There is probably something in your closet you haven't worn in years. You know exactly which thing I'm talking about. And the annoying bit is that there is something about it that you actually really like.
Maybe it's the perfect color or the shape is fantastic on you. Maybe it looks fantastic with that one pair of pants you reach for. And sometimes you pull it out, put it on, and think, "oh right! This is why I bought this one."
And seven minutes later you remember that one other thing.
The fabric feels weird, or the waistband does something you hate. The neckline touches you in just the wrong spot or something scratches and pulls and just feels...yuck. So you take it off. Naturally. And somehow you then put it back in your closet. Six months later. Rinse and repeat. Which raises the question: what exactly are we waiting for?
Because the color isn't going to become less beautiful and that seam is not going to spend the next six months thinking about its behavior and somehow re-sewing itself to be less irritating. So what exactly is it doing there? You don't wear it, but also apparently cannot get rid of it. Some clothes, it seems, have jobs that have very little to do with getting dressed.
Researchers who study clothing and identity have actually found some clues about why we do this to ourselves and they seem intuitive but that does not make them less frustrating. Clothes can become connected to memories, relationships, previous roles, imagined futures and our sense of who we are. Which means the fact that you don't wear something doesn't necessarily mean it isn't doing anything. Maybe you're keeping the memory, the possibility, the person who wore it, the $240 you spent on it because getting rid of the dress would somehow make that money feel even more gone.
But now look at the other end of your closet because there are probably FIVE things in there you wear on repeat and that's the place where we are most fascinated with understanding because you know these clothes too. The pants you reach for while three other perfectly respectable pairs remain untouched and that shirt you wash and immediately wear again because, well look at you in it! That thing you pack for every trip and the one you choose when you don't particularly feel like thinking about what to choose. Which, to us, raises a completely different question, why those?
We tend to talk about clothing preference as though it is this fuzzy thing called personal style. You like neutrals. She likes prints. You're a minimalist. She's whatever aesthetic the internet has decided everyone likes this week.
But researchers have actually tried to study the structure of everyday clothing preferences empirically. Is it really just that we have different styles, or is there something else hidden in there?
In one study of 500 people, Hur, Etcoff and Silva found a measurable structure underneath people's everyday clothing preferences. Four broad preference patterns emerged, and those patterns held up whether people were looking at clothes they liked and owned, liked but didn't own, or owned but didn't actually like.
They found that there is structure in preference. Which is sort of wonderful because you may have been collecting data about your own preferences for years without realizing it and your closet is that dataset. If you think about it, every morning you're running another study: open the closet, twenty shirts available, you choose one. Next day, repeat.
Meanwhile there's another top seven inches away waiting patiently for its opportunity. But why? Is it really the fabric, the neckline, the length, that waistband? Maybe you may struggle to find the bra to wear underneath or only have three other things that work with it. Your choices were putting some of those preferences into words for you all along.
Because while the clothing industry knows all sorts of things about categories of women from sizes and measurements to age groups, purchasing patterns, and trends ...your closet knows something else: It knows what YOU keep choosing.
Your closet couldn't care less about "women aged 45–54" or "size medium," "pear or apple or whatever fruit we have apparently decided women need to be." You. And this is where the difference between a closet and a wardrobe gets useful. Because your closet contains what you've acquired, whereas your wardrobe is what you've curated.
Not always intentionally, which may be the most you part of this whole equation. That curation happened because you stood in front of your clothes on hundreds of unremarkable mornings and kept making choices. For you. And each choice is information. Which also means, of course, the things you don't choose are information too.
To be clear, these are not instructions on how to throw things away. Clothes are allowed to hold memories, be beautiful objects, await the perfect occasion. Some represent a version of you that we all need to remember so the dress stays tucked into the back corner. But it is worth knowing which is which: curated versus acquired.
Because this is something we think about a lot at TuKiss. We can design for a size and choose a fabric and study bodies and movement and construction. We can ask women what bothers them and what they keep adjusting and what they wish their clothes would do differently. And we do. But eventually the garment enters someone's actual life and then she chooses. Or doesn't. That repeated choice may be one of the most honest pieces of information we get.
So before you clean out your closet, maybe don't. Or at least not yet. Maybe pull out the five things you wear most and put them on the bed. And instead of asking whether they're fashionable, flattering, expensive, new, old, appropriate for your age, or whatever other question we've been taught to ask about clothes, ask something else like, "Why do I keep choosing these?"
Then look for what repeats. Is it fabric, shape, coverage, length? Is it the way it moves, feels, or maybe that you don't have to think about it at all? Is it the way you feel more like YOU when you are in it? Because maybe personal style is not what you like, but what likes you back when you see it in the mirror.
And that thing you've not worn since 2019? We'll deal with her later.
Sources
Hur, Y. J., Etcoff, N. L., & Silva, E. S. (2023). Can fashion aesthetics be studied empirically? The preference structure of everyday clothing choices. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 41(2), 525-545.
Mellander, E., & Petersson McIntyre, M. (2021). Fashionable detachments: Wardrobes, bodies and the desire to let go. Consumption Markets & Culture, 24(4), 343-356.
Tse, T., & von Pezold, J. (2023). Memories reminisced, reconciled, renewed: Hong Kong male consumers’ wardrobes and their search for a congruent self. Journal of Consumer Culture, 23(4), 846-867.