The Eternal Optimist

Today I went to a clothes swap organized by a co-worker. It was great in so many ways. (I’ll provide some detail in case this inspires anyone else to organize one.)

1. I had great motivation to clean out my closet and analyze my clothes as I packed away winter sweaters. We also included accessories and jewelry in our swap, so I spent another day sorting through and organizing jewelry (resulting in the discovery of some pieces I had forgotten I owned).

2. We brought our bags of clothes (We had a 3-item minimum to participate.) to the host’s condo and grouped them by items (sweaters on one table, shirts in another place, pants, shoes, etc.). Then, we “shopped” around, looking at the items and trying some on.

3. I can’t forget to mention this took place in conjunction with a delicious brunch of baked french toast, quiche and mimosas.

4. Once we had seen the goods, we had a couple rounds of selection, each with the following order:
a) Each person selects one item she wants.
b) We all hold up our selections for the group to see.
c) If you want an item someone else selected, you can challenge them. A challenge involves a runway “walk-off” in which the group vote determines who gets to keep the item.
d) Once all challenges are settled and each person has their item to keep from the round, the next round begins.

5. You can repeat as many rounds as you like. We had 3-4, before declaring it a free-for-all. (At that point most of the items people might argue for are taken.) Most of us picked up at least one more item (or 4, in my case) in the free-for-all.

So, you might ask, did this really save me closet space if I ended up bringing home 6 new shirts? Yes, in fact, it did. My 6 new pieces take up much less space than the garbage bag of clothes I brought to the swap. And those extra clothes left after all our selections are going to Goodwill.