I have two big plastic bins of clothing I keep under my bed. One is full of off-season clothing, and the other is, I hate to say it, full of clothes that don’t fit. Most of those items are too small — clothes I’ve outgrown but hang on to in case I ever reach my goal weight again. Some of them are clothes I actually bought too small for me, hoping they’d fit “one day.” And there are even a few items that are too big for me now, but I hang on to them, thinking they might make great “maternity wear” eventually. According to a new study, this holding-on-to-clothes-that-don’t-fit behavior is totally normal. Researchers discovered that the average woman has 12 items of clothing in her wardrobe that don’t fit (my own figure is probably double that).In addition to my plastic bins under my bed, I have a pile of clothing on a shelf in my closet that I don’t wear anymore but am afraid to get rid of because I “might wear them again some time.” I’m usually pretty ruthless about getting rid of stuff. I grew up moving around every two to three years, and learned that tangible items rarely have anything to do with actual memories. Every couple of months, I go through my drawers and closets, and pretty much anything I haven’t worn in a year gets bagged up for a clothing swap or to take to the Salvation Army. Still, though, there are, I’d say — and this is in addition to the clothes that don’t fit me — roughly 10 items I can’t seem to part with. All told, that’s around 35 pieces of clothing I’m hanging on to that I do not wear. I’d say that’s almost equal the number of items in my wardrobe that I do wear on a regular basis. That’s crazy, right?
But I have a suspicion I’m not abnormal here — at least, not as far as the contents of my wardrobe goes. So, fess up: what do you have in your closet and your drawers and under you bed you don’t wear anymore? Why are you hanging on to those items? And … do you think it’s time we had a big ol’ virtual Frisky Clothing Swap? [via Daily Mail]
