Learn to stop buying that pile of clothes you will never wear

Each year around the Christmas season we reach into our closets and pull out piles of clothes to give away to charity or relatives or just stack them in corner in despair.

It is during this season that you will be forced to confront previous buying decisions, mourning outfits you fell hard for and examining what you will certainly think of as bad financial and fashion habits.

You might even make a resolution or two around it. Except it might actually not be your fault. The P&G “Future Fabrics The Science of The Beauty and Care of Clothes” workshop held last month illuminated how we understand so little when it comes to motive.

Fashion with its physical presence creates emotional responses. It connects us to your story and history. This is evidenced during shopping, turning it into an experience with touch and feel, rubbing fabric against the face, stroking it, using scent and even a listen.

It is not in any way limited to luxury brands. We simply want more from our clothes. It makes us demanding. We want clothes to feel good and make us feel good; to look good and have clothes make us look good.

RIGHT CHOICE

We want them to be easy to manage. We want them to not be so expensive. We want them to be as vibrant, hardworking and as dynamic as we are. We want them to fit us and into our lives.

Asking these questions has been good for us because it has made fashion ask them too in what P&G refers to as “designer meets scientist”.

A case in point is how in his exclusively designed P&G Fabric Care 2014 collection, highly acclaimed British fashion designer Giles Deacon said “When looking for inspiration for a collection the first thing you start with are visuals that stimulate, smells that create atmosphere, sounds and music that move you to create a character or an idea of the consumer you are designing for.”

Clothes are the interface between you and the outside world. They protect against the elements and also act as an intimate buffer against the world.

Cognitive psychologist Dr Lawrence Rosenblum added, “When choosing a garment you may think your choice will be based on what you are seeing, but think again. You will face a myriad of influences on your experience — what you see, how it feels to the touch, what your nose smells, the look, feel and scent of your clothes all combine to impact the relationship you have with your clothes and your final decision on what to wear.”

Which explains why we stop wearing clothes because they stop feeling the same after a while. As time goes by, they get shafted deeper into the closet until one day we simply don’t care for them.

Our relationship with clothes is complex. We already know our sense makes decisions our minds don’t think too hard about. The insight and understanding into how powerful that connection is however, makes news.

P&G FibreSCIENCE experts call this “wardrobe limbo” leading to the 80/20 rule where we wear only 20 per cent of our wardrobe 80 per cent of the time. A March 2014 UK survey by Voucher Cloud revealed: “The average woman has Sh47,000 of unworn clothing in her closet.” It results into “Someday clothes; as in someday I might wear it again.” Except we all know that never happens. Christmas happens.

A generous portion of your closet comprises clothes that possibly suffered through what science refers to as a First Wash Anxiety, a state of mind occurring when you need to launder that new outfit you loved, looked great in, got lots of compliments for and took countless selfies.

It causes mild panic. It came out of the wash looking or feeling funny, the ironing left it lopsided and sheenish, it shrunk or stretched or smells odd. Just like that it is not quite the same again.

PERSONAL BRANDING

Weigh that against how clothes demonstrate sex appeal and confidence, tapping into the rising trend of individuality, personal branding and image consciousness all feeding into your self-worth.

Finally your clothes lose their “hanger appeal” which in turn informs your daily selection process. And because your cleaning and buying habits are consistent, most of your clothes, save the lucky few, repeatedly suffer the same fate.

This is why in the pile of resolutions you will not make and don’t intend to keep, you will need to pay as much attention to your wardrobe as you do your own hair, nails, skin and body. It has to be personal. Let’s be realistic.

We spend a great deal of money and time on our clothes. They better work for us! That way come Christmas 2015 you won’t be looking at a sorry stash of clothes that simply lost its appeal.