11 ways to kill your fashion darlings.

This weekend: Get in that closet. Bring a strong spine. And a machete.

You know how sometimes someone else’s words get in your head so much and you’re so SEEN and it almost makes you bounce or elevate a little?

Yeah, that, with this from my friend

Irene Kim (김애린)

:

A common reason for keeping something is that you feel guilty for spending a lot of money on something and not wearing it enough to justify the cost-per-wear. If that doesn’t make you feel bad enough, the kicker is that you may not even like it. Controversial opinion, but it’s more likely than not that's the case: You don’t like it, otherwise you’d be wearing it more often.

We hang on to these pieces hoping one day we’ll recover our return-on-investment and feel better about ourselves. And that day may come. Or maybe (probably? highly unlikely?) not. But by keeping the pieces in our closet, we feel that guilt every time we look at them. Essentially, we continue to punish ourselves for a purchasing mistake we made in the past.

O M G

Yes.

But let me back up a little.

I am closet cleaning or something like it almost all the time. One way to look at this is a huge sustainability issue (Tia of

Sunday Style Thoughts

once said something about this frantic paring down so we can fill back up — scary, and guilty…)

But also, I view the cleaning, the tending, the thinking, the list making, the weeding, the organizing in the closet as all delicious activities. The way a garden devotee plucks and prunes even if she can hire someone to take care of it. The way putting stickers in sticker books was just as (actually far more) satisfying as sticking them anywhere permanent. The ritualistic aspects have their own value. Color coding, texture grading, moving the unworn up front, stacking outfit ideas together, shifting the unworn to a different section to try and wear. IMHO (by which I mean, based on nothing) it all ties back to childhood pleasures. Sorting halloween candy into mini piles…and then re-sorting. Lining up little outfitted mice (anyone else have those?), or wobbly Weebles. Pairing barrettes, aligning their trailing ribbons. Color sorting gimp …

But there’s one area in the closet that threatens all the plucking and weeding joy. And that’s what Irene (an actual expert) put front and center for our consideration in her newsletter above: Investments (emotional or monetary) that you’re not using AND can’t get rid of.

What’s a darling?

I’ll leave the deep parsing of the “Kill your darlings” origin story to the experts, but in writing, it’s basically about having to excise something you love (a concept, a plot point, a beautiful sentence) for the greater good of the piece. And it’s painful! Your soul is in there. And it’s — “good” this thing you’re divesting of. Like independently it’s a good thing. For me the only way to make these hard cuts in my writing is to create a new doc and store them there.

In the closet/culling/clothing realm, a “darling “is something you’re attached to and stuck on in some way. Often it is expensive (more on that to come) but it doesn’t have to be.

Why kill them?

As in writing, for the greater good of the story. (Only in this case, for the greater good of your story.) And as in writing, there’s a part of you that knows you have to.

But here are a few specific reasons:

• You’ve hit a culling plateau. You’re evolving your style, and culling for clarity + ease - you want to see only what you’re interested in wearing.

• While you know you’re never getting your original spend back, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to get some cumulative money and see someone else use your things… yet this pricey piece … just sits there.

• You’re actually starting to need the real estate. (Which is its own issue.)

• But most of all: You see them and they … make you feel bad.

• And for what happens after, of course! Nothing feels better than a truly - not superficially - culled closet. One that acknowledges your forward motion in knowing and dressing yourself. Where everything inspires you to get creative, to feel your best, to be out in the world with Lofted Settledness on a regular basis.

So what’s stopping you?

You may be telling yourself you’ll lose weight. (Sounds unpleasant. No cheese platter? Count me out. Also, you’ll then want to wear something different, not your former castoffs.) Or your child will want it. (Really?) Or the style will come back. (It will, but it’ll be different and you still won’t wear it.)

As a person who’s been stuck on many a Darling, let me tell you what’s going on most of the time.

It’s emotional. And it’s one — or both — of two things.

(1) You’re beating yourself up. For spending that much and then not wearing it. For gaining weight. Every time you see it hanging there, it’s a pang. And your clothing/closet should be refuge not self-flagellation.

(2) You’re grieving. You’re grieving the life you’d imagined having where you’d be wearing or using this thing. Thinner, workier, beachier, bolder, whatever.

Just as I’ve said on a live recently about my parents and their living situation. Even though you rationally know what you have to do (in my case, let it go), it doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly painful. In a divorce, even when you know you’re so wrong for each other, you mourn the loss of how you’d imagined it would be.

Ok, now what?