10 months in to a year of not buying any new clothes, I decided it was time to clean-out my wardrobe.

My girlfriends and I have undertaken a challenge to spend a whole 12-month period without buying any new clothes, shoes or accessories – and so far, I am doing pretty good. I have slipped up once, but otherwise I have only purchased second-hand or pre-loved items from op shops or through online resellers.

However as we draw closer to the end of our 12 months, I cannot say that I am not excited by the prospect of new clothes. I thought that going through my wardrobe and taking stock of what I have, what I wear and what I don’t would be a great way to get me prepared for 2021.

Five bags of garments later, I’m left feeling both accomplished and underprepared.

Don’t get me wrong – clearing out your wardrobe is an incredibly cathartic experience and I think everyone should do it at least once a year. My girlfriends and I like to make an event out of it and really make a song and dance about analysing each other’s garments, shoes and accessories. It’s sort of like that scene from the Sex & the City movie where they go through Carrie’s closet – only we yell at each other a lot.

There was a lot to get rid of as well. Clothes I wore when I was 20 and will never fit again. Clothes that don’t suit me. Clothes I never reach for but resent having paid for… I think many of you can probably relate to the sort of room-of-requirement effect that my wardrobe seems to have – where somehow it just keeps making more and more room for the things that I buy. Like it knows that one day I will actually have a need for the Christian Dior Monsieur dressing-gown I bought, wore once, and then decided that I hated.

But now that I have pared-back my wardrobe further than I already had, I just feel a little more ‘exposed’.

There are still two months left before I can replace anything that I got rid of, and I can really see how I might have some gaps that I simply cannot fill. In an The Emperor’s New Clothes like twist I have been swindled out of my robes and I am looking at a very real possibility of getting about in various states of undress.

But, at the end of the day, there is a pile of 23 coat hangers bedside my bed that represent space I’ve made for clothes that actually fit, and suit, me.

And that is worth the angst.