Random questions to which you seek an answer

[northsouthdenimguy]

@Oaktavia

Only cause you asked…

I have the same type of thoughts going through my head all the time.

I have a pretty large rotation of clothes, and I also have a lot of clothes that never make it into the rotation. Over the last year or two, I’ve been focused on keeping only the pieces I actually wear. If I haven’t worn something in a year, it’s sold or given away.

I know there are exceptions. Some people would never part with a 20th Anniversary piece or another particularly popular or one time releaae, and I totally get that. I just don’t have the same emotional attachment to clothing that I used to.

Footwear was even harder. At least with shirts and denim, you can realistically rotate through everything in a few months, especially if you’re changing two or three times a day like I sometimes do, depending on what’s going on. With 40 or 50 pairs of boots, though, for me that is just not possible, especially since I’m not wearing every pair on construction sites. It’s not even about the price. It’s about using the right tool for the right job.

I’ve made this all about me, but I get where you’re coming from. I go through phases too. I’ve sold about 30 pairs of boots over the last year, and I’ve lost count of how many clothing items, some Iron Heart but mostly other heritage brands, I’ve let go because I simply wasn’t wearing them.

As I’m trying to reduce the overlap, I’m becoming a lot more selective. Sure, I’m always going to have multiple denim shirts, but I probably don’t need two Dobby shirts that are similar in weight or fill the same role. I don’t need any of this, but I’m trying to buy with more intention instead of just accumulating more.

I still want to buy it all and have it all. I’ve just learned that, for me, it didn’t really add anything. It only created anxiety from having so much stuff, whether it was clothing or footwear.

When clothing and boots becomes one of your hobbies, which they have been for me for a number of years, it’s interesting how you have to navigate what you like, what actually makes you happy, and what simply adds to the pile. I still enjoy the hunt and appreciate great pieces, but I’ve found I’m much happier with a more thoughtful collection than one that’s constantly growing.

Edit: As if I haven’t said enough already, I also understand trying to figure out how to rotate everything. When do you wear something? Do you start fading it now, save it for later, or just leave it alone?

[Oaktavia]

@northsouthdenimguy Thank you for the write up, I value the insight and it actually does help quite a bit. 50 boots is wild! That is amazing you were able to sell 30 of them. I have sold about 30 items total from my collection in the past year and it feels AMAZING!

I wanted to point out the point you made about having too much gear and it causing anxiety. My wife said it's stressing me out that I have too many pants to wear. And it is true. Who knew, when we think we relieve stress by "therapy purchases" and it just compounds it. The entropy of an isolated system always increases over time.

[pechelman]

I've got a generally simple rotation plan. I pick a pair I want to wear and generally commit to only wearing those for at least a month or until they need to be washed. I'll select the pair based on the season, so right now I'm in 16oz slubs. If I'm going to do lots of yardwork or something dirty, I might switch to a beater pair, especially if I just put on a fresh pair. Generally I can't wear pants more than 2mo before I start to feel gross, so that starts the rotation again. This way feels pretty reasonable for how many pairs I have and still feels like I can make progress and actually see a difference.

I definitely have some pair though that I need to sell as I've started to prefer different things though, so that helps keep the number to rotate through a bit smaller.

Edit, I'll also add I dislike rotating pairs regularly during the week because I hate having to swap out my belt, knife, and anything else small in my pockets.

[jordanscollected]

I’m on the @goosehd side of this discussion. I will never “keep up with the denim Jones’” with fading. plus, I quickly realized that fades show up a ton better in photographs than they do to the naked eye.

Once I realized this hobby wasn’t about chasing the dramatic wow factor fades for me, it became easy to switch out jeans and make outfits out of my small (in comparison to my forum activity may suggest) collection.

Seeing such openness from high standing forum members about collect/hoard vs wear anxiety has me thinking of a few things I could move to fill so called “gaps” in my wardrobe.

Great posts by all on this topic.

[Brian]

I keep a simple wardrobe really everything needs to fit in a rucksack/ bag / case / whatever
That if I need to leave / escape / relocate
Everything clothing and footwear wise can be in one package

[wjw]

I'm pretty loose with rotation and don't keep track of wear/wash etc. I do always have a pair of jeans I'm actually "working on" though. If I wear IH every day, there's the one I wear every other day, and that other day goes to whatever pair. If I've been wearing work pants (not my IH a lot of the time), everytime I wear my good pants its the pair "I'm working on". I usually change between that target pair when the fades of one get set to how I like or need to repair them. For a top, I've been wearing my 293 a ton over the last year and a half I've owned it, but it is also my only denim top. And the 293 is pretty perfect weight for my coastal climate.

[TeflonDon]

@Oaktavia

I’ve never felt that way with my clothes - I’m in the goose camp, and just really enjoy well made clothing. I’m also really happy with clothes that can be repaired, and I’m really glad that I’ve gotten rid of the notion that “presentable” clothes were also clothes showing very little sign of wear. Which was pretty much the way of the eighties and early nineties, when I grew up.

But I can relate to your stress - I have a decent wine collection. And though I’ve pretty much stopped adding to it (apart from one yearly addition of Falkenstein), there was a point when my search for the right bottles at the right price, combined with my focus on cooking food that would pair well with what I had in the cellar, became a straight jacket, rather than a joy.

I still enjoy wine, but I’m telling myself that whenever I take a nice mature bottle out of the cellar I’m enjoying the fruit of my labor - instead of fretting about how to replace it.

[ARNC]

I’m enjoying this discussion and thanks to @Oaktavia for starting it. This is definitely one of those situations where there are no right answers. Unless I’m off work, I only get to wear IH three days a week and so I like to ring the changes. Fades will come with time but I’m happy to take the long view and focus on different combinations.

Sure, I’ll lean more towards and away from different items at different times but there’s also an emotional aspect for me. I tend to lay out what I’m going to wear before going through the bathroom as part of my morning routine and sometimes I just don’t feel a particular outfit even if it’s perfect for my plans, weather, etc. By the time I’ve made a few substitutions I’ll know I’ve landed where I need to be.

I think it’s similar to the way I listen to music. I might have favourite artists and albums (long term or for a season) but I could never just listen to one or two records on my commute. There are also times when an absolute favourite fails to hit the spot and after a few mishits I land on something that’s perfect for a particular moment (maybe something completely unexpected that I’d forgotten about or something new). If I can capture that feeling when I’m getting dressed, there’s at least a chance I’ll have a good day.

Anyway, that might just be me. I love that other people do things differently. If everyone was like me, the world would be a truly terrible place!

[Denimhead 0]

@northsouthdenimguy Great post! Sometimes I find myself in my closet for 15 minutes trying to figure out what too wear Steve Jobs made it so simple.

[northsouthdenimguy]

@Oaktavia thanks for reading it… I may have already been into a couple cocktails when I wrote it. lol

I think some of us probably think way too much about this stuff, but I’m good with that. There’s much worse things to spend your time on.

[northsouthdenimguy]

@Denimhead-0

“Steve Jobs made it so simple.”

I’m sure some people think we’re already doing this…

[RobeOfTheMagi]

I’ve been wearing my pink Patagonia Baggy's shorts for the last four weeks. That drastically reduce my mental load .

I am currently on vacation near Lake Constance and the weather is really hot with some serious storms in between.

[Oaktavia]

@northsouthdenimguy no worries at all dude, some folks prefer to wait till they are a few deep before writing. I enjoyed reading it!

[Oaktavia]

@northsouthdenimguy said in Random questions to which you seek an answer:

@Denimhead-0

“Steve Jobs made it so simple.”

I’m sure some people think we’re already doing this…

I just tell my students who are rude enough to ask why I wear the "same" thing every day (I really don't, it's just all similar looking denim) that my closet is all full with multiples of the same outfit. Like in cartoons.

[Giles]

@Oaktavia said in Random questions to which you seek an answer:

some folks prefer to wait till they are a few deep before writing.

Or, in some peoples case, before buying....We had one guy who would drop $8k or so regularly on a Saturday night, only to ask to cancel in the morning.....That's extreme, but there are plenty of you out there

[RocknRoll]

@Oaktavia
I understand the anxiety you speak of.

In my early days of IH and Japanese denim, i did what a lot of people do: i bought way too much stuff. Over time it began weighing me down - the anxiousness of feeling like i had to try every type of denim, combined with the guilt of excessive consumerism. In hindsight, in a lot of cases i think i just wanted to see and feel the product, not necessarily own it. It took me a while to realise this.

I stepped right back for a number of years. I still wore good jeans in that time, but would go months (even years) without looking at things online and drooling over them. It was amazingly liberating - i was oblivious to whatever was going on in the denim world.

The (unintended) tradeoff for me was that i got heavily into guitar building in that period, and ended up with way too many guitars. I guess it’s my personality to go a bit over the top when i find something i like!

These days, i’m fairly restrained with my denim purchases, although arguably still have too many jeans. The other thing that’s changed (although i can’t put my finger on why) is that i don’t give a fuck about fades. At all. I love the look of new jeans just as much as old ones.

Just my story…all the best finding a strategy that works for you. Cheers!

[twinning]

@Oaktavia Very late to this party but yes, I too ADHD & OCD the f**k out of my jeans, for maybe 3 years now. There's such a tension between the minimalist, own fewer but better things mentality that's so deeply ingrained in much of the heritagewear community, and the fact we live within capitalism. I don't mean that as a throwaway, old commie yells at clouds statement but the brands that produce the clothes we love have to sell more to survive. And they make really cool stuff, and I want that stuff, and on and on it goes. I'm so glad I'm not really into the crazy fabrics like SDA or Samurai--though they're both absolutely gorgeous--'cause if I were I'd have a real problem lol.

I just want one all-around, wear with everything pair of jeans. I don't want to wear any other style of pant, or shorts, or multiple pairs of jeans to rotate through. Just one denim in one cut that works, and that's the quest I've been on. For better or worse, Levi's won the global fashion game and jeans go literally with everything in every context now, and I want basically what everyone's wearing just better than what everyone's wearing, or at least that's how I think about it most of the time.

But then there's so much out there and how do you know if you like something unless you try it? I was listening to Derek Guy (menswearguy) on some podcast and he told a story of someone who'd never thought about jeans until he went into a slightly higher-end store and had help finding that "perfect" pair and he walked out so happy with what was undoubtedly the best pair of jeans he'd ever had in his life, with all sorts of little details that were miles above anything he'd ever had and he'd never even thought of before.

And then he was instantly miserable because it occurred to him, thinking about all these new things, that if this pair of jeans was so good, maybe there was a more perfect pair out there somewhere for him. And that's the paradox of choice and freedom that I feel trapped in most of the time. Like, these 888s are sooooooo good, but what if the 1955 is better, for me?

How did I get "into" denim? I saw a post on r/rawdenim of a beautifully faded pair of 888s-142, worn by a woman who's name I don't know for one of the indigo invitational years, and her post said she'd done the invitational in an effort to cut down on decision fatigue because she'd been spending too much energy thinking about what to wear in the morning. And I thought: yes, I too spend too much time thinking about clothes and what to wear, and I want my jeans to look like that! I'll do what she did!

And I've spent infinitely more time thinking about clothes since that decision than I ever had before lol.

Last quick story: My dissertation advisor, an established tenured professor, wore black jeans and a black T and an indigo Levi's trucker jacket. Every. Single. Day. I was chatting with him in his office one time and somehow we started talking about student evals and he said the funniest one he ever got was a student saying he was dirty because he wore the same thing every day. He then said, completely serious: I have a closet at home with 20 of these jackets. So I guess at the end of the day ya' just gotta do what works for you and I'm not trying to end this sentence as advice but more like the broader "you" that includes me.