The Caspule Wardrobe

I have a lot of kind and generous friends and family and they give me clothes, lots and lots of clothes which I am very grateful for. Some of these people are mere acquaintances and in some instances the connection between the kind hearted donor and me is very tenuous indeed. I never say no though - I am a junk whore and will accept almost any rejected item. I like to think of this as recycling but it is really just my inner treasure hunter looking for it's next fix.

Usually I really enjoy being the local drop off for the unwanted and past it - I love the sorting and finding but there comes a time when these new additions must be put somewhere. My catch all 'somewhere' is a pile of shopping bags plonked either in my bedroom on in the spare shower
(don't say anything, I know that's a little strange but strange is normal in our house and I bet the same goes for your place too). At some point the clothes migrate into my drawers and wardrobe and get used, all good so far.

This system came to a crashing halt recently with the delivery of a much appreciated small bag of sartorial goodies. As there were only a few items I decided to skip the store and wait step and put them straight into service whereupon I discovered a catastrophe - they wouldn't fit! The problem would not be solved with just a quick tidy and refold, I needed a hard core clothes cull - all you hoarders out there will know how that freaked me out. Sorting, categorising, folding, selecting and placing are all comforting activities, getting rid of stuff - any kind of stuff is not. Getting rid is incredibly satisfying after the event and you see rediscovered corners that can now be covered in new junk but the process itself is gruelling. You know that as soon as an item has left the property and is forever irretrievable the event, occasion or use it was specifically made for will become apparent and you no longer have it - this situation is a major stress inducer to be avoided at all costs.

So what to do about drawers breaking under the strain, wardrobes doors jammed open, hooking clothes hangers onto even more hangers and only being able to reach 3 outfits without pulling the whole house of clothes down on myself? There comes a point when rearranging and putting a pile of clean clothes into the wash to create more space won't work anymore so the teeth gritting moment had arrived - I had to face the fact I had too much stuff and some of it had to go.

I am no stranger to the clothes cull, I have done a great many of them and they all end up with the same result - less stuff to hand but not necessarily in an efficient way so I decided on a new approach. The capsule wardrobe, the small collection of clothes that always appears in the womens magazines around holiday time that will take you from a glittering dinner at the captains table to an impromptu tryst in the scented gardens with the porter (I have yet to find any outfit that has directly led to an impromptu tryst in any circumstances but I am aiming to include it my version of the capsule wardrobe). The idea behind the capsule wardrobe is everything must go with a least 3 other garments so you can pretty much look ok by choosing items at random which is my preferred method if getting dressed before 10am when my brain actually begins to function. The capsule wardrobe should also be small as it is designed to fit into expensive dainty luggage designed for 'the country retreat' or the 'winter sun break' and here is where I had the advantage over the holiday packers - I am very unlikely to be attending either destination and I can therefore add a few extras without straining my not so dainty clothing receptacles.

With the capsule wardrobe principles understood I set about making it so. Once all my clothing was laid out around the bedroom I really saw the scale of the issue for the first time and this lead to a panic attack - if I kept only a capsule wardrobe that would mean getting rid of so many items I would probably have to be hospitalised with the trauma and separation anxiety so did I need to abandon my brilliant idea in favour of something a little more obsession friendly? I really didn't want to give up on my new wardrobe makeover so with a little creative thinking my mentally healthy self came to a compromise with my mentally a-little-skewiff self and it was of course a complete epiphany. just because I had a capsule wardrobe didn't mean I had to get rid of the rest of my clothes; I just had to remove them from the bedroom! Viola, problem solved. This fantastic idea made the selection process of the capsule wardrobe so easy and not at all stressful because I knew this seasons rejects were just going away temporarily and could be retrieved at any time.

So anything that didn't fit and couldn't be a part of at least 3 outfits has been spirited away and I can now shut all doors and drawers and actually see all available options without getting the torch to see what has fallen down the back of the dresser. The whole process left me feeling empowered and floaty instead of the usual stressed self doubt, in fact I felt so good I even ironed some cotton and linen items (a rare occurrence) and mended 2 items (a never happened before occurrence).

So despite the crys of  'cheater'  from the back row (who listens to ther kids anyway?) I feel the capsule wardrobe idea was a complete success. No stress, maximum efficiency, virtous feelings and a very workable capsule wardrobe in my room while the rest of my clothes have a little r&r  - a capsule wardrobe break if you will. Of course knowing they are stashed in the kids playroom and can be picked through at a moments notice settles my often over taxed brain and the kids don't need all that space anyway - I just had a big clear out of their stuff.

Junk Whore

I am a junk whore - I accept all manner of discarded and exiled items from friends, family, friends of family, family of friends of friends, well anyone really. My house is a junk magnet as I am a junk lover (please note this does not mean I am rubbish in bed - I am in fact as fabulous between the sheets as everywhere else). My husband thinks I am a bag lady and it is true I have many, many bags full of what used to be other peoples stuff but I am slowly converting him and while he is not yet a bag lad he is certainly warming to his new role of repurposer extraordinaire and showing a real talent for scavenging or as our family calls it - treasure hunting.

Treasure hunting in it's various forms is one of our favourite family activities - beachcombing, second hand shops and friends homes. This of course works best with the friends who can afford new things and therefore want to get rid of excess items. Unfortunately this also severely limits the number of items we find at close friends homes as one of the reasons we are so close is our common bond of thriftiness which is just a trendy way of saying we are all poor and anything we might have to offer each other is likely to be broken (by the kids), worn out, obsolete or just plain ugly.

The kids also love collecting treasure from the gutters on the way to school, they find all manner of interesting and vital objects such as broken pens, junk food containers, empty lighters, wires and broken electronics which does raise questions about what goes on in our neighbourhood after dark. I am not so keen on this type of treasure hunting as I then have to keep said treasure in my handbag all day only to present them with a flourish after school with a smug indulgent motherliness only to be told - "oh yeah, I realised at school I can't use that stuff now so it is really just rubbish". On the upside we are slowly clearing the local streets but on the downside we are using up our rubbish bags at an embarrassing rate.

The recent trend for repurposing, upcycling, restyling, rehoming or what ever new fangled name you want to give it has spawned a new genre of reality tv. I am not a huge reality tv fan but mix together some treasure hunters, creative visionaries, practical sorts, design genii (I have always wanted to use that word) and I get very excited, sad but true. I do find it a little disconcerting though when the retrieved junk sometimes ends up as cutting edge furniture and fittings and are then sold on to the rich eco chic who believe they are saving the planet one purchase at a time. The good news is they are being totally ripped off so they must feel even more virtuous and us poor people who really are saving the planet because we can't afford to buy new things can get a good laugh at their expense. This slightly tarnishes my mother earth image but what the hell - I know you are thinking the same thing, well maybe you're not in which case you win the mother earth award.

While I embrace the current fashion for making new items from forgotten gems and hope the world discovers the joy of modern treasure hunting I know trends come and go. When the fashions slaves turn their heads to the next eco trend I will still be out there treasure hunting because I am a junk whore, always have been and always will be.