Most of my wardrobe research belongs properly in Garb Construction...but this is more about pre-Modern Decadent Consumerism.
One of the ongoing musings that led me to playing around with historic costume, is that having more clothes is not Better. I learned this from FLYlady.net. If you have lots of clothes, you are going to do more laundry when it's time to do laundry, you are going to store more stuff (and it's going to get musty/dusty/wrinkled in storage, which requires washing unworn clothes - wasteful), and you are going to pay a higher mortgage on a bigger house, that you truly don't NEED. Wasteful again.
I don't like any of that. I also don't like feeling like I'm being led around blindfolded by Madison Avenue. I don't need those animated clothes hangers to design my clothes, and tell me what I should be wearing. I'm perfectly capable of figuring out what looks good on me, and of making it myself.
And I don't even wear much of it. Day in and out, I wear one of two favorite pairs of slacks, or one of three favorite skirts. I have ten tops I wear most. I have a Midwestern Wedding dress, a Summer Country Wedding dress, and a Formal Theater/Cocktail dress - all of which really could, and probably should be wadded up into some small box at the top of the closet. I have never needed a blazer suit, though I do own one. If I did win some sort of award for the work I do - I think I'd wear my idiosyncratic handknits and colorful swirly skirts. Or the above dresses. Maybe I need the blazer suit for a funeral - but I can't think of anyone I know that would want me to appear other than I usually do. (And perhaps I'd wear my new-to-me dark green cote.) I don't want to work anywhere that I'd need to wear a blazer.
So I think I really could limit myself to four shifts, two dresses, an apron, and assorted winter layers, like just about every woman until 1910 did. I should ask Daan for the use of his military trunk, so I can play at clotheskeeping in a box, rather than a closet with hangers.
We will not talk about how many clothes Daan has. Perhaps I will give him my closet, when I'm out of it.
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