In the interest of time and my
sanity, I only catalogued the clothes that I wear out of the house. I have
around 225 garments that fit this standard.
This consisted of:
90 tops (shirts,
sweaters, cardigans)
40 dresses
20 skirts
10 pairs of shorts
8 pairs of jeans
20 pairs of shoes
Of these 225, I wear 59 articles
regularly. This is approximately 26%.
40% made in china, 21% in the USA, 19% in Vietnam, and the rest were
divided between Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Philippines, India, Korea, etc. These
results were mostly what I expected. I noticed that almost all of the items I purchased
from thrift shops were made in the USA. These garments were older than the rest
of my clothes, some possibly 20+ years old. This is probably due to the growing
rates of outsourcing in the past few decades. I bought most of my clothes new,
around 80-85%. Maybe 5% were gifts. Clothing from H&M was frequently made
in Bangladesh, and Forever 21 from China.
I wasn’t particularly surprised by
how much I have. I knew before this that I have way too many clothes. The part
that scares me is I didn’t count pajamas, lounge clothes, or accessories. I’m
sure with all of those things I would have a much higher number. I am not satisfied
with my results. In the past six months or so, I’ve cut back on my shopping,
but years of buying way too much led to where I am now. When I saw this
assignment at the beginning of the semester, I was afraid to know the results
of the inventory. I’ve decided recently to do a serious closet cleanout. I have
a large amount of items that I have never worn.
Most of my clothes are from
fast-fashion retailers. I’ve always done a large portion of my shopping at TJ
Maxx/Marshalls, and in the past five years, H&M and Forever 21. A few weeks
ago I was in Marshall’s, and checked the country of origin of a lot of garments
as I looked at them. They were overwhelmingly made in China. I did not end up
buying any clothes that day. Being in a store now and knowing the possible background
of garments has made me put more thought into the things I buy. I want to do
more secondhand shopping, and start buying clothes from smaller brands that do
not outsource their production.
