Thursday 2 May 2013

I never learn...

...NOT to  buy clothes via the internet!

My "wardrobe" (and here, I mean the place where I hang my clothes;  not my collection of designer "pieces) is crammed with awful mistakes. It happens like this:

1. See item on the internet
2. Think it looks nice, and I won't have to trawl round the shops looking for whatever it is and taking my clothes on and off in cramped changing rooms
3. Deliberate. At langth (I'm not one of nature's rapid decision-makers).
4. Buy item.
5. It arrives. Not quite as nice as I thought, but will it look better on?
6. It doesn't look better on. But not exactly horrible, either.
7. Further deliberation. Maybe item will improve over time (this is ridiculous, since inanimate objects don't tend to do this). Plus, returning items is a bore, and I am lazy (and herein lies the rub).
8. Decide to keep it.
8. Wear it.
9. Hate it.
10. Wear it again (because you can't wear a garment you've paid for only once, can you?)
11. Still hate it.
12. Item languishes in wordrobe, because I've got to keep it for a certain length of time before I give myself permission to dispose of it.
11. Oxfam shop.

PS I have just given a strange grey sweater its second statutory wearing, and can now get rid of it. After all, I've had it all winter, even though I've only worn it twice.

PPS Strange grey sweater, size 12, anyone?

17 comments:

  1. I hang the disappointing garments in my wardrobe in the hope that if I see them every day, I will eventually feel sorry for them. The completely hopeless cases are put out of sight in my youngest daughter's wardrobe. She, at fifteen, is more sensible than me and owns just a few garments, all of which she actually wears. I'll never learn. x

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    1. My daughter gives me her (designer) cast-offs. Daughters have their uses!

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  2. I do this with items in my fridge! Have eaten French cheese two days in a row. Don't want to eat any more of it but it's still got one day to go before it reaches its sell by date (and it would be dreadful food waste to throw something in date away) so wait another day and then happily consign it to the bin without guilt. Not quite the same but I'm sure you'll recognise the similarity, Frances.

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    1. Wendy, cheese is cheaper than jumpers. Trust me.

      And sell by date? What's a sell by date?

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  3. I do this too, Frances. I gradually move the offending (offensive) items to the end of the rail, then fold them up and put them in the bottom of the wardrobe and after a reasonable time has passed they go to the charity shop. Glad it's not just me :-) x

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    1. Yes, yes! The "reasonable time"! I'm so glad you do this too, Teresa!

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  4. See it this way, ladies - without you, the charity shops would not have any as-good-as-new items to sell!
    My sister is a bit like that, but she's been improving over the years and now I often hear her say, "I know I am not going to wear that... I like it now, here at the shop, but won't feel comfortable wearing it", and then she refrains from buying it.
    A lot of her good quality, relatively expensive clothes go on ebay without her ever having worn them.

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    1. But you don't do that, do you, Meike?
      Your clothes seem soooo organised. Sigh...

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  5. Yes, I've been there too, and got the T-shirt (sorry). I never buy anything on the internet, so that bit is easy, but I do have to restrain myself when the Kaleidoscope catalogue arrives. I think I'm in control at last, as I love brousing round the shops, but I have to be on my own. I'm too easily influenced by daughter/friends.

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    1. We have very few clothes shops to browse around. That's the trouble. Plus, I'm lazy...

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  6. I don't tend to buy online as I need to try things on, but I still have awful mistakes hanging in the wardrobe, still can't find things to wear sometimes - and one or two items might still have the price tag on. Shocking!

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    1. I feel much better now. None of mine have the price tags. Thanks, Rosemary!

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  7. And I ask you, why is is so difficult to actually take the offending garment to the charity shop? I have a bag full of things I will never, in this life, wear again, but still they sit gathering wrinkles and do not venture into the car to make the trip to the shop!
    I'm moving again in a few months, so now is definitely the time to make donations left and right!

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    1. The to your question is simple, Jill: to justify having bought all those mistakes, you have to keep them for a while. Then you can say, hand on heart, that you only get rid of old clothes!

      Or something...

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  8. I never buy clothes online or from catalogues (well 99% never anyway). Still possible to make enough mistakes even when buying things in shops and trying them on, though :)

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    1. Fine if you've got the shops, DT!

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    2. Hmm... after living my whole grown-up life in towns/cities with around 100 000 inhabitants I guess I tend to forget sometimes that not everyone does. Sorry! {embarrassed smile} As it happens the town where I live now grew out of its textile industry, and became a centre for mailorder businesses...

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