Photo by Alyssa Strohmann on Unsplash
Every corner of a shelf is waiting to be occupied with something that was once a fashion or a memory, faded but never forgotten.
The clothes just hung there, waiting to be picked one day. A little invisible did they seem, when the hand and eyes just glance through their transparency. Sometime back these wanted to stay there after being overused. The wardrobe is never empty but is always occupied by something that either has joined in or is about to leave soon. If you just give a glance at it when you open it, you will always see how much you have. Strange it is but we have collected and stocked so far, is only a desire by someone to be adorned one day. It is true that the one who bought it keeps their promise. It is adorned one day, given its due appreciation and approval too.
Delighted does this piece of fashion feel and a bit arrogant too. To be picked up by someone in a room full of pieces that we call fashion. It feels like I am sure the chosen one and I guess it showed the likes and dislikes of the person who chose it. At times it just fits perfectly and enhances the beauty and smartness of the person. At times it just drops down, trying to fall apart. To be rejected and placed back in the corner which for quite long seemed home. At times it’s resistance to not venture out of the wardrobe is seen, as it’s struggle to fit.
All it does is to complicate it’s procedure to be adorned or by just clinging on to the body tight, making it difficult to move. Guess it just hung on as a stubborn child who disliked being out. It is put back after a struggle, stressful though for both, who now feel relaxed. The wardrobe just feels like home for some and for some, it feels like a cage. Remember when you once tried to take out an attire you wanted to wear and another one just fell out of the wardrobe or just came out of the hanger? Pleading to be picked, not to be put back in, but to be taken out to breathe. If you do happen to change your mind, it’s efforts have worked, if not it is just put back and left hanging in the wardrobe.
It’s weird how this piece of furniture accommodates so much fashion in itself. What happens to you when you overcloth yourself or wear oversized or undersized clothes? You do not look the same and you are judged and commented upon. At times you body shame or are the one on the receiver's end. I am amazed at how this wardrobe just keeps itself in place and looks just the same. It has room for every little piece of cloth. It’s a storehouse of fashion that was once a trend. It has the collection of all that was once your first choice. The thing that you desperately wanted to be your style. Today it was the same style that was out of fashion. Yet the wardrobe never saw anything being taken away. No matter what, there was so much that you could choose from.
I have heard the term shelf life of a product. Did clothes retire too? Did they have a shelf life, or an expiry date? I guess they did, sooner or later they would be out of the wardrobe. Can we say they too have a hierarchy to follow or should we call it their status update or a upgrade? The wardrobe saw its shift from being the most wanted, the favourite and sought after to the gradually diminishing interest. It saw their shift from the top of the pile and then gradually being placed right at the bottom. Sometimes even if they lost their trendiness they were up in the loft. It did have hope that one day when fashion does change, it might win hearts and get back to the top of the pile of clothes. They see their days of being in the limelight but gradually fade or our dumped somewhere in a corner where you could see them, but never find them. The wardrobe saw this shift and it had enough place to squeeze in one more addition of trending style.
How would you describe this piece of furniture? What could you say about its willingness to give a corner to a lost fashion? Just a reflection of your personality, of your choices, of your fashion statement and of your style. Something that completes it’s cycle and comes back again. Something that lost its identity in the next generation's creativity and found once again by someone to be called, the trend or the fashion. But somewhere this wardrobe created stress and restlessness. There was so much in it that once you did adorn it, that it’s hard to decide whether you needed to dress in it one more time. You open a wardrobe and it speaks so much about you. It speaks about your personality, how organised or clumsy you are. It speaks about your lifestyle and status through the brands, the quality and the variety that you stock. It is always a reflection of your stature in life. The wardrobe spoke about the greed for everything or the satisfaction of what you possessed. The day it needed to be rearranged you could realise the worthiness of everything that just came out.
This little space is the most important part of not only your belongings but your life. You could either clutter or declutter but whenever you did you would find it difficult to part with the style that was there on the shelf, waiting for you to bring it back to life.
You must have even heard the term’ wardrobe malfunction’. How does it do that? I think it is more a result of us overthinking or overdoing what we dress into. There is so much for you to choose from and when the fashion, the styles, the trends get overloaded, it is then that a wardrobe malfunctions. When you try to get the different styles to blend and know not how to, it is then you gather pieces from here and there to create a trend. But have you ever thought about what happens when you try to get different things in life together, it creates stress. It creates discomfort as you never want to lose what you have and want to acquire something new.
The wardrobe once open, tells you a story through things that have been there. Each has a memory which might have faded away but never forgotten. If you stand too long in front of a wardrobe, you are in denial, what you see is you who tried to fit into everything but not having the wardrobe just speaks of a trend, set by you.