Consigning

Let's talk about consigning . . . Current only accepts items that are in season, which meant that I had to put my winter/fall items aside for a few months.  Also, they ask you to go through your items and weed out anything that is damaged or stained (which makes complete sense).  Once I'd done that, I was left with 47 pieces that I thought were consignable.  I thought it would be useful to take a closer look and see if I could learn anything by taking a closer look at those items.  First, I wanted to sort them by purpose:

Consignment List | Infographics

As you can see, work items and casual items were the biggest categories.  It's telling that only 7 were dual-purpose items (those I could wear to both work and on the weekend).  I think I'm learning that those are the pieces that I tend to like more (at least when it comes to tops).  

When I broke it down a little further and looked at my list by item type, this is what it looked like:

Consignment List: By Item Type | Create infographics

It shouldn't be at all surprising that Work Blouses was a big category.  Considering how much I discovered I don't love my work tops (understatement of the year), I'm happy to report that I got rid of 11 tops that were either work or work/weekend.  Not surprisingly, three of them were collared button ups ;)   The other big category was Casual Dresses.  That could be a whole post in and of itself, but let's just say my inner California Girl is to blame for the number of summer dresses I own.  

One of the more painful parts of this was going through and listing each items price (one of the things Current asked for).  Don't worry, I'm not going to share those numbers with you.  That's my deep, dark secret.  Doing this really drove home how many mistaken/impulse purchases I've made.  Like the time I thought I could pull off cropped cargo pants and NOT look like a soccer mom.  Or that whole "vest" category up there.  Why I thought vests were a good work look for me, I still don't understand.  (not to mention I bought a vest and matching cropped pants).  It's underscored even more, the need to really think through my purchases and carefully consider what I need before I buy it. 

Hello World!

Hey world!  No, I haven't disappeared under a pile of boxes and clothes, though that almost happen.  Somehow I thought that moving + working + unpacking + social life (all while Mr C was on work trips) = lots of time to write blog posts (obvi!) . . . Yeah, not so much. Throw in an epic battle with a daddy long legs in our new apartment and any hope of typing of blog posts went out the window.

But . . . the mound of boxes has slowly disappeared, the scary daddy long legs was vanquished and I can finally breathe again.  Not much has happened in terms of analyzing my closet (although it took a lot to not indulge in some retail therapy after said daddy long legs battle).  BUT, my life hasn't been a complete black hole lately . . . for one thing, consigning happened!!!!

I decided to go through Current Boutique in DC.  First Partly, because it is only a few minutes from our old apartment (and our new one actually).  And, let's not kid ourselves my upper body strength is non-existent not sufficient to carry all my stuff more than a couple of blocks.  More importantly, I really like that they donate clothes that don't sell within 90 days to charity.  They also donate any items you bring in that they decide not  to accept.  So, either way your clothes are going to a good cause. 

To be honest, I was a little nervous about consigning.  What if my clothes weren't cool enough? What if they laughed at the fact that I had three of the same shirt, just in different colors?  But, once I got over myself this, it was surprisingly easy.

All you had to do was fill out their form with information on each item and drop your items off.  That's it.  No judgement (at least not to your face).  And you don't even have to stay while they go through your clothes.  Then, in 90 days you can check in to see what sold and they'll send you a check.  It was a little time consuming to fill out the form--mostly because I had 47 items to drop off--but thankfully all of the information they asked for was data I was already collecting for this project.  My one complaint was that their form can't be filled out electronically.  Given that my handwriting has been described as "worse than a doctors" or a "childish scrawl", this wasn't going to work for me.  Soooooo, I just created my own form, using their fields (nerd alert!) . . . I'm pretty sure they laughed at me a little when I brought that in, but I probably deserved it.

Next post will talk about what those 47 items I consigned looked like.  I'd say to check back later in the week, but with my track record of late, I don't want to make any promises . . .