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Spring is here, which means it's time to pull everything out of our closets and ask the questions that are always way harder to answer than they should be. Do I actually wear this? Will I ever wear this? And then, of course, we take too long to answer. We stand there staring at the mess we've created. Logic exits the building. And suddenly the answers become whatever lets us finish this mega task in the shortest amount of time possible.
But before we continue…
While we’re all in spring cleaning mode and saying goodbye to the pieces that are just taking up space in our drawers, let’s be honest with ourselves: we’re also thinking about the pieces we wish we had. So what are you missing from your wardrobe? And most importantly, what would you like to see in the shared closet? Let us know! You can do that here.
Moving on…
the ritual
Spring cleaning is one of those activities that sounds wholesome and wonderful in theory and ends with you sitting on the floor surrounded by piles of clothing, mildly emotional, eating plain crackers straight from the box. You'll find pieces you forgot you owned. You'll find pieces you wish you never bought. You'll discover that you somehow still have 11 pairs of black pants even though you thought you solved that problem during your last closet-cleanout session. How! Why! It doesn't matter. They're here now (again).
The whole thing is part decluttering, part personal-style audit, and fully confronting.
the games we play
It always starts with making piles. Logical piles. A keep pile, a donate pile, and if you have the willpower, a sell pile. But then we get to the maybe pile, which becomes the temporary home to everything that we may wear (again) one day, but probably not.
The I think I'll wear this again even though I haven’t worn it in over a year pieces.
The I love this, I just don’t know what to wear it with pieces.
The what if I'm invited to a wedding in Sicily pieces.
The I probably won’t wear this but the tags are still on so I can’t get rid of it pieces.
We can all get pretty creative when it comes to justifying keeping something we never wear (guilt is a bitch).
And if you’re like me, you can also quickly justify getting rid of something you wear all the time. Thus creating the I’ve worn this too many times pile, which inevitably ends up in the donation pile. Against all reason.
the post-closet-purge curse
I think too many of us have had to live with the post-closet-purge curse. I don’t know if this is what it’s called but it seems accurate.
You go through your closet. You pull out the things you haven't worn in a year, two years, maybe three. You hold up that one jacket and think, I never wear this. It's time. You put it in the donation bag. You feel good. You feel free. You have more space in your closet.
Then, roughly two to six weeks later—because the universe has a sense of humor—you have an event, or suddenly a new trend emerges, or you just wake up one morning and think: I’m going to wear that jacket.
But you don’t have that jacket anymore. It’s now living its best life in someone else's closet (best case scenario). Worst case it’s on its way to a landfill. In any case, it’s gone forever.
This isn't bad luck. This is a universal experience. It happens because getting rid of something reactivates your awareness of it. You stopped seeing it when it was there every day, blending into the background of your overstuffed closet. The second it's gone, it becomes visible again. In your memory, at least. It's the clothing version of "you don't know what you've got till it's gone," and it is deeply, personally offensive.
And I dare to say it’s even worse when you get rid of something you actually did wear a lot simply because you thought you wore it too much. You played yourself. Because who cares if you wore it a lot? No one!! That’s actually the best possible outcome of a clothing purchase—that you wear it a lot. If only this were the case for all our clothes…
the loophole
Small caveat to the curse, though. If you've donated to a shared closet (ahem, the demat shared closet), you haven't fully lost the piece. Not yet, at least. It's no longer taking up space in your closet, but it's still out there. Borrowable. Wearable. Visitable.
So if you wake up two weeks from now suddenly convinced you cannot live without that jacket, it’s not gone forever. Best of both worlds.
(Until someone else falls in love with it, in which case the curse still wins. Nobody is fully safe. But a shared closet offers some level of protection.)
Here are a few things I've personally donated to the shared closet, only to realize I wasn't fully ready to say goodbye (and therefore constantly borrow):
let’s not forget the fun part
The flip side is the genuinely lovely bit of closet purging: pulling out the things you actually want to wear again. The linen pieces that have been hibernating since September. The skirts. That one pair of sandals that go with everything. There's something almost reunion-like about it.
And then, almost immediately, you start to notice the gaps. We are consumers, after all.
No good lightweight jacket for chilly mornings and warm afternoons. The sweater or tank top and nothing in-between dilemma. Nothing for that one event you have coming up. The list gets long pretty fast.
tell us what you want (literally)
Now back to where we started.
Most of what shows up in the shared closet has been donated by women like you—which is the whole point. But we also like to bring in a few pieces ourselves to keep things diverse in styles, sizes, and trends. Which means we seriously want your input.
We're currently busy curating new pieces for (end of) spring/summer. So if there's something you keep almost-buying but haven't, or a piece you wish you could borrow instead of own, or a wardrobe gap you're staring at right now, tell us! Let us know what you're looking for this season here.
And if you must donate that one jacket, donate it somewhere you can still visit it ;)
