End of Year Clothing Audit 2024

^{Possibly my favourite item of clothing, originally from TKMaxx, somewhere around 2014.}

I first did one of these in 2021 in response to a post by @phoenixwren. I missed 2022, caught up again in 2023 and, this year, I've added items from the pre-2022 audit plus 2024 purchases.

It seems that, in 2021, the average US citizen bought 68 items of clothing each year (compared to a dozen in the 1980s) and shoppers in the UK bought more clothes than any other European country.

I had a frugal 2016-2019, buying perhaps half a dozen items each year plus replacement footwear and underwear. In 2020, I bought nine items including a winter puffer coat which I saved for as part of a no-buy year, and in 2021 it was 57 items. As I wrote later,

For much of my life, I've had a feast or famine approach to buying clothes. They'd all wear out and eventually, when I got to the stage of having nothing to wear, I'd replace everything at the same time and, pleased as punch with myself, not think about them again until the next time everything had fallen to pieces. Clothes rarely got donated: the next stage in their life-cycle was the textile reclaim bin.

In 2022, it was 68 items. In 2023, 41 items and, last year, it was 34 items including 15 replacements (nine pairs of sports socks: what was I doing)? I've had some very good items from charity shops, some of which have become favourite items that I wear regularly. I still make mistakes, though: all my charity purchases in 2024 were either donated or given away (my niece coveted the second-hand coat the minute she saw it and asked for it "in my will" - no need for that, I said, you'll be waiting a long time).

Generally, though, I was pleased to see numbers go down. I like doing the audit: apart from appealing to my inner milk monitor, it's really good from a minimalist point of view. I like to review what I've got, make decisions about what stays and what goes, where there are any gaps and, ideally, bring under-used clothing into rotation.

One of the sewing vloggers I follow has retired and noted that she "probably had enough clothes to last until [she] die[d]". I feel the same and I'm conscious about offloading (recycling) anything that no longer serves me so there are not vast piles of clothing when I die that some other poor soul has to make decisions about.

I'm always slightly amused by ernest vloggers and bloggers, determined to be intentional and sustainable, making statements about investing in or making "forever" pieces. It's all good to make sustainable decisions, but doesn't really take into account how your life, body, styles and preferences change over time. Lots of pre-2021 things have gone this year.

I was as pleased as punch one day when I was in a little cafe having lunch in Birchington, a small seaside town in Kent, when one of the owners said to me:

"I love your outfit,"
Thank you.
"you look like a ..."
She thinks for a moment while journalist? artist? someone in the media? run through my head.
"... social worker."

So there I was, put in my style place, far from being a member of the avant garde as I imagined, I was a lower-ranking bureaucrat in the corpy.

The State of Fashion 2025
2021 Audit and Reflections
2022/2023 Audit and Reflections
Wardrobe as Art - April 2022

Key to the audit
bold - well-loved and worn lots.
italics - replacements.
underlined - needs repairs or alterations.
scored through - recycled.

I've just realised, going through this and creating almost an inventory, that I could take the same approach as I do with knitting in Finish It February. That's simply a review of yes, no and pile of ambiguities. The first two are straightforward, the pile of ambiguities is put into whichever season (summer or winter) and reviewed again the following year. I'll try that next year, as I was thinking, as I put away some bags, would I take that if I was moving abroad/into a smaller place/travlling? and the answer, really, was "no".