Economic Downturn to Fashion Upturn: “Shop your closet”
Radha Chadha -
Monday, January 26, 2009 8:22 PM
I have a confession to make: I am a wardrobe squirrel.
Over the years I have squirreled away jeans that are six sizes too small (sold to me by a Greek woman in Sydney, who convinced me that wearing over-tight jeans was the sure shot way to eternal slimness). I have squirreled away a trunk full of south Indian silk saris whose matching blouses don’t have a hope in hell of fitting me unless I lose ten kilos (which is just as well as I am told that South silks are so last century that even Hema Malini has moved on from them). I have squirreled away black suits in assorted sizes, brands and styles (acquired over the decade we spent in Hong Kong – not sure why, but black is the only ‘color’ you wear in Hong Kong) which go from Anne Klein (relatively “cheap cheap”, another HK term) to Giorgio Armani (wish it was "cheap cheap") and tell the history of a woman who needs to exercise something other than her credit card.
The good news in all this is that a well-squirreled wardrobe is suddenly in fashion in these economically dodgy times. “Shop your closet” is a term that has been increasingly ping-ing on my radar screen – it refers to the act of foraging through your (hopefully extensive) wardrobe and finding forgotten goodies which you seemingly purchase in a cashless transaction with yourself, and then wear with great effect. As the economic screws tighten and fashionistas become recessionistas, shopping your closet is turning into something of a “best practice” tool.
There is even a book by the name – Shop Your Closet by Melanie Fascitelli – which is a treatise on how to organize your wardrobe as meticulously as the clothing floor at Saks, complete with ten commandments of hanging (the clothes, not the fashionistas) like “Thou shalt color code” and “Thou shalt not hang your clothes with strangers (shirts with shirts, skirts with skirts, etc.)”. While the book is just about the art (and possibly science) of tidying up your wardrobe – she doesn’t actually mention the economic downturn – the term has acquired a whole new meaning with the US going into recession.
Of course, shopping your closet may keep the squirrels looking chic (even if a tad last season), but its effects on luxury retailers is hardly going to be pretty. Their business model is based on the what-me-worry, lets-look-gorgeous spending pattern of the Sex and the City quartet, not the shop-in-your-closet thrift and prudence of the Little Women foursome. For the sake of the luxury industry – and all of us who need some out-of-the-closet retail therapy – lets hope the good times roll soon.
And we can go back to untidy wardrobes.