The emotional process of cleaning out your closet

For me the clothing cull is an emotional and often protracted process, usually involving the creation of many piles of clothes, spread all over the house. Photo / 123RF

I've been sorting out my wardrobe. To be precise, I have been sorting out the clothes that go inside the wardrobe and also in the drawers where clothes supposedly live - even though, if I am totally honest here, a floor-based storage system is often employed as the clothes migrate on and off my body.

When embarking on a clothing cull there are many paths you can follow. There are those who will advocate a ruthlessness that borders on the psychotic - if you're unsure whether to keep it or not then it doesn't deserve a place in your wardrobe, therefore be gone, paisley shirt! Others will apply logic of Spockian proportions to the exercise - you haven't worn it in a year, therefore it doesn't mean as much to you as you think it does, therefore it must go. Worst of all are those who use something as relatively benign as a clothing cull to pontificate about how we all have too many possessions and for the good of the planet we need to return to sparser, more natural times, possibly without any clothes at all. Pass.

For me the clothing cull is an emotional and often protracted process, usually involving the creation of many piles of clothes, spread all over the house. These piles loosely equate to the following classifications (though please be aware that clothes can and do migrate from pile to pile as part of the process):

What Was I Thinking? This pile is generally the first to make it out the door; the impulse buy that got worn once and since that one time has languished in the deepest, darkest recess of the wardrobe. An easy call once you get past the shame and the guilt at wasting all that money.

In My Wildest Dreams I Will Never Ever Wear This Again. Often these are clothes bought for a specific function, like a themed-party or something quite flash. The ease of parting with these clothes is often inextricably linked with the memories of said function. The more shameful the memories the easier it is to fling the garment.

The Harsh Light Of Day. This is where things start to get more difficult, because this pile consists of those clothes you know, in your heart, you will never ever fit into again. Once upon a time you did, but the bitter truth of today is that those buttons will not button and those zips will not zip. This is probably the most hurtful pile because this is about you confronting yourself and the you you have become, and the clothes are often innocent sacrifices to a cruel reality.

Maybe If I Lose A Couple Of Kilos Or So. This is ultimately a pile of hope, but also possibly a pile of delusion. This is the pile that currently does not fit and therefore should be biffed, but they are close enough to fitting that they might provide the incentive to eat better and exercise more. Then again they might just go back in the wardrobe and take up space until the next cull.

The Irrationals. Whether these fit or not there is no way they will ever be parted with. This pile represents the victory of heart over head; of emotion over logic. There is nothing wrong with having a pile of these clothes in any cull, as long as it doesn't end up being by far the largest pile because that is just being self-indulgent.

The Yeah, But ... These are that perfectly good clothes, that fit you and are functional in your life - but they just don't excite you anymore. Whether or not you keep these clothes is actually irrelevant because the main point of their existence is that you have an excuse to go out and buy new, better clothes.

The Yep. This is everything else that is left over, ticking all the boxes regarding fit, functionality and desirability. Once you have cheated and dragged things from all the other piles into this pile you should, ideally, have precisely the right amount of clothes to fit neatly into your wardrobe. If you are like me, however, once you have jammed everything back in the difference to before the cull will seem imperceptible.

An intriguing anomaly I discovered during my clothing cull was what I now term "The Shirts That Defy Logic And Reason". These are shirts that date from a younger, skinnier me, before I spread in my middle age. Yet strangely, these shirts still fit me as well as they did then, back in the day as it were. I love these shirts and I think the reason they still fit is that they love me back.

Until the next cull, of course, when everything is fair game all over again. Or not.

- Canvas