How To Care For Your Clothes, Part 1

I've been writing, and thinking, a lot about clothes lately. Well, a lot for me. The last time I bought more than one or two items in a month was about three years ago when I realized come out of school that I didn't have any cold-weather dress clothes appropriate for work. Aside from replacing undearwear and socks as they wear out, I buy probably fewer than 5 or 6 items of new clothing each year. So all the thought I've been putting into my wardrobe lately has been, to say the least, uncharacteristic.

I suppose I could blame the economic climate, and the fact that when the economy is shaky, business places tend to move away from casual dress codes to more formal business dress. The other major factor is that although I am usually able to dress on the casual side of business casual in my current job, my next job will require me to look decidedly more formal, and I'm trying to buy a few items every month in preparation rather than having to make one huge shopping spree just before starting that position. Consumption smoothing at its finest. And let's not forget the pondering I've been doing about clothes and image.

At any rate, I've spent a lot of time poking through my wardrobe during the past few weeks. I've been shopping a few times, but I've also been thinking about less expensive ways to keep up a professional appearance. In the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting about how to care for your clothes--as in, how to take care of them, but also how to like them better. Because if you like what's already in your closet, you don't have to go shopping for more, or you will only need to fill in a few specific gaps when you do shop.

Look for posts on:
--how to handwash clothing
--how to weed out your closet
--how to do basic clothing repair yourself
--how to work with a tailor to keep borderline clothes wearable
--how to shop for clothes
--how to polish your shoes

This stuff is not hard, it's not expensive, it doesn't take a ton of time, and you will no longer look like a disheveled grad student when you schlep into the office (says the formerly disheveled former grad student).

These are all things I've been puzzling through during the last three weeks or so. Are there things I'm missing? Drop me a note in the comments.