Why is everyone getting rid of their clothes?
closet clean outs, fantasy, and systems of meaning
It’s getting to be that time of year when people start talking about spring cleaning. The dawn of a new season, much like the dawn of a new year, provides the perfect opportunity to take stock of your life. Spring cleaning as practiced by myself and many others in the US most typically involves things like deep cleaning your house top to bottom, taking a look at all your stuff and getting rid of what you don’t want or need anymore, and organizing or re-organizing your living space. What we often think of as just a function of the changing seasons, a practice born of necessity or because it “just makes sense” or “just feels good” is actually rooted in cultural and religious rituals that go back thousands of years. In fact, most cleaning rituals are often cultural, sacred, moral, political, and personal because they imply an underlying system of meaning. Anthropologist Mary Douglas emphasizes this in her work Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo and says this about dirt:
“If we can abstract pathogenicity and hygiene from our notion of dirt, we are left with the old definition of dirt as matter out of place. This is a very suggestive approach. It implies two conditions: a set of ordered relations and a contravention of that order. Dirt then, is never a unique, isolated event. Where there is dirt there is system. Dirt is the by-product of a systematic ordering and classification of matter, in so far as ordering involves rejecting inappropriate elements.”
Here we can see that dirt is not bad in itself. Dirt is not even really seen as dirt-y unless it crosses the boundary of what is meant to stay clean. It’s ok in the context of a park but it’s not ok in the context of the counter or your bed. Something is only dirty or clean in the context of a larger system of values. While spring cleaning efforts do focus on literally cleaning dirt, grime, and dust from our living spaces, they also focus heavily on tackling the issue of clutter and re-ordering or removing what is considered clutter. So what is clutter?
What I think is interesting about clutter is that it’s not a particular item and what is considered clutter varies wildly from person to person. One man’s clutter is another man’s treasure, etc. I think this definition of dirt as matter out of place can also help us understand what clutter is. Clutter, like dirt, “is the by-product of a systematic ordering and classification of matter, in so far as ordering involves rejecting inappropriate elements.” Have you ever heard someone say or said to yourself that something “need a new home”? There are a number of reasons people give for this but at bottom what that means is that for whatever reason, this thing is out of place in their home. Do you consider that vase your grandmother gave you clutter? Probably not. Do you consider that vase that lives in your hall closet because you can’t figure out where to put it clutter? Yeah. It’s been literally cast out of your life by being shunted to the hall closet. The item loses its distinctive qualities and is instead relegated to the nebulous category of clutter. You probably feel fine giving it away because it’s not a vase, it’s clutter. It has no place within your personal system of meaning. Alternatively, the contours and distinctive qualities of your grandmother’s vase actually come into sharper relief precisely because of its personal meaning to you. It’s not just a vase, it’s your grandmother’s vase, and it’s blue and red with yellow flowers, and your grandfather got it for her for their first Christmas together. It is most decidedly not clutter because it’s meaningful to you and therefore belongs with you. What defines clutter then is not the item itself but it’s discardability.
The prevalence of closet clean outs as part of spring cleaning rituals is interesting because it signals to me that we treat and think of clothing like we do dirt or clutter. Clothing, like dirt and clutter is discardable. If it doesn’t belong you can get rid of it just like you can easily sweep away that layer of dust that has accumulated on top of your bookshelf. We know this but it’s good to remind ourselves how odd this is considering that historically clothing has been viewed as not discardable because it is bound up in our survival both physically and existentially. There are a bunch of reasons we can think of off the bat for why people’s relationship to clothing has changed so drastically. People have more access to ready-made clothing, many people have the means to be able to replenish their wardrobes and change their closets at will, the proliferation of poorly made clothing makes the longevity and therefore people’s connection with clothing obsolete, the manufacturing processes of our clothing are obscured and people are largely completely absent from the creation of their clothes.
These material conditions explain a part of why people are able to discard their clothes in the first place, but no one wants to come out and say that they view their clothing as discardable. Instead we have the ritual of the closet clean out with its numerous benefits and positive effects that include but are not limited to the opportunity to have a “fresh start,” to get rid of what “no longer serves” us, to prioritize the clothes we actually wear, to mentally de-clutter, etc. But what about getting rid of your clothes gives you the sense of a fresh start, and why do you want a fresh start in the first place? What “self” are your clothes no longer serving? What does having to prioritize certain clothes say about your consumption habits to begin with? Why do you see your clothes as clutter? These statements deserve to be investigated because as much as letting go of things can be genuinely helpful, when we dig deeper into the reasons people get rid of their clothes, they start to look a lot like the reasons we over-consume in the first place.
As we accumulate more and more stuff, this accumulation can feel gross. In the many closet clean out videos I’ve watched throughout the years, people often cite guilt as a reason for wanting to get rid of their clothes. They feel guilty for the amount that they have and they feel guilty for not wearing what they have. This feeling of a “fresh start” that is often seen as a benefit of a closet clean out can be traced back in part to the desire to rid ourselves of the guilt that comes with all that accumulation staring us in the face. We know we shouldn’t be buying things at the rate that we do, and the yearly closet clean out offers an opportunity to remove the evidence of our over-consumption. We are able to rid ourselves of the psychic weight of our consumptive habits while patting ourselves on the back because our clothes will go to someone who really needs or wants them.
Alternatively, if the item isn’t working we can always make the money back by reselling it. Such is the cycle. That shirt I paid way too much for that I convinced myself I would wear all the time stares at me from my drawers and the dollar amount I paid for it flashes in my head like an outstanding balance in my bank account. I list it online and relief washes over me when I get that notification that the item has sold. I can get rid of it! I’m free of the burden of my ill-conceived choices, and now I have what feels like $100 free dollars which I can spend on that new shirt I’ve been eyeing. Reselling and donating clothing isn’t necessarily bad but I do think the safety net of the circular economy can enable us to buy things more callously because we reason that if it doesn’t work out we can just get rid of it. The feeling of guilt when we look at our closets let’s us know that deep inside we know we shouldn’t be buying at the rate that we do, but we can’t stop. I tell myself that this really is the last purchase and then I’ll be happy. My desiring will cease. I’ll have reached closet nirvana and if you think about it I’m actually saving money in the long run by buying this thing because this is the one. But I need to stop lying to myself. The desiring never stops because I’m a human being with a brain and a pulse.
So instead of buying a new shirt I need a reality check about why I’m doing what I’m doing and why the lies feel so convincing and so good. So let’s unpack the lies. When we get rid of items of clothing because they “don’t serve” us or they’re not who we are anymore, there are a couple of implications that follow: the first is that there is a new self at all and the second is that the removal of the clothing will be immediately followed by buying a bunch of new clothing that aligns with this “new” self. Part of what characterizes consumption is that we have been habituated to align products with who we are, so it’s not surprising that people equate buying signifiers of self-improvement and self-actualization with actual self-improvement and self-actualization. This feels good. We might not actually be any different but it feels like it when we checkout because we now have all the relevant signifiers of change. It’s not coincidental that in makeover shows (hello What Not to Wear) the process of the makeover begins with a closet clean out. They get rid of all the heinous stuff that stands in the way of this frumpy mom (she’s really let herself go since the baby was born, hasn’t she?) from being her true self. Even the phrase “let herself go” implies that a self has been lost and needs to be reclaimed.
These closet clean outs fuel fantasies of consumption because getting rid of old clothes helps us psychologically justify and make room for new things. Once the clothes are cleared and the emblems of our old selves are gone, a liminal space opens up and the possibilities of who we can be are endless. This is the high of the fresh start, the reset, the blank slate, whatever you want to call it, that people crave from a closet clean out. Take the concept of the “reveal” in the makeover show: the recovering frumpster stands on one side of a threshold obscured from her friends and family. Up until this point the world knows her as a once vibrant woman whose light has been dimmed by the tumult of motherhood, and the increase in loose, high waisted denim in her closet cannot be anything other than a cry for help. But once she crosses that threshold with her new clothes, her new hair and makeup, and her new outlook, her new identity becomes real. Her symbolic reintroduction to the world serves to ritually demarcate her departure from her old status to her new status. We can all breathe a sigh of relief because she is no longer the dowdy mom, unrecognizable to her nearest and dearest, she’s herself again, and all she had to do was change everything!
This begs the question of whether these new selves are really new or if we are just donning signifiers of change in hopes of precipitating this new self. Is this new self you’re buying clothes for in the room with us now? Probably not. Most of the time the new self that people refer to when they use these sorts of justifications is not real, it’s a fantasy self that they would like to embody (or other people would like them to embody in the case of the makeover show). So much of what we consume and how we exist in the world is contextless and I have to believe this connects with how easily we justify purchases for our fantasy selves. The liminal soup of the internet is a place where we can fancy ourselves to be anything. I see a girl on pinterest wearing mini shorts and I like them, so I buy a pair of mini shorts. But the reality of the situation is that I don’t feel comfortable in mini shorts, especially in New York City.
Yes, we can say that I should be more comfortable or nothing should stop me from wearing whatever I want. I can girl power my way into wearing the shorts, but the reality of the situation is that I don’t want to show that much of my legs and that’s ok. The context of my life makes that purchase seem absurd, but in the contextless world of pinterest, me and my tanned legs are wearing those shorts to a gelato shop in Italy this summer. The only catch is I’m not going to Italy this summer and I personally don’t like showing that much leg on a city street (my own preference, not my thoughts on anyone else’s preferences). It’s worth it to ask yourself if your new self is actually here or if you’re making this purchase in hopes of initiating a new self that isn’t actually at hand. More often than not your new self is likely just your old self with some unaddressed desires and the clothes you already have are more accurate to who you are because you actually live your life in them everyday.
I want to be clear that getting rid of things can be helpful, necessary, and healing in a lot of situations. People outgrow their clothing. God knows I’ve held onto pairs of jeans far longer than I should have because I was grieving a different version of my body. I know it felt better to actually have a pair of jeans that fit me, and getting rid of my old jeans was a way of accepting and creating space for this new version of myself. There are plenty of valid reasons for getting rid of clothing and we shouldn’t feel ashamed when we do let go of items in our closets, but the fact that people have a yearly ritual and practice related to getting rid of their clothes suggests to me that we’re buying too much in the first place. We already know this, but most of how people talk about clothing consumption is in relation to accumulation. There’s consciousness around the ickiness of hauls. Some creators have said they aren’t going to do hauls at all because they promote overconsumption.
But what about getting rid of stuff? The universal positivity that people feel toward the dumping of a critical mass of one’s clothing seems a bit misguided to me. I think it’s important to be as discerning about what we remove from our closets as what we add to our closets and how often we’re doing these things. Closet clean outs should be used as a space for critical self reflection. Why am I getting rid of this? Is it because I have something similar to it that I wear way more? That’s a good way to learn that I should keep a list of items I’m looking for when I’m out shopping so I don’t get things I already have. Am I getting rid of this thing because it’s no longer trendy? If so, it might be worth it to interrogate why the item no longer being trendy feels stylistically threatening. Obviously, the ultimate goal should be that we discard as little as possible so that we don’t end up getting rid of a garbage bag’s worth of stuff at the end of our year-long lease or once April rolls around. Part of that involves consuming less but part of it involves paying attention to what we remove from our lives, how often we do so, how much we remove, and why. And then we have to pay attention to the why of the why.
The question that kept coming to me while writing this was what if you couldn’t get rid of what you buy? Would that radically alter what you buy and how often you’re buying things? I know for me it would. In our efforts to curb consumption, can we reclaim a relationship with our clothing where we don’t view it as discardable?