There is a particular dress in my closet: plaid cotton, with pockets on either side slightly above the hem and buttons where the straps meet the bust. I’d like to wear it, and every morning around half past 7 as I stand in front of my open closet, my eyes half-closed and my hair sticking to my face, I take it out, hold it up to myself and tell myself that today is the day it shall be worn. My mind assuages notions of skipping class and breakfast bagels and focuses instead on the impending outfit.
“With brown tights,” I say, looking at it, my brows knitted, “and a cardigan, and some boots. Yes, and a silk scarf, the one from H’M that looks like Hermes.” And then, within the six-minute window I have allowed myself to dress in before the bus arrives, I will have put the dress on, and then have taken it off in place of perhaps my favorite pair of Diesels and the cashmere sweater my mother secretly shoved into my suitcase the day I left home from Winter Break.
During the bus ride to class, I consider the dress again. “Perhaps tomorrow,” I think, picturing it hanging in my closet, with the same somber attitude of a child who, after tugging at her father’s left pant leg for several minutes, realizes he is on the phone and can’t possibly give her the attention she craves. Children, of course, are protected from neglectful parents by the law. But clothes — like my plaid cotton jumper — are left to suffer the pains of neglect alone, hanging limply in dark closets, still bearing the creases from being folded on the merchandise shelf.
But why do we neglect clothes? My father always says the most salient symptom of materialism is overindulgence – “How could you possibly wear all this?” he asks, peering into my closet at home, the doors of which no longer close fully, leaking rivulets of errant shoes and exposing renegade handbag handles and shirtsleeves. In my head, I protest: The problem can’t be volume, because if it were, I wouldn’t constantly feel the need to buy more. I mean, I know my limits. I know how to stop myself if I have to. No, there’s something much deeper at work here — not just in my own closet, but in everyone’s. For if it weren’t a universal problem, there would be no need for the Golden Rule of fashion: If thou hath not worn it in two years, thou must throw it out.
Whatever the reason behind clothing neglect, the consequence is always rather heartbreaking. Snubbed jeans, still crisp and rigid, flush with the zealous glow of deeply imbued never-been-washed indigo invite you to slip them on. Hemlines of dresses seem to swish magically, heralding forth an image of fresh fabric sashaying around your knees as you walk, dancing in a way that only unwashed cotton sateen can. Still-attached retail tags flutter in the breeze of an opening closet door, reflecting light like Christmas decorations to catch your eye. They want so badly to be a part of your life, but you can’t help but go for your old favorites.
Perhaps there is an element of threat involved with unworn clothing — a sense of distrustful mystery. It’s the kind of thing that you can get over quickly if you’re proactive — for we all love new clothes, their novel promise, their unprecedented proclivities — and often, we choose to wear a new item the day after it’s purchased. But if you snub it once that first day, then twice and then three times, it becomes a case of neglect. Just like that.
There’s a reason you snubbed it the first time — threat, distrust — and because it made you feel uneasy, it ruined its chance at ever becoming a broken-in, faded favorite. Don’t blame yourself; blame the attitude of the clothing. Blame the store associate who told you you looked good in it. Blame the way it clings to your midsection. Go with your gut.
Maybe clothes neglect isn’t an indicator of unbridled materialism at all, but rather, an exercise of good intuition. In a world as tumultuous as our own, sometimes the only thing a girl can really trust is her favorite jeans — the ones whose waistband has stretched just so, whose seams are worn and flexible and whose dye no longer rubs off on couches. As for the rest — those neglected few, those plaid jumpers — I can offer only one piece of advice to their owners: Keep your receipts.
Lauren Rodrigue, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at [email protected].
