I’ve not made much progress on my current project this week so I’m going to muse randomly about old clothes instead. Be warned, navel-gazing ahead.
I’m going to some friends’ ten year anniversary party this weekend, which I’m really looking forward to, and I’m wearing my black and white vintage maxidress. Which I also sometimes wear for lounging around the house on weekends. The dress I bought for the last wedding I went to (gosh, before I started sewing) also gets worn for work with a t-shirt underneath and a cardigan on top. I don’t ever wear ‘special occasion’ clothes these days, just regular clothes with a bit of extra face paint and different shoes.
But I do have a box under the bed with some party dresses in it from when I was at university. I never wear them now but I can’t bear to throw them out. I keep thinking that if I do get rid of them I’ll regret it. It’s not that they haven’t been worn in the past, but these days I don’t have much need for a floor length slinky black jersey halterneck dress, or a silver jersey column dress. (There’s a bit of a jersey theme, now I come to think of it).
They’re sharing the box with other things I ought to get rid of but can’t: a couple of old dresses that I liked so much I wore them to rags, and keep thinking that one day I’ll make copies of, and some other clothes that are no longer my style but I keep just for nostalgia value.
Anyone else have boxes of clothes they don’t wear but can’t bear to throw out?
Catherine Daze's Blog 
Like you, I don’t make a point of having separate “occasion” wear. However, I do have stuff that most people wouldn’t use as daily wear, and which I do. I probably look like a nutter half of the time. It’s the same with shoes. I’m drawn to beautiful shoes and they are usually quite impractical, but I still wear them.
In my opinion it should never ever cross your mind EVER again that you should really get rid of your box of clothes. Instead, take to wearing them to Waitrose or something (with an old woolly cardi, but I bet you don’t own one of those). What ever you do, keep them. Truly, clothes shouldn’t be kept just because they are useful. They should be kept as things of beauty, or nostalgia. You know…
Now you’ve got me thinking I could get away with going to the corner shop (nothing as smart as Waitrose for me!) in the black dresses if I had a big red cardi to go with them. Mmm, red wool jersey…