^◢ The hoarders

^{Picture it. Piles of papers, clothes, useless bits and bobs. Towers of boxes stacked beside home appliances never taken out of their packages.}

^{So much stuff.}

^{We’ve all seen shows like Hoarders, or have at least come across a hoarder house of horrors story in some news article. And, in my mind, there’s always an obligatory scattering of cats without a single litter box to their names.}

^{Though their houses became even more crowded, they had trouble parting with things. They were too attached to all their stuff.}

^{(Hoarders Season 13, Episode 12, featuring Roz, who used to be a public health nurse 😐)}

^{Many hoarders compulsively hold on to items, sometimes out of sentimental attachment, sometimes out of a need to feel secure or unwasteful.}

^{Some collect an assortment of things while collect others only specific items, such as home goods, electronics or, oh, I don’t know, *cough, cough*, archival designer clothes? So then, is it safe to say that such selective hoarders are just misunderstood collectors?}

^◢ Are we hoarders?

^{It’s estimated that Americans buy around 50 to 60 items of clothing each year (give or take), and much of them are fast-fashion items.}

^{So does our hyper-consumerism make us hoarders?}

^{In her article, The History of a Cheap Dress, author Elizabeth Cline notes that in the 1930s, the average American woman owned about nine outfits.}

^{Yet, although we modern Americans buy around 50-60 items of clothing a year, many of these clothes are given away or tossed out after only a few wears.}

^{So, overconsuming doesn’t necessarily lead to hoarding, yet think of overconsumption as at least providing the material conditions for the disorder to thrive.}

^◢ Collecting items with purpose and order

^{In Collecting Fashion, edited by Alexandra Carl, fashion collectors are interviewed about the special items in their archives.}

^{The themes of these archives could be as broad as “collecting the fabulous” to as specific as “collecting Helmut Lang” yet each archive possessed a more or less coherent theme. In addition, some collectors kept clothing, shoes, and accessories in organized, climate-controlled spaces and closets—the clothes in particular hung up on racks, in garment bags, or lying mummy-like in acid-free tissue paper. They arranged archive items sometimes by color, sometimes by year of creation, sometimes by designer.}

^{For a number of collectors, preservation for future generations was the main goal. Others rented out pieces to be displayed in museums, worn by celebrities or used in magazine editorials, plays, and film projects. Some collected items as financial investments.}

^{Still others chose to treat their collections as part of their wardrobe and wore many of their prized pieces.}

^{In the book, writer Angelo Flaccavento says of avant-garde fashion designer Miguel Adrover,}

^{_{“…what is striking about Miguel Adrover is his love for clothing as objects that hold a narrative power as well as a life of their own. For him, clothes are an infinitely malleable medium. Miguel is attracted not by brand-new stuff, but by things that have already been owned and lived with, bearing traces of wear and tear all over them. ‘When my grandmother passed away, the only thing that I asked was to see her closet, and that of my grandfather. And that is what I took with me,’ he recounts.}}

^{_{Such pieces of clothing, together with all the pieces he designed over years under his own label, converge and clash into what can be described as an archive, for lack of a better definition. Miguel knows the value of things, and never throws anything away: not the things he designed nor the clothing he inherited and came across…” pg. 194}}

^{I stopped and wondered if this makes Adrover a hoarder of some sort. After all, his archive was in his courtyard office at his home in Mallorca, Spain, ‘filled floor to ceiling with racks and racks of clothing”…and his desk.}

^{Yet, collectors like Adrover often had a clear purpose for their collecting, and the items in question didn’t clutter their regular living spaces.}

^{Orderly, purposeful collecting doesn’t just pertain to clothing archives, of course.}

^{Many stamp collectors, for instance, also have clear purposes, such as collecting for historical value, financial investment, and artistic appreciation. Stamp collectors often preserve their treasures in archival, acid-free albums, too.}

^{At times, museums might even borrow from stamp collections. The same goes for collections of rare coins.}

^{Ideally, collecting is a restrained form of obsession.}

^{Yet, even for the most seemingly innocent forms of this hobby, the line between responsibly acquiring and impulsively buying can be easily crossed.}

^{For many who collect—whatever the target may be—the thrill is in the hunt. For this reason, after the high of the latest capture wears off, hunting often begins anew.}

^{Referring to one of the collectors interviewed for Collecting Fashion, writer Jeremy Olds reports}

^{_{“…If a month passed and he hadn’t bought anything new, he would experience cravings. He felt an internal absence and would visit flea markets or search online to get his fix. There were times when he didn’t have enough money, and so would have to forgo a certain piece. Even if money was short, he never regretted a single purchase…” pg. 176}}

^{Another collector interviewed for the book said he’s always shopping. I mean, it makes sense. If you collect specific items, you often have to be on the lookout for them.}

^{Yet, apart from collecting with a purpose and keeping items organized and primarily outside of regular living spaces, responsible collectors are also responsible buyers. That means not plunging headfirst into financial hot water, no matter how unique or collectible an item is.}

^{Even for those who can afford to overspend, collecting responsibly involves choosing items that add specific value and cohesion to a collection (like filling a chronological gap with an item from a specific decade in a designer’s career) rather than buying items for the sake of the thrill in acquiring something rare.}

^{Responsible collectors also know when it’s time to let things go.}

^{Remember that aforementioned collector who needed a monthly buying fix? He eventually sold over half of his collection.}

^{_{“He couldn’t imagine dying with all those pieces in his possession. He wanted to feel lighter…” pg. 177}}

^{And I imagine he can’t be the only one.}