My love for clothes has been with me for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of posing with improvised accessories for my father, an amateur photographer. When the Princess Diana phenomenon unfolded, I was completely swept away. Royalty became my north star.
As I grew up, graduated from a good university, and landed a well-paid job, my finances finally allowed me to buy beautiful clothes. And so I did — lots of them. After all, royalty buy hundreds of pieces a year. Why should I stay behind? Was my life less worthy?
As the piles of clothes grew, so did my responsibilities. I got married. We had children. The company grew — another employee, another product, another challenge. Life unfolded relentlessly: sick kids, struggling products, employees leaving. Keeping up a “royal” dressing routine became harder and harder, but I persisted with the determination of a stoic.
Then something unexpected happened. The creator economy blossomed, and I started encountering content by calm, poised women proudly presenting small wardrobes. And somehow — unsettlingly — they looked good. More than that, they looked grounded, content, at ease with themselves.
For the first time, a disturbing suspicion crept in: maybe having hundreds of clothes was part of the problem, not the solution.
I wasn’t ready to accept it outright, but I decided to experiment.
My first decluttering felt lonely and chaotic. Parting with clothes felt like saying goodbye to old friends. I was convinced I would regret it — it felt almost criminal. A kind of quiet suicide of my dream self.
Worse still, decluttering initially opened the door to more shopping. It took nearly two years of repeated donating and refilling before I finally reached a turning point: I started bringing in less than I gave away. And strangely, life didn’t become poorer — it became easier.
I feared I was cutting myself off from variety. That people would stop noticing me. That days would blur together. To some extent, those fears were true.
But something else happened too.
I resisted returning to old habits. Instead, I sought variety elsewhere — in conversations I would previously have skipped, in experiences with my sons I might have rushed through, in deeper bonds with family and colleagues.
Ironically, I felt more “royal” than I ever had at the height of my clothing collection.
Gradually, I noticed a shift. I was appreciated for my attention, not my appearance. For my work and presence, not my outfits. Ironically, I felt more “royal” than I ever had at the height of my clothing collection.
My relationship with clothes changed completely. They became instruments of expression — not something expressing itself through me. Digitizing my wardrobe deepened that shift: after investing time and care into cataloguing what I own, I value it more and use it more intentionally.
Looking back, I don’t regret the money spent on clothes. What I do regret is the time — time lost managing them in the hope that they would cultivate a personality that was never truly mine.
I grieve not the dream of becoming someone else, but the years spent chasing it.
Fortunately, as an engineer, I am wired to live in the present and look forward. I won’t add new regret by dwelling on old ones. I consider myself lucky to have woken from this dream with half my life still ahead of me.
With both my physical and digital wardrobe, I intend to make the most of it.