Maybe it’s the upcoming school year. Maybe it’s the change of season. Maybe it’s confirmation bias. Of late, my Feedly has been filled with more articles than usual about wardrobe clearing, often illustrated with photos of Carrie Bradshaw pondering the content of her walk-in closet.
With my impending move to a new flat the floor below mine, last weekend I set to rationalise my closet, which comprises of: two chests of drawers (one for underwear, one for trousers and capes), four under-the-bed drawers (for jumpers, sportswear, pyjamas and handbags), one wardrobe (for dresses, skirts, hanging tops, folded shirts, t-shirts, scarves and stripes), an in-wall closet (for coats, jackets, hats and two boxes of out-of-season clothes) and a set of apparent shelves (for shoe boxes). I don’t have a walk-in closet; I have a walk-in bedroom filled with clothes.
I wasn’t just motivated by the prospect of moving. After five years working in the fashion industry, and 18 months writing about foreign policy on the side, I am going through a phase of fashion ambivalence. Maybe Leo should have said: ”There are three things in the world you never want to let people see how you make ‘em: fashion, laws and sausages.” (The West Wing 1x04 “Five votes down”). Last month, slightly sickened by the contrast between tweets on Gaza and tweets on seasonal trends, I purged my Twitter feed of most fashion-focused accounts.
My ultimate aim, by clearing my closet, was to make space. Not space I can fill with new items, as is often the drive behind a closet clear out in fashion magazines. Not even space so that I can spend less time in the morning deciding what to wear. I plan my outfits for the week ahead every Sunday, a routine that takes no more than 15 minutes and means I always know what to wear. I want to create space because creating space to think, creating space to act has of late been a mantra of mine. I wanted my wardrobe clearing to be the equivalent of my 30-minute lunchtime meditation session in Saint Faith’s chapel at Westminster Abbey: something that would help me stand still.
That’s for the intention. The reality has been somewhat different, as I have only managed to fill two large black The Kooples canvas bags with unwanted clothes and shoes, and flogged a few items on eBay.
Considering all the writing available on the topic, clearly I’m not the only one struggling. Wardrobe clearing (or detoxing, or rehab, depending how hip and conceptual you want to make it) is a burgeoning business with companies like Wardrobe Mistress(UK,starts at £595), The Organized Move (Southern California) and Clos-ette (USA) offering it as part of their services. It’s not just for busy-ness, practical or can’t-be-bothered reasons. Strangers have no emotional attachment to your clothes, nor are they under any misconception that you might just wear it, one day.
My dresses are particular culprits when it comes to the “I might wear it one day” illusion. Yes, I own a few that still have their labels on. Back in November 2012, I wrote about these dresses as “concept clothes”, items “generally bought in the sales, because I either think I look hot in them, have been lusting after them all season long or think they would be perfect for a cocktail party or a date, never mind I never go to either.”
Had I stuck with the intention for my wardrobe clearing, I should have gotten rid of these. Piled them high on my bed, folded them and filled another (couple of) those large black The Kooples canvas bags with them. But I couldn’t. They’re just too pretty, too exciting, too promising (although of what?). More importantly, looking at them makes me happy. As a middle ground, I swore I would wear them in the next few weeks. But then August decided to pretend it was October, and since the concept dress is never warm, that didn’t happen either. I could probably wear them under my latest concept coat: an oversized, laser-cut olive leather lace number I promised myself I would buy when I first saw it on the runway. I eventually purchased it last month for a fraction of its original price. Because I am so worried about damaging it, it remains in my credenza at work - as I don’t want to carry it home when there’s even the slightest chance it might get rained on. When it eventually gets home, I am thinking of hanging it in my bedroom so it can be admired every day. It’s not a coat, it’s art.
The “if you haven’t worn it in a year, get rid of it” rule features in pretty much every single wardrobe clearing article. Other recurrent themes include sorting your clothes by type, then by colour and making sure that you can see everything. Inspecting my wardrobe recently, a friend was surprised by how organised it is. I have my mother to thank for that, as she always classified our clothes by type and taught us to iron. Well-ironed clothes fold better and are easier to sort than not ironed ones, fact. Ironing is a great time investment when it comes to your wardrobe. It’s also a great thing to do while binge-watching Netflix or box sets and, if you’re anything like me, takes out some of the guilt of spending time Just Watching TV.
Another favourite wardrobe cleaning advice is to only keep clothes that fit you, not just body-wise but also lifestyle-wise. As my body hasn’t changed in 10 years, this isn’t one that helps me chuck out clothes. In fact, when I go back home, I still wear some of the t-shirts I bought age 15. I have been working in the same place for over four years now and I think my colleagues might get worried if they saw me going a full month without stripes. And yes, since this is fashion, I have even worn some of the concept dresses to the office, when I needed to self-justify not giving them away.
Most of my concept dresses come from MAJE, which brings me to the last recurrent advice I have noticed about clearing your wardrobe: only keep items of clothing you can match with others you own. No point owning a great silk shirt if you have no bottoms with to wear with it. I solved that problem a while back by only shopping at a few brands, which is why my wardrobe is exclusively made up of Burberry,Kookai, The Kooples, MAJE, Petit Bateau,Des Petits Hauts,SandroandZadig et Voltaire. I know they’ll always fit together, likely because the same team always designs them. Even though inspiration and fabrics change season to season, they stick to the spirit of what made their brand popular and as such, it makes their clothes easy to mix and match.
This isn’t an article however about how I couldn’t clear my wardrobe because it’s already perfect as it is. I am proud of my wardrobe. In fact, when I think about whether or not me, aged 10 to 15, would have been happy of what it is like, my measure of success in all domains, I am sure I would be blown away by the wardrobe I have put together, in absolute modesty of course.
Going through my wardrobe, trying to apply the clearing out advice found online, made me realise how much I love the clothes I have. It also made me realise I take issue with these type of articles because of the consumerism they exemplify.
If you believe The Devil Wears Prada, Anna Wintour archives and reorders the content of her closet every season. But Anna Wintour has a duty to the business model she represents to show that clothes should be renewed everything six months (or less, if you count pre-collections). That goes through the editorials and articles in Vogue as well as her own public appearances. You and I? Not so much. Buying trends, datable, obvious trends is what creates the clear out need as their shelf life is short and they will have to go to make space for the next ones.
My other issue with the concept of a wardrobe clear out is that it presupposes discontent with its content. But if you know who you are and what your style is, if you have decided on what image you want your clothes to project, and if you’re not buying compulsively, is there any need to clear, beyond the ill-fitting, the stained and the broken? Hand on my heart, I can say I know every single item in my wardrobe right now, and love every single one of them. So they all stay.
Three years ago, Jil Sanderandmenswear designer Raf Simons took the helm at Dior, ending over a year of scandal and speculation which had started with that John Galliano video. Although no one doubted Simons’ talent, and his name had been mentioned alongside roles at several LVMH-Kering brands, it wasn’t the most obvious of matches.
Little else is known about the deal, aside from the fact that Simons wasn’t involved in the editing process. A necessary clarification, considering how positive Dior and Iis.
Tcheng strikes for balance between putting Simons on a pedestal and humanising scenes, such as the designer weeping from stress on a Paris rooftop hours before the show. The pressure and expectation on him were phenomenal. Another has Simons meeting with the in-house PR, asking not to do too many interviews after the show because he doesn’t like publicity. The irony of saying this in front of Tcheng’s camera isn’t lost to the viewer. It feels a tad manipulative, as if we were told to feel even more grateful for what we are allowed to see.
But humanising moments don’t add up to an unbiased movie. As is often the case with fashion films, Dior and I amounts to a feature-length advert for the brand. The message is unfailingly positive. Simons is great, and managed to pull off in eight weeks something few could have done. Simons is perfect for Dior, a true heir to Monsieur Dior, as hinted by the voiceover extracts taken from Dior by Dior (the founder’s autobiography) that draw a parallel between the founder’s state of mind and creative process and Simons’. The Dior employees are skilled, dedicated, loving artists. This is the film message, with no alternative offered, even if it could have strengthened the feature.
To achieve this storytelling, Tcheng focuses on the creative process. He films Simons looking at archive dresses from the house’s earliest years and reinterpreting them for Fall 2012, Simons going to the Centre Pompidou and deciding to use Sterling Ruby as print inspiration.
Yet, maybe because this is the side of fashion I work in, I was more interested in the glimpses of how the Dior business is ran, though they were few. Creative, especially for a collection which was successful and isn’t even on sale anymore, can be unveiled. Creative is what makes the romanticism of fashion. The business secrets on which the house runs is a whole different story, something Dior isn’t ready to put out there. I wish Tcheng had gone there more.
In a more business moment, Simons gets annoyed because his première flou is attending a client’s fitting State-side, rather than being available to show him the first dresses for the collection. When a customer who spends thousands of euros per year on the house’s creations asks for an alteration, Dior sends the best available resource, something Simons seems to struggle with. Yet this is likely the kind of behaviour that enables the house to claim its haute couture operation is profitable.
Another creative vs. business tension comes when Simons declares his desire to cover a Parisian mansion in blooms, as a backdrop of the show. No price tag is ever mentioned. No one, especially not US Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour who jokes about him not having budget issue, is under any illusion about how hefty it must be.
In addition to customers and the fashion press, Dior deals with analysts and investors. Dior and I is a demonstration of the company’s financial health as much as of its design prowess. In its interim financial report for the six months period ending 31 December 2014, the Christian Dior group claims: “revenue for Christian Dior Couture over the period from July 1 to December 31, 2014 was 854 million euros, up 11% at constant exchange rates”. Luxury communication is tightly controlled, and there was no way the house of Dior was going to let a film be made that suggested any different.
WatchingDior and I, I realised how my take on fashion films has changed since I started working in the industry. The brand and the creative might be different but I recognised so many moments and identified with so many feelings. The outside tailors pulled in last minute the day before the show. The all-nighters, when you think that there is no way it will happen on time, yet it does, because of fashion magic. The feeling of loss and pride when a collection, which had been internal eyes only, steps on to the runway.
Thanks to my Women in Foreign Policy website, some days I go from editing an interview with a woman hopping the globe from refugee camp to refugee camp to making sure copy about luxury handbags is delivered on time. At times it seems fickle but watching Dior and I, recognising the dedication and drive in employees from another brand, it felt right. I’ve been trying to make my peace with working in fashion while attempting to contribute to foreign policy. Dior and I, for all its subjective flaws, got me one step closer to it.
Been working since the 28th and I finally got to meet Anna Wintour for the first time today. All I can say is that it was as intimidating as I have always imagined it to be. No words.
Balenciaga presented its spring/summer 22 collection with models and guests walking upon an all-red catwalk. The show then culminated in a viewing of a custom-made Simpsons episode, featuring characters including Homer, Bart, Lisa and Marge making their catwalk debut in Balenciaga looks – Homer in a red Balenciaga puffer jacket, and Marge in a showstopping gold gown!
Films in Frame - Persona, Potrait of the Lady on Fire, Licorice Pizza, The Worst Person in the World, Spencer, The Double Life of Veronique, Little Women, Frances Ha, Fleabag, Run Lola Run
And how could I have possibly forgotten the great Anne Hathaway moment.
With the first Monday in May comes The Met Gala. This year’s theme is the second part of 2021’s theme IN AMERICA. The first year was the Lexicon of Fashion, this year’s theme “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” had a mission statement of celebrating the “ storytelling and a historical context (of fashion), starting with the development of American fashion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the emergence of an identifiable American style and the rise of the name designer.” The dress code was "gilded glamour and white tie.”
This year’s chairs were Anna Wintour, Tom Ford as honorary chair and official co-chairs Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Regina King (who did not attend).
Of course nearly everyone just did whatever the hell they wanted to do.
Like Conan Gray
Like the cast and creative behind the upcoming film ELVIS, all clad in Prada.
Costume designer Catherine Martin, Alton Mason Kelvin Harrison Jr, Olivia DeJonge, Austin Butler, Elvis’ ex-wife Priscilla Presley, Jerry Schilling, Kacey Musgraves who has a song on the soundtrack and Martin’s husband, director Baz Luhrmann.
I did a professional photoshoot withDriftingFocus photography for my Georgian Collet Necklaces. I wanted to show some shots where several were worn at once, like Anna Wintour. I could not be more happy with these. Aren’t they gorgeous photos?
Collet Necklaces are available in my Etsy shop: Dames a la Mode
I’ve added some new reproduction collet necklaces to my Etsy shop. Perfect for your 18th Century or Regency costuming needs. Or for wearing them to work, which I do :)
