Own Clothes Day
Today the sky is striped baby blue and the palest apricot. There are the shadows of two pigeons high in the tree outside, as still as paper cut-outs. Three other birds fly in a swag in order of size - large to small. There’s some cheeping from the blue-tits and a bird sound I can’t place like a soft football rattle in the distance. Sending out a work email, I’m hooked by a youtube video called ‘The Ten Item Wardrobe’.* I’m letting go this year, so although it seems superficial, how about letting go of excess clothes? There seem to be a lot of these videos of young American women discovering that you don’t need a walk-in wardrobe plus an extra one in the loft. You can let go of anything you don’t wear or doesn’t go with anything else you own, and then it’s easier to decide what to wear. And when you have fewer clothes you tend to gravitate towards better quality and maintenance. The young woman who gives this talk is beautifully turned out, elegantly straight, put together. There’...