Thirty Pairs of Pants
And an update on the $700 shirt.
Since this is the first cool, fall-feeling week we’ve had in Albuquerque, I took all my shorts off their shelf to stash away for the winter. Which means that I also pulled out all my pants to evaluate.
When I looked at them, there were just… too many. How did one person accumulate so many pants? I laid them all out in categories and counted: Thirty pairs of pants.
Some pants I own in multiples because I have them in different sizes to cover some body variation in either direction, for days when my usual size feels a little too tight or too loose. I feel the magnetism of the single perfect pair of jeans, but the reality is that over the course of a year I have worn three different sizes of the same jeans and I am glad to have that option.
Surveying all that I own always brings up a little shame for me, so I did an informal survey of how many pairs of pants people own. Answers ranged from “6 pairs of pants but only one that is actually comfortable” to “35 but I am probably forgetting some.”
, voice of closet reason, has 14 pairs of pants and 7 pairs of leggings.
Comparisons aside, I am feeling so sick of my closet. The quantity of clothes I have starts to feel like it’s making getting dressed harder instead of easier, and I am feeling physically encumbered by of all of these things stuffed into shelves and bins. I am so ready to let some of it go. I keep fantasizing about having a whole wardrobe that fits onto one of those tiny rolling clothes racks! Is it closet diet culture to want that? Maybe that’s an unachievable dream, but there has to be a middle ground, right? I don’t think thirty pairs of pants in my closet are making my life any easier or better.
How many pairs of pants do you have?
After the paywall:
A list of all the pants I currently own
What I’m keeping and what I’m not
Before & After picture of my pants shelf
What I need to add to my pants shelf
An update on the $700 denim shirt