The Emperor's Old Clothes

I have too many clothes.  I am not a dedicated follower of fashion nor am I a shopaholic. Many of my clothes are misshapen, sack-like garments with all the style of an ironing board.  I just have too many.

On the other hand there are many people in the world with not very many clothes at all. In rural Kenya, for example, many people have one good outfit which has been handmade by a relative or friend.  The girls and women would own a dress and the boys and men a shirt made from brightly coloured material and take care of that dress and wear it often.  In photographs, particularly low-quality grainy ones folk could recognise whole swathes of people just by what they were wearing.

 

There are also people in our own country who are happy to make use of second-hand clothes, the wife is one.  She will happily browse through the racks of a charity shops for that hidden gem – and she often finds it.   Some will do this because their budgets are restrained others do it because they are simply savvy shoppers.

Now donating clothes to the third world is probably not the greatest idea (find out why here) but there is nothing to hinder us returning our lesser worn items back into the retail chain.

This realisation combined with the increasing difficulty of closing wardrobe doors has given me the urge to purge and so I’m saying enough is enough and getting rid of a whole heap of them.  That’s right; the challenge is to reduce my clothing stock by ¾ (three quarters) over the course of the next week.  If the item is no longer useful it visits the recycling bin, if it’s still in decent order it goes to the charity shop – simples.  I  may need your help deciding between some garments so keep an eye on this blog through the week for that.

Don’t misunderstand me, this is not an anti-consumerism statement (although that probably is an issue here) it’s a question of sharing.  Do you, like me, have too many clothes?  Are you up for a clear out?  Join me on this mission to recommission, go on, I dare you.

Join the conversation and follow my progress through the comments section or on twitter using #enough2014.