Hi, I have a problem
I’ve purged my closets of unwanted clothing multiple times over the past ten years. I’ve donated many bags of clothing to charity and sold many items at a local consignment store and online. And somehow I still ended up with 11 plastic bins filled with rejected clothing stacked up in my storage room.
Every once in a while I’d rummage through the bins to see if there was anything in there worth restoring to my closet. The answer was always no. I felt taunted by those bins.
One very hot, muggy Saturday that was unfit for outdoor activity, my friend Pallavi spent the afternoon helping me sort through the bins and rid my life once and for all of these useless items. The bins had been hidden in my storage room for years and hadn’t physically hindered my everyday life. Yet they still cluttered my psyche. I needed the objective force of a friend willing to administer tough love.
The first rule she made up was that what she wanted took precedence over what I wanted. I veto’d her only once, over a black velvet jacket I’d bought in Vietnam years ago. Remnants of vintage textiles woven by the Cham ethnic people had been sewn onto the shoulders and back. I think I wore it only once or twice after buying it in 2007. I may never wear it again even now, but I pulled it from her grasp anyway and declared, this jacket is of my people so it should stay with me!
The jacket was of a contemporary design that looked nothing like traditional Vietnamese clothing. Moreover, I am not descended from the Cham. But the jacket represented a connection to the country of my ancestors. Plus it was unlike anything I’d ever seen anyone else wearing and I wanted to stand out. That hasn’t always been the case.
Most of my life has been a desperate struggle to fit in and assimilate by quashing the Vietnamese parts of me and trying to look like everyone else. “The Official Preppy Handbook” defined my youthful sartorial aspirations. The way we dress reflects who we are, and sometimes who we want to be. I wanted to be White and the preppy style was the epitome of White to me.
For years, I collected chinos in varying shades of tan. Shortly after getting divorced, which was a transformative experience and an opportunity to redefine myself, I gave away a tall stack of chinos.
I’ve tried on other different identities but those ended up in the bins, too. Pallavi made me say goodbye to things that she said were too boho or hippie. I had a friend a few years ago who pulled off that look and I tried to imitate her. I wanted to be a free-spirit like her! I’m actually a little more conventional than I care to admit. Wearing the boho flowy, ethnically vague outfits often felt like wearing a costume.
I bought a green plaid, pleated mini skirt from a vintage seller in Camden Market in London over a decade ago that I thought I’d pair with combat boots, black leggings, and a ripped oversize sweater. I wanted to bust out of the bland corporate look I’d become accustomed to and try something “edgier.” That was a short-lived and thankfully not too expensive mistake.
The bins contained an awful lot of brown pieces of clothing. I don’t know why because I have never been fond of this color. I often resisted wearing bright, colorful things, especially pink, when I was a lawyer because I thought I had to dress blandly to be taken seriously and to be considered smart. Ann Taylor supplied my entire legal wardrobe. I envied my colleague Judy, who wore bright orange suits to work. She was also Asian American but she was the cool, confident kind of Asian woman, while I was the nerdy and self-conscious type.
I’ve gained more confidence and now dress in bright, bold colors and patterns. I still worry about being taken seriously, though, especially when my attire signals artsy or creative. Our society professes to value artists and creatives, but it often fails to equate this worth monetarily, favoring professions like hedge fund managers instead. In a capitalist society, we show what we value by what we throw money at and we do not throw money at artists. The artist identity feels truest to me, though.
The bins also contained 14 pairs of jeans from the mid-2000s, a puzzling collection from a time when I was feeling trapped by the life I had chosen for myself, or that had chosen me in some way. I was trying to mold myself into something I wasn’t. Some of those jeans had orange embroidered patterns on the back pockets, others had blue and green stitching. The holes, rips, and patches were placed differently on each pair and the bottom hem widths varied a little. Still, possessing 14 pairs of jeans of similar style, and those were only the ones I kept in the bins, pointed to excessive retail therapy gone awry during a time of profound inner turmoil.
The storage bins multiplied after two earnest attempts at tidying my closet using the Marie Kondo methodology that my friend Holly guided. I still have too many clothes currently in my closet. She has suggested I might benefit from therapy on this matter, a suggestion I plan to consider more seriously at a later date. For my trip to India, I was glad Holly was there to dissuade me from buying things that did not “spark joy” or to remind me that I have two very similar things already hanging in my closet. She also nudged me toward items that I might have overlooked because I lack her stylistic vision.
Now, my focus is on authenticity and embracing the constant evolution of myself. My style has evolved over the years to reflect who I am. I hope I will keep evolving and that my style will continue to mirror those changes.
