I’ve lived in small spaces for the last decade. Well, scratch that. Maybe my entire life.
Going from my parents’ house to college dorms to tiny studio apartments to renting rooms in houses with roommates, there hasn’t been much room to really spread out. I’ve always told myself that I don’t own that many things, it just looks like I do because I’m an adult living in a 90 SF space. But looking around my room, it’s obvious that I own more than your average cat. Well, more clothes that is.
Why do I have so many clothes? Am I a shopping addict? A fashion martyr? A hoarder? Well, to answer that question, you’d have to get to know me a little first. Back it up to where the story really starts. I grew up in a small town in Heartland, USA which meant that 1. Most people I knew wore cowboy boots and Levi’s and 2. The only time you got dressed up was on Sundays to go to church. To add to this, I was homeschooled and I lived in the actual middle of nowhere (think well water, no tv or internet, and lots of dirt … everywhere). To expose myself to culture and fashion, I would get the recycled issues of Vogue magazine that the town library was throwing away and take them home on our weekly visits. This meant I was reading magazine issues from 1992 in the year 1998. But that didn’t matter to me. I was all about the glamorous and beautiful ladies depicted in them. Christy, Kate, Naomi, Nadja Auermann. I didn’t just want to read about them, I wanted to BE them. And I would fantasize about growing up and doing exactly that.
Fast forward 15 years and I’ve got a job with enough spending money left over to buy the clothes I want and I now live in a city with lots of cafes and bars to wear them out to. What’s stopping me from being a walking magazine spread every single day? Well, nothing really. I had subscriptions to all of the top voices in the fashion world: Vogue, Glamour, W, InStyle, Harper’s Bazaar. And I had a regular route through Nordstrom, Zara, Urban, Vicki’s, Topshop and Anthro. I knew what was available and I had filled my closet with all of the best things that made me feel glamorous and beautiful and sexy. Or even really just things that were a good deal, or seemed practical, or that my friends had talked me into purchasing.
Looking back on it, I definitely can recognize the mindset behind it. I somehow had subconsciously confused the clothes and accessories I could buy with creating a certain type of life and look that I wanted. Perhaps a look that would make me sexier, more confident, more successful, and more enviable than the person I used to be. I think a huge part of that is the struggle all young women go through as they “find themselves” and deal with the social pressures that are most certainly put on us to look and act a certain way. But for myself, there was an added layer of trying to shed the so-called country girl I had grown up as and become a sophisticated, chic, beautiful, and cultured city girl. Well, according to American cultural messages, the way to do this was to buy everything I could afford and shroud myself in this protective cloak of designer jeans, leather jackets, and suede booties.
After nearly a decade of this mindset, I am at a point in my life where I have been forced to take a cold hard look at what I’ve accumulated. And why. And what I will do with it now. How do my things, and more specifically my clothes, define me now? Do all of these things add or subtract to my everyday life?
I will be absolutely clear that I will always want to look my best, to cultivate and display my personal style, and to project that image of a cultured, beautiful, confident woman in the way I present myself. However, I am no longer convinced that an abundance of clothes will do that for me. The RIGHT clothes will certainly project an image. But I don’t need a cascading flow of options for this to occur. Or, at least, I think I don’t.