My family is in the process of renovating our house. We made space for new furniture, and we're getting rid of things that have no value other than taking up space. I usually go though a massive purge every year because of college (moving causes me to organize), so this kind of change is common ground. However, as I was cleaning, I was still shocked by the huge amount of... stuff... I have.
This year, the first thing I did was go though all of my shirts. I knew that I had too many shirts, and that many of them did not make me feel special. Plus, I did not look good in any of them. There was no point in keeping things that (1) I did not like and (2) made me look terrible. After all, "life it too short to have on a bad outfit!" (Kit Scarbo, Project Runway Season 4).
I was able to get rid of some shirts very easily. Unfortunately, this was not a bigger trend. The pile of shirts in the "keep" pile kept on getting bigger. At one point I counted at least thirty shirts! And I still had more shirts to sort!
The growing pile had a social impact on me. I instantly thought about the people who do not have one shirt to spare. Why do I keep on having the urge to buy more clothes when I clearly have enough? I also thought about where the throw-away-shirts end up when the are... expired. Do they go into land fills like all other garbage? I know that people give old clothes to charity, but I also realize that this isn't the reality for all clothes. Plus, if everyone gave their old clothes to charity, the charity people are bound to throw some stuff away.
These thoughts made me question the design society. We are constantly told to buy clothes in the media. Designers are encourage to pop out things like crazy (spring/summer collection, resort collection, couture collection, fall winter collection). We really have too much clothes in the world!
Anyway, after this reflective moment, I decided to come up with the 10 shirt challenge. I had to get rid of at least 10 shirts. These 10 shirts would eventually go to our local charity.
The following picture shows how I did:
The pile on the right are the shirts that I'm getting rid of. There are 17 shirts in that pile. I surpassed my goal. Awesome.
The pile in the middle are the shirts I'm keeping. There are 22 shirts in that pile. That's still a lot of shirts considering I'm not including the shirts in the laundry or dress shirts.
The pile of shirts on the left are the shirts I can't part with. I got these 15 shirts from clubs and other school events. They have too many good memories. HOWEVER, I'm not going to wear these shirts, either. I'm going to save them for a project. One of my friends took these types of shirts and made them into a quilt. That seems like a good option for me.
Now if you do the math, 17+22+15= 54 shirts. That's WAAAAY too much.
Try the 10 shirt challenge yourself! Maybe even extend the challenge to other articles of clothing. Perhaps make the category even broader! Check out what this blog did to get rid of junk:
http://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/throw-away-50-things-you-did-it/
Overall this was a sobering experience because it made me realize that I have too many things (and I'm not one to buy things in the first place). It was also sobering because it made me consider in impact of advertisement. Do ads tell us how to dispose of our goods when we're done with them?
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