Ten years of fashion mistakes, out the door
Thanks to an October snow storm, the power is kaput at my house. I must be very restless, because my neatening up one pile of jeans somehow turned into a full-scale fashion purge. I did a little photo documentary of the effort.
Here is the work in progress.
Here is the end result of the purge, headed out the door to Goodwill. What, you might ask, is in these giant bags?
Plenty of Working Girl-style shoulder pads.
A giant furry scarf. Perhaps I can use it as a warm rug?
As for the shiny patent leather pumps…I have absolutely no idea what to do with those.
I am finally accepting that I will never, ever fit into these jeans. I never did. They still have tags on them. Don’t ask.
How could I possibly ever need FOUR pairs of red tights? I just kept buying them like some mad obsession. I did once have a really great red dress and red suede pumps that needed red tights to complete the look. But a person cannot wear four pair of red tights simultaneously. What was I thinking?
This mod velour “lounge” ensemble and the Goldie Hawn LaughIn dress were clearly intended for someone with a different. more fabulous, life.
This is the only item that made its way back out of the trash bags and into the closet. I have a thing for polka dots. They get me every time.
Oh and this little number dodged donation. It brings back too many good memories.
These ordinary lookin hangers are a fond reminder of Dublin. When we moved there and had no hangers, and lots of boxes of clothes,our landlady gave me a great tip. Every night the Jigsaw boutique on Grafton street used to discard huge bags of these nice hangers. I skulked over there and grabbed a couple sacks. I really can’t imagine Jigsaw Corporation still fills landfills this way. I am hanging onto them.
I thought I was pretty good at purging stuff, but today’s haul says otherwise. Some of this stuff has been hanging around forever. Here is the dress I wore in my HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL, ladies and gentlemen. For the record it was Guys and Dolls. I was in the chorus where I mostly did lip-syncing. There were people with real genuine talent in that show–I didn’t want to wreck it.
I kept this vintage number too, by the way. It will survive at least until we have another October snow storm.
November 17 Post Script: I ended up posting a lot of my better stuff up on Style.ly. It’s kind of like a fashion-focussed eBay that is easy to use. Full disclosure: Someone near and dear to me works there.
Jules Pieri 
3 Responses to “Ten years of fashion mistakes, out the door”
Amen — doesn’t that feel good? I hope you consigned those jeans and anything else that had a tag on it. I feel good for you doing that clean out! (It is a ritual for me 2x a year when I do my closet switch). Can be hard to let go, but always feels good in the end.
Wendy…your comment made me realize the reason I had such a glut of unwanted clothes…I don’t do the closet switch any more. That’s a good reason to re-institute it. I was just letting the unworn stuff pile up.
And…I have never once missed a piece of clothing I gave away. That makes it easier for me.
[…] my affection for letter writing here and here. And my efforts to live sparely here and here. Today I pulled those two things together–as explained in the text of a letter I just sent to […]