Shopping in My Closet

With the current economic crisis, I have been reading a lot of “helpful” advice on penny-pinching. Occasionally, it’s disgusting Depression era suggestions like boiling your dental floss and then reusing it. But since I read a lot of fashion magazines and blogs, it’s more often really obvious advice like:

Buy stuff on sale.
Actually like consider whether you really need something before you buy it.
Buy less crap.
And my personal favorite: Go shopping in your closet.

I’ve been using the first three for years, and I sort of can’t believe they’re even offered up as advice because they seem so obvious. I’ve always had certain rules for shopping:

1. Don’t buy anything I can’t afford (i.e., I don’t charge clothes. Either I have the money or I don’t. And if I don’t, I don’t buy it).
2. Ask myself whether the item fills a need in my wardrobe.
3. If I answered no to #2, I then ask myself, is it such a fabulous bargain that I’ll be kicking myself for months if I don’t buy it?
4. Recognize when I have enough stuff and stop shopping.

These techniques work pretty well for me.

But let’s go back to the shopping in your closet advice. I’ve read this little gem of advice in a number of places. I can only assume it’s geared toward women with closets the size of a studio apartment who wander into them and say things like, “I totally forgot about this Chanel suit” or “Why don’t I ever wear these Miu Miu pumps?”

Still, it’s not the worst advice. I have a lot of clothes, and there are many pieces I forget about for months at a time. So, maybe it’s time to reassess my closet.

There’s just one problem with this: If I walked into a store that looked like my closet, I would turn around and walk right back out again.


It’s a terrible, terrible closet. It’s not even 18 inches deep. It extends two feet on either side of the door, but it’s nearly impossible to see anything that’s more than a few inches beyond the doorway. There’s a light, but it doesn’t illuminate anything. I suppose one solution would be to get rid of about half of my clothes, but that just isn’t going to happen. In my last two apartments, I had fabulous walk-in closets, both of which were really well-designed and made organizing my clothes very easy. Not so with my current closet. Sometimes I look into it, and I want to cry. We met with a realtor last week, and when he asked what our requirements were in an apartment, big closets were my only dealbreaker. Everything else is negotiable.

The only good thing about my closet is that, since it’s so hard to see things, I do occasionally come across an item of clothing I haven’t seen in months, and that can be sort of exciting. Sadly, it’s never a Prada bag that I’ve totally forgotten I own.

A Shopping Odyssey

I used to love shopping. I could do it for hours at a time and not get bored. But lately, my tolerance for shopping has gotten dangerously low.

I usually shop alone. Going solo seems to work best for me since I can work on my own time frame, although it is helpful to have a friend around to give me an honest opinion. (I did have a friend who was great to shop with, because we have about the same tolerance level for shopping and we would get bored or annoyed around the same time. But she moved to another country.) I’ve given up shopping with my mother because she insists on coming into the dressing room with me or standing right outside and peeping in. Then she criticizes everything as “too revealing” or “too tight” (which from her means that it actually fits). She might as well tell me I’m dressing like a hooker (which I really don’t). It’s hard with my mother since our fashion aesthetics are light years apart. She wears nothing but neutral colored, buttoned-up, tailored, somewhat mannish clothes (think Annie Hall, but better tailored). Her neck and legs rarely see the light of day. I tend to wear actual colors and prints, and my neck and legs are often displayed.

As I have a good excuse to buy some new clothes (more on that later), I went out this weekend to do a little shopping. I had one specific goal in mind, getting a black pencil skirt, and I was open to anything else that popped up. So, off I went to Georgetown.

My first stop was Sephora. I just needed some grapefruit body scrub and a new eyebrow brush. Sometimes I get a little overwhelmed by Sephora. And this time, every 30 seconds an overly perky Sephora employee would accost me and ask if I needed any help. Over and over again. There were more employees than customers. I bought my items and beat a hasty retreat. I had walked to Georgetown and was hot and sweaty and no I really didn’t want to try a new eye shadow/lip gloss/blush. It’s probably a sign that I shouldn’t be shopping when 10 minutes in Sephora nearly brings on a panic attack.

My next stop was Club Monaco, which was nearly empty and much more low key. But I didn’t find much to interest me.

Then I headed to Zara, where I found 9 items to try on. And none of them worked. I remembered why I don’t own a pencil skirt: they look ridiculous on me. There must be something off about my waist/hip ratio, because if the skirt fits my hips, it gapes on my waist and vice versa. So, I scratched the pencil skirts. I did find one blouse that I liked, but it had some drawbacks: the fit on the top was a little off and I’m not sure it could be tailored to fit. And the shirt had approximately 42 buttons with loop closures that were a real pain in the ass to open and close, and I can only imagine how annoying they could be when I’m running late for work. So, the blouse went back on the shelf. I can’t stop thinking about it though. The Zara dressing rooms have bright, white walls and awful fluorescent lighting that gives my skin a lovely green tone. I realize it’s not exactly a high-end store, but I can’t understand why stores don’t make a little more effort with the dressing rooms. Better lighting would make me more likely to buy things.

French Connection was my next stop. The clothes were extremely meh, but I did end buying a very cute necklace that turned out to be half price.

I wandered down to Anthropologie and just walking through the doors made me feel better. It’s rather soothing. Unlike every other store I had entered, the music was pretty mellow and not pulsating disco beats (don’t get me wrong, I love pulsating disco beats most of the time, but when I’m frazzled and trying desperately to find items of clothing that don’t seem to exist, it just makes me anxious). And it always smells really good in there. I had no trouble finding lots of things I wanted to buy. Trying on the clothes was almost blissful. The dressing room walls are a soothing beige, and the light isn’t harsh. It made everything look better. I walked out of there with three dresses, and I could have bought two more, but I tried to restrain myself. I may have to go back though.

I considered checking out some of the non-chain stores at that point, but I decided to pass because 1) I was exhausted and frazzled, 2) having had success at Anthropologie, it seemed perhaps best to quit while I was ahead, and 3) I had probably done enough damage to my bank account for one weekend.

So, I killed some time flipping through magazines at Barnes and Noble and then met Lord Kissington for lunch. A glass of Sauvignon Blanc did much to soothe my shattered nerves. Not so soothing—the realization that I am still in need of several crucial items that will likely necessitate long shopping excursions in the near future.

This latest shopping excursion brought home several points: 1) pencil skirts don’t work on me, 2) I really like dresses and would be happy to wear one everyday, and 3) shopping makes me insane.