It is in their nature for fashion blogs, and fashion in general, to promote consumption, and despite my conflicted feelings about all of it, I am no exception to this. It's not difficult to see why: with very few exceptions, fashion companies are businesses that thrive on fulfilling desires that they themselves also create. So it might seem strange that I'm writing today not about consumption, but about the opposite: letting go, in more ways than one.
When closet editing, I experience two senses of letting go for each item, and the two rarely happen simultaneously, and each is different in terms of their challenges. The first one is the emotional aspect of letting go, about which you may have learned from that book. The second one is the physical act of letting go — as in, removing from one's home the things that have already been mentally released.
It may surprise you that it's this second sense of letting go that I actually find more difficult.
Mentally letting go is not easy, but it is mentally rather than physically taxing, and I have, in many cases, managed to do it — yes, even with Ace&Jig. I have been successful in compartmentalizing my emotional attachment to pieces that I once fondly wore, but which no longer fit my aesthetic (even if they fit my fairly static body).
Since I live in NYC, I have neither the luxury of a car to help me schlep heavy loads, nor the heart/financial recklessness to simply throw or give away my preloved-but-expensive-and-resellable clothing. Enter: Hoarding!
Okay, fine. Hoarding isn't actually a sustainable option either due to our notoriously small apartments. Enter: The RealReal, which celebrates its first annual National Consignment Day today, October 2nd. #neverthrowaway Note: this is, in fact, my very first sponsored post (!), but frankly, it's something I've been wanting to talk about anyways. I finally bit the bullet last month and consigned with them, after way too much time contemplating whether I could sell everything on my own (Spoiler: nope. Too lazy), and I'm so, SO glad I did.
A little over a month ago, before I went on my vacation to Australia, I finally bagged up some designer shoes and clothes that had been gathering dust in my closet and set up a pickup with The RealReal. A few days later, a specialist visited my apartment to appraise my offerings (with an assist from my boyfriend). All of the items were efficiently accepted and whisked away, and all of the information was entered into and trackable via my RealReal account. The best part is definitely the ability to easily track sales both online and via the RealReal mobile app. So far, I have earned just under $400 from having sold 10 items — not a large sum, and certainly less than I had paid for them, but it's $400 more than I had before and significantly more space in my closet, all with minimal effort.
No, it's perhaps not the most lucrative endeavor, but it is absolutely the easiest way to get unloved clothing out of the house quickly while recouping some spending money. Given my specific circumstances (read: laziness), it's the best, and I'd highly recommend it as an option worth looking into!
How do you usually edit your closet? Where do you consign? Let me know in the comments below!
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