We’re not exactly awash with storage space in our West Footscray Californian Bungalow (or, ‘CalBung’ as I hope people will start to call it) and while trying to shoehorn my & my girlfriends wardrobes into the wardrobe I was struck by the correlation between the narratives that popped into my head as I handled the item and whether or not we’d worn it a) often or b) never.
Savers, for those that don’t know, is a cheap clothing institution. I’ve lucked out from time to time and picked up 2 pairs of Florsheims, a Marc Jacobs shirt, 2 Zegna shirts, and an Armani shirt and tie for the amounts they’re actually worth (about 6 bucks each). The problem is the low prices seduce you into buying clothes that, were the cost a tidge higher, you’d leave on the rack.
Hence, you end up with clothes you’ve never worn. I’ve got perhaps 15 t-shirts, 5ish of which I’ve bought from Savers and never worn.They may be more comfortable, fashionable and less full of holes than my other shirts, but I just don’t give enough of a stuff about them to pull them on. They don’t excite me. The t-shirts I do wear however have something about them that makes me want to put them on.
That one’s from my brother – he bought it with his pocket money because he thought I’d like it. That one I wore to a Chemical Brothers concert the day I drove to Melbourne from Canberra for the first time. The one I’m wearing right now I found in someone’s living room at a party after I’d lost mine – fingers crossed it’s original owner has my lost shirt in his/her rotation still too.
Looking at clothes I’d never worn, I realised they still feel like Saver’s clothes. Like they still belong to the store. Holding my trusty black t-shirt however – that I had bartended in, urban-caved in, walked the dog in – was an entirely different feeling. That shirt, that in my minds eye had personal narrative woven in with the cotton, was mine.
Stuff you buy isn’t yours until you’ve done something with it. Until you and whatever it is that pulled your wallet from the back pocket of your jeans have a story to share, a lived connection, it’s not yours. The place you swapped it for money in still owns it.
This teaches me two important lessons.
1) Don’t buy too much shit. If you’ve got to much stuff to realistically forge a narrative with, sell it or give it away with someone who’s got more time. It does you no good, it’s not even yours.
2) Now that I know the reason I avoid some clothes for years, I can make a concerted effort to wear them when I’m up to something mischievous, replacing the story of where it was bought with the story of my choosing instead.
I wonder what else this line of thinking could apply to?
Tags: buy nothing day, capitalism, clothes, excess, minimalism, narrative, stuff
