The other day Sir Monkeypants wanted to show Captain Jelly Belly the photos of the redwood forest that we took while visiting CapnPlanet and SmokingToaster in San Francisco. These photos are from 1999, back before we had a digital camera, so we wound up getting out all our “real” photo albums and flipping through them. I’ve always been a big picture taker, so we have many, many photo albums, dating back to around 1989.
While we were looking at the redwood forest shots, I noticed that I was wearing the same shirt as I was in the photos. That would make the t-shirt that I had on at least nine years old. Then I started looking back farther for the shirt. Back more, and more, and more…there are pictures of me in the shirt going back to 1992. The very same shirt I had on.
In fact, looking at the album from 1996 — twelve years ago — I recognized at least 90% of the clothes in those pictures as still being in my closet today. Sir Monkeypants was running at around 25%, I’d say.
This is hardly news. Every time I whine about the state of my wardrobe in my blog, poor FameThrowa volunteers to take me to the mall. It’s just that I find it hard to find the energy to go to the mall. It sucks the life out of you. Plus, I’d rather spend my limited disposable income on handbags from Etsy. Because no one will notice your 15-year-old shirt if it is accessorized with a cute handbag!
I really need to do some serious thinking about priorities. Someday my kids will be older and I’ll be dropping them off at school and they won’t even care about my handbag, they’ll be so embarrassed by my outfit. I want to be able to drop my kids off at the door, not down the block!
Ah, words to inspire me.
TurtleHead 
I’m also very conflicted about this sort of thing. I too hate spending time shopping, but also occasionally feel guilty that I dress like a bit of a dork. But mostly I don’t really care.
Here’s a related story. When SmokingToaster and I were in Hawaii in 1992 we both bought a bunch of tourist T-shirts. There were super-cheap, but actually of very good quality. I’ve often cited these shirts as evidence of my laundry prowess; SmokingToaster really doesn’t care about her T-shirts too much, and always instructs me to put hers in the dryer. But I care a lot, and I always hang mine to dry. And despite the fact that I probably wore (and washed) my Hawaii T-shirts three times as often, the color and the fabric has lasted far, far longer. So there. Drying your T-shirts is good for them.
Of course every time I tell this story SmokingToaster reminds me that the ability to make a T-shirt last a long time is not necessarily something to be proud of. The Hawaii shirts have been retired to the gardening/work-out drawer, but I definitely have other wearable T-shirts from more than a decade ago; e.g. the Barenaked Ladies T-shirt I got when they played Fed Hall in 1989, shirts from the 1995 Montreal Jazz Festival, yada yada yada.
And yeah, I worry about embarrassing my kids too…
There are so many great places to shop for clothes that you really never need to set foot in a mall — consignment shops, indie shops, thrift shops (don’t scoff, you can get some awesome deals on quality clothes). Malls only carry foreign made cheap crappy stuff for the most part anyway. Or learn to sew? It’s pretty easy these days with the computerized machines. Go to clothing swaps, yard sales.
I understand your distaste for mall shopping, so I’ll offer again my latest scheme: to shop for you by myself. It’d be like Xmas. You’d try on the clothes at home, and if they don’t fit or you don’t like them, I’d exchange them or return them.
The offer is there if you want it!
I hear ya! I too hate shopping but every once in a while I realize I need to go. I live with this fear that Stacey and Clinton will jump out of my file cabinet one day at work ….
Anyhow, lately what I find works for me is to shop with my daughters or if you don’t have 9-14 year old girls at your disposal, borrow one or two. Buy them an ice cream cone or lunch at the end of your shopping trip. They will be more than happy to bring clothes into the dressing room for you to try on. Some of the selections you will look at thinking ‘there is NO way I would put that on my back’ but just do it to please them and to keep up their enthusiasm and yours. And ya just never know – you might surprise yourself and it may look great on you.
Speaking of embarrasing your children, refer to ‘the sling’ on my blog for incentive.