My Wardrobe, Myself

What I Don’t Wear Anymore – Part One

Debbie Roes

April 16, 2021

Sometimes it’s hard to know what we want. This may sound counterintuitive, but one good way to determine what we want is to first look at what we don’t want. The reason for this suggestion is that we often have more clarity about the unwanted elements of our lives. Our wardrobes can be much the same in this respect. Thus, when we feel stuck with regard to our personal style, it’s often helpful to start by considering what we don’t like wearing.

For all of us, there are types of clothes, shoes, and accessories that we’ve just never liked. I’m sure you all can picture a few such items right now. Sometimes just envisioning the opposite of those “That’s not for me!” styles can get you on the path to determining what might work well for you. For instance, if you don’t like garments with a lot of “bells and whistles” (as I mentioned in my last post), perhaps a more minimalist style aesthetic may hold appeal for you. Likewise, if you feel that a monochromatic neutral ensemble looks boring, maybe you’d be happier wearing more colorful clothing.

Examining styles that you’ve never liked and imagining their opposites can spark ideas for pieces and aesthetics to try, but there’s another place you can look. There’s “gold” to be found by considering what you used to like wearing but no longer do, which is the topic of my next series of three posts, beginning today.

What types of clothes, shoes, and accessories do you no longer like wearing?

Cardigan Downsizing Debrief – Part Two

Debbie Roes

30 comments

April 9, 2021

Several posts ago, I confessed to owning far too many cardigans and feeling overwhelmed by overduplication in that area of my wardrobe. In my last essay, I revealed that I opted to purge nine of my cardigans after doing try-ons and analysis. I showed photos of the purged cardigans and outlined my reasons for letting each of them go. In today’s post – part two, I highlight the lessons I learned from going through that difficult but rewarding wardrobe decluttering exercise.

lessons learned from mistake purchases

Do a “Post-Mortem” After Letting Things Go

While it feels great to downsize a packed closet, I don’t think we should stop there. We have a better chance of learning from our mistakes if we do a “post-mortem” analysis following our decluttering efforts. When we don’t pause to consider our motivations for letting go of closet pieces, we may be prone to repeating our shopping missteps.

Of course, not all of the items we release from our wardrobes represent purchasing errors. Sometimes we pass things on because they’ve become worn out, or because they no longer fit our bodies, lifestyles, or personal style aesthetics. If a particular closet piece has served us well, we may be sad to see it go, but we won’t feel the guilt that’s often present with garments we shouldn’t have bought in the first place.

Cardigan Downsizing Debrief – Part One

Debbie Roes

11 comments

April 5, 2021

This is a follow-on to my March 19^th wardrobe over-duplication post, in which I confessed to owning too many cardigans. After writing that essay, I completed the five-step process I devised for dealing with a problem wardrobe category (click here and scroll down for the steps). Doing this allowed me to make clear determinations on the fate of most of my cardigans.

Out of the “sea of cardigans” hanging in my closet, I decided to pass on nine. A few additional “maybes” have been set aside to be worn as soon as possible, which is step five of my process. I’ll likely do an update on the maybes in a future post, as I’ll determine their fate after I wear them. The focus of today’s essay, however, is on the cardigans I’ve opted to purge from my closet, which are pictured below:

I recently purged these nine cardigans from my wardrobe.

Fortunately, I was able to return five of the above cardigans for a refund (I’ll share which ones later in this post), as they were all purchased fairly recently and were still within their return timeframe. I plan to sell three others that had never been worn, two of which still had their sales tags affixed. The one remaining cardigan will be donated, as it was worn multiple times and is in less than pristine condition.

Pandemic – One Year In…

Debbie Roes

16 comments

March 29, 2021

On March 19, 2020 – just a little over a year ago – the governor of my state enacted a “shelter-in-place” order, in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic exploding out of control throughout the world. It wasn’t long before then that I’d first heard of the coronavirus, and I had no idea what shelter-in-place even meant.

Since that time, it has become a way of life for me – and for many other people worldwide. In some respects, I can’t believe an entire year has passed, yet in other ways, that March day feels like a lifetime ago. In today’s post, I reflect back upon the past year and share my feelings about life in this radically changed world.

Swept Up in a Panic

Before the pandemic, I hadn’t been paying too much attention to the news, so it took me longer than most to become swept up in the panic of the virus’s impending global threat. As a society, we’d lived through multiple previous viruses that were predicted to infect and kill masses of people, yet those diseases either didn’t rise to such heights or didn’t reach the Western world. They were indeed serious and deadly, but they didn’t impact our lives much beyond learning of their devastation and feeling sadness for those who had been afflicted. I fully expected the coronavirus to be much like those other infections. I scoffed at the people filling their grocery carts to the brim, shaking my head at how gullible they were for believing the media hysteria.

But this time, I was wrong and those who were panicking were right. This virus was indeed something to fear and guard ourselves against. The shelter-in-place order was like a bucket of ice-cold water being dumped over my head. I knew we were in trouble this time around, and I knew I needed to take things seriously and heed the warnings. My husband and I purchased extra provisions – food, water, cleaning supplies, toilet paper – and got used to staying inside our home, with the exception of evening walks and periodic grocery runs.

If One is Good, Five isn’t Necessarily Better

Debbie Roes

32 comments

March 19, 2021

I have too many cardigans. It’s almost like I have an addiction to cardigans. If you peer into my closet, you’ll notice a sea of cardigans lined up in front of you, which may cause you to ask:

“Why does one woman – who spends the bulk of her time at home in loungewear – need SO many cardigans?”

In today’s post, I explore areas of duplication, why they can occur, and what to do about it.

Now, your “thing” may not be cardigans. It may instead be jeans, shoes, graphic tees, or trendy blouses. It doesn’t matter what you buy too much of – or have too much of; it’s likely a source of anxiety for you, just like my overabundance of cardigans is for me. And if it’s a source of stress in your life, it bears exploring what’s going on and how you arrived at such an overloaded state of affairs.