Clothes dont degenerate as rapidly here in the US as in India which leaves some of us with a rather good dilemma. The wardrobe keeps expanding and inflow of clothes is greater than outflow of torn clothes. Some of the clothes last well more than 7-8 years. This is especially true of tops and T-shirts than Jeans. Jeans usually get torn from the bottom and are easy to replace every 1.5-2 years. 🙂
I even have a T-shirt from 1995 which is still running good. :-). However it also feels nice to keep up with the fashion trends by going to mall once in a while and plus all those free T-shirts from Companies, etc add to the inflow.
Of course the wardrobe can only handle so many clothes. So comes a time to make some hard decisions and remove some of the old favorites. “Remove” as in keeping them aside to be handed to charity or to take to India to be given away to needy people.
This is the tricky part. You always start avoiding to remove some clothes because of sentimental reasons like the person who gave it to you or because of some special occasion you wore it on. In the end the amount of clothes that you really should be keeping aside is less than the goal that you had in mind. 🙂 You may retire them from active wear but you still want to keep them. 🙂
What is your experience with respect to Clothes Rotation and the Long Life of Clothes ?
If you don’t wear any of your clothes for a year, you will never wear them, so give them for donation….This is my philosophy.
And there goes a post down the drain…..
I am sure everybody must have read your post…
Among many reasons you mentioned we save and don’t throw away old clothes, here is one more:
We saved all the good clothes of Bhumi, thinking if the 2nd child is girl then she can use it. I think it will continue for few years for us. 🙂
Donating the clothes seems to be the best solution.
some of my cloths go to bhumi(my cousin) and some go to the donation.it is good and bad.the good part is the i can give my clothes tosomeone because it does not fit me.it is better than trowing away.the bad part is that some are ny favorite clothes.
yes, sure everyone would have read the post.
sabka wahi rona hai; clothes, clothes, clothes.
I’m trying to follow a new rule. buying less, using it up and not buying more until old ones are gone/donated.
I like Mita’s philosophy too. but excluding the heavy/formal clothes ofcourse. Whether it’ll fit after that long or not, that’s a different story 😉
I normally donate clothes and Saahas’s old toys to Goodwill(salvation army).
Donating this year will be a little bit of a hassle if one wants a receipt for tax purposes. One would have to get the donation items appraised (as per my understanding). Anyways, this post reminds me of how it we did it in India – used clothes in exchange for new utenstils – that too right in front of our doorstep.
Hmm.. I have a shawl that my mother used about 40 years ago when she was a kid. It made its journey as my 2 sisters used it and finally ended up with its righful owner (me) and I still use it till date when I go to bed. Stop laughing!!!!