It's a beige blazer, with straight, structured shoulders.
I bought it with my first pay from a student job, at 20. I was earning between €300 and €350 a month. I already loved fashion, but my budget couldn't keep up with that passion… So I thought for a long time about the one essential piece to invest in (a budget of 70 euros; I remember it very, very well).
For me, back then, it was a decision.
I wore it more than a hundred times! It straightened my back for job interviews, it was the base for trying out funkier, bolder looks, I wore it in winter, spring and autumn, in all sorts of variations. And then, for the past three or four years, I haven't worn it. But it's still there. It has survived every clear-out, every “I really need to make some space”, every house move and every “I'm putting it all on Vinted” evening.
Why that one, and not the dozens of others that left?
Because it isn't really a garment any more.
The psychologist Russell Belk put a name to it: the “extended self”. Our belongings end up becoming part of our identity. A piece we love isn't something we own like an object; it becomes a part of us. Giving it away would mean losing a little of ourselves. That's why it escapes the logic of the clear-out.
What this blazer keeps, above all, is a version of me.
It reminds me of the fighter I was. The girl seeking her independence at 20, discovering a passion, learning, in a world of narrow standards, what truly suited her body. Back then, she thought she didn't like her body. She was too slim, with a chest too small for the standards around her. This straight-shouldered blazer was a way of giving herself a presence where she felt she had none, without even realising it. This blazer witnessed all of it. Keeping it means keeping that girl with me. Talking to her, connecting with her refusal to hate her body because of this or that. Connecting with her ability to reject what didn't suit her, and to dare to say so.
What binds us to a piece is almost never its value or how fashionable it is. It's the very simple feeling of being yourself in it, or of finding a version of yourself you're proud of.
This attachment makes me think of another kind of sustainability.
Today, more than 20% of our clothes are never worn*: we buy more and more, and wear less and less. My blazer, on the other hand, was worn more than a hundred times and kept for ten years. Seventy euros divided by a hundred comes to almost nothing, and yet it's priceless! Perhaps that is true sustainability: not recycled fabric or a green label, but a garment we love enough, that we chose for ourselves, never to replace it. Attachment may well be the most ecological gesture there is.
So, how do you learn to dress for yourself?
This blazer left me with three markers that I'd like to share with you.
First, trust YOUR eye, and then the feeling. The right piece isn't the one that impresses others; it's the one you feel like yourself in. And when that happens again, believe me, your whole body feels it. It's impossible to miss.
If you keep a piece for ten years, it will never be just for its perfect cut, or because your friend thought it looked amazing in the shop; it will be for how it makes you feel.
Next, spot your “extended self” pieces, the ones you keep without knowing why. They say more about who you are than any style quiz. Look at what has survived your clear-outs: that's your real wardrobe. Build the rest around it, or question it? That's your call. At least this exercise will give you something to choose from.
Finally, dare to say no. To what doesn't suit you, to the trend that isn't you, or to the body others would like to see you inhabit. Dressing for yourself almost always starts with a refusal (paradoxically). The one my 20-year-old self was already learning, without knowing it, as she buttoned up her blazer.
I don't wear this blazer any more, but I won't give it away, and I won't sell it either: it isn't a garment any more, it's proof that one day, at 20, I started dressing for myself.
What if you looked at your wardrobe differently? Not to sort it, but to listen to it?
I'll leave you to think about it.
Copain.e