Clo.chat: Towards a Sustainable Wardrobe: Step 1: Know what you got!

Source: Edited Slaveryfootprint.org image

Welcome to the Towards a Sustainable Wardrobe Series. This series of posts looks at the different ways to going about greening your wardrobe - be it buying versatile pieces, scouring for second-life and vintage, shopping for eco-friendly outfits or just not buying at all.. whatever it takes to green your closet!

Here is Step 1 of the process:

Step 1: Know what you got!

I live in a 400 sft apartment with K.

My clothes live in a 9 sft closet. (about 65 cu.ft, thanks for checking!)

Along with most* of the clothing I own, I also store 3 queen sized quilts and all the bedding in here. There are two large suitcases standing upright at the back of the closet. These are my seasonal clothing storage solution. There is so much going on in the closet that it is always a mess and it is hard to find anything without a fight. There is usually a stack of clothes on the floor at the foot of the closet. I pick these up and dump them inside whenever we have guests over. This is starting to sound like a rant on lack of storage.. I promise that that is not the point I'm trying to make.. because I'm not complaining, just merely stating the facts.

*Doesn't include outer wear.

Anyhooo, all the stacking-rummaging-picking-dumping-stacking... and so on means that it takes a while to find what I want, not to mention the poor way I'm treating these clothes. There are times when I complain that I don't have any clothes to wear. K comments that I have one too many clothes; so many clothes that the closet is always overflowing and that I should find something in that pile to wear. My defense to this comment was always: "It is not that I have too many clothes, It is just that the closet is too small!!". Well, so yesterday to find the truth about who between us was right, I did what I seem to being doing quite a bit these days: Count. I counted all my clothes and created an inventory.

Any guesses as to how many clothes I own?

280!!! I own 280 pieces of clothing!

eeek, isn't that a lot?! I'm sure there are people who own more than I do.. but this number just seems too big to me!.. for those interested, the breakdown is:

This exercise helped me with two things:
One: I now know how much I actually own. The 'depth' of my portfolio
Two: I'm now aware of the "type" of clothing I tend to shop for. The 'width' of my portfolio

Based on this depth and width data, I can take strategic steps towards greening my wardrobe.

How? I'll cover that in another post! In my opinion, knowing what you got is the first step towards a sustainable wardrobe.

Chew on this: According to Slaveryfootprint.org, the more number of dresses, leather shoes and running shoes you have, the greater the number of slaves working for you! Take the quiz and find out how many work for you.. I have 39 slaves working for me! yikes!

Note to my dearest readers:
I know I've been a bad blogger. I intend to update the blog everyday, but off-late I have cut down on on computer usage to give my aching right hand a rest. It still hurts, but not as much as before and I'm typing with my left hand now :)

P.S: I have super exciting news to share with you tomorrow so stay tuned!!!