Feel Like You’ve Got Nothing To Wear? You Probably Have Too Many Clothes

How many times have you thought “I’ve got nothing to wear”, despite the fact that your wardrobe is brimming with clothes? Well, according to a new report by Vestiaire Collective, nearly one in three people have this feeling weekly, even though 72 per cent have more than 100 items in their closet, and 47 per cent have more than 200.

“The more [clothes] you have, the more likely you are to feel a bit lost and have decision fatigue, and experience even more the ‘got nothing to wear’ feeling,” Hortense Pruvost, Vestiaire Collective’s impact director, tells Vogue. The majority of respondents blamed the feeling on being emotionally disconnected from their clothes, while underestimating the number of items in their wardrobe by around 45 to 50 per cent – meaning most of us don’t know what we actually own in the first place.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the typical response to the feeling of having nothing to wear is to make a new purchase as a “quick fix”, with 89 per cent of people saying they have done this at least once. But “that tends to just accentuate the feeling, not really solve it”, Pruvost reflects.

Interestingly, the report found that those who engaged with resale – whether buying or selling – tended to experience the feeling of having nothing to wear less frequently. “We all need to be a bit more intentional about the way that we buy,” Pruvost continues. “Buying second-hand fashion is very different to walking into a shop, or buying first-hand [clothes] online. You have to have an idea of the brands that you like, you have to go through the [listings], you have to engage with the seller, you have to negotiate for your items. All these steps create a very different connection to your clothing.”

Before you rush to buy anything, though, Pruvost advises that you first conduct a wardrobe audit to take stock of what you actually have, and what you actually wear (the study found on average that respondents had around £800 worth of unworn clothes in their wardrobes). “Get clarity first,” she says. “Let go of what you don’t feel a connection to anymore, to really focus on the items that talk to you day-to-day.”