and preferences.
But my primary issue isn’t that I have too many pairs of shoes in my closet. The real problem is that I have a number of shoes that I rarely or never wear. When I stare into my closet, I see what looks like a lot of footwear options, but can I really call them that if they’re never being chosen? If some of my shoes are only worn once in a great while simply because I feel guilty for having bought them, do those shoes even belong in my wardrobe?
