Why we keep clothes we never wear

A study found that 85% of women have clothes in their wardrobe that don't fit. Is discarding a pair of jeans that are two sizes too small an admission of failure we'd rather avoid?
Woman looking through wardrobe
Most women surveyed said they kept three different sizes of clothes. Photograph: Stuart O'Sullivan/Getty Stuart O'Sullivan/Getty Images

Every woman's wardrobe is part active and part inactive. We have clothes that we wear, and clothes that are unworn. These unworn clothes lie dormant, ever hopeful that they will one day adorn our bodies and fulfil their destiny. They are a burden – wasting valuable wardrobe space – or on rare occasions could even be hazardous to our health. In 2009, Joan Cunnane was found dead after she was crushed under cases of "new, unworn clothes" that she had hoarded in her home [1].

Most of us store clothes that we cannot wear. A study by Elizabeth Bye and Ellen McKinney found that 85% of women have clothes in their closets that do not fit [2]. Most women they surveyed kept three different sizes, with the expectation that their weight would fluctuate. Of these clothes, the smallest sizes are kept because women are ever-hopeful. So long as we keep the "thin" clothes, we have motivation to change. To discard them, would be an admission of defeat.

Carrie Hertz notes that some people use their clothes to aid "weight management" [3]. Much like a set of bathroom scales, a set of clothes of varying sizes allow us to monitor our weight. We can measure weight loss or gain depending on which pair of jeans fits best.

There are financial reasons for keeping clothes too. Every purchase is an investment. Since we buy our own clothes we are aware of their monetary value, and we expect to wear a garment enough to get our money's worth. The value of an object changes depending on whether we classify it as a possession or as rubbish, and so if we discard something we perceive a loss of economic value. By dropping something in the bin, we are declaring that it has become worthless. This is a tacit admission that the purchase was a mistake, and that we have failed as a consumer.

This feeling of failure is compounded by the guilt that comes from creating rubbish in an environmentally conscious society. It seems socially responsible to limit rubbish by holding on to things.

There is an important distinction between "discarding" and "not keeping". Often, we keep clothes not because the 'keeping' is desirable, but because the discarding is undesirable. We do not need these clothes, but we fear not having them. We fear the possibility of never having the "money, time or ability to find a replacement garment that would be liked as well" [4].

Of course, we cannot disregard sentimental reasons for keeping clothes that we never wear. We have a personal connection to many of the garments we own. Our wardrobes are a library of possible outfits, unique to each of us. Saulo Cwerner observes that our wardrobes express our sense of identity [5]. They evolve over time, reflecting our changing roles and preferences. They are archives of our tastes and experiences. As such, they have personal value that overrides the desire for neat shelves.

These libraries are "places of imagination", storing every possibly vision of "potential selves" [6]. They preserve our younger, more beautiful selves, and also reflect our aspirations to be thinner or more confident. If we must discard these garments, it is like abandoning our dreams or our memories.

If we really must clear out the wardrobe, and throw away that beautiful dress that is a little too tight, we must first "remove meaning from the garment" [7], and only then might we learn to live without the reassurance of its presence.

Are you good at letting go of clothes when their time has passed, or is your wardrobe in need of a good cull?


[1] Maycroft, Neil. Not Moving Things Along: Hoarding clutter and Other Ambiguous Matter; Journal of Consumer Behaviour, Vol. 8 (2009), 354.
[2] Bye, Elizabeth and McKinney, Ellen. Sizing up the Wardrobe: Why We Keep Clothes That Do Not Fit; Fashion Theory, Vol. 11, Issue 4 (2007), 487
[3] Hertz, Carrie. Costuming Potenial: Accomodating Unworn Clothes; Museum Anthropology Review, Vol. 5, Nos 1-2 (2011), 18.
[4] Bye and McKinney, 486.
[5] Cwerner, Saulo B. Clothes at Rest: Elements for a Sociology of the Wardrobe; Fashion Theory, Vol. 5, No. 1 (2001), 89
[6] Bye and McKinney, 496
[7] Ibid. 493.