“Hey! I did my Koromogae, last week-end! _ Your what, Carlotta?”
My love for weird foreign concept (or, should we simply call it snobism?) won’t do me any good. Koromogae, if you briefly lived in Japan (or read a lot of shojo mangas), is the big wardrobe turnover that Japanese students and salarymen do twice a year, in April and October.
While I love the idea for itself (such a radical change in everybody’s daylife in a week-end), it is no surprise that koromogae also has practical assets : place is often an issue in Japan, and this storage turnover allows averybody to keep less seasonable items in more remote places of your home. I’ve been doing my Koromogae every 6 months for at least two and a half years, and I find it highly profitable :
1. It’s the perfect opportunity to draw conclusions from the past season: everything you didn’t wear has to go to the charity shop, everything that’s too worn-out gets recycled; therefore, twice a year, you get to refine the content of your wardrobe.
2. Thanks to the lavender bags that I put among my cashmere sweaters (I’m afraid of mites), my flat smells like heaven for days.
3. A less crowded closet is a clear closet: not only it’s more agreeable, but also I get a better sense of what I have when getting dressed.
4. I’m such a sucker for neatly organized things: this way I even get to fold my socks and divide them between “winterly” and “summerly” colors (I still have hesitations concerning grey socks).
5. You’re as happy to find your spring clothes after 6 months of separation, as you would be to meet long-lost friends again (if you’re not, maybe you should refer to point n°1).
6. Since my significant one seems to find me a tiny little bit frivolous, it’s nice he only gets to see half my clothes at once (he has 6 months to forget about the other half).
7. Since I don’t have the necessary storage space to keep the other half of my closet, koromogae is also an excellent opportunity to see my beloved parents!
8. Finally, as we enjoy the first rays of sun of the year, the clotheshorse is drawn to the koromogae just like Parisians are drawn en masse to parks and terraces: it is an instinct, a fever, a celebration of nature – our own rite of spring.
As I answered this call two weeks ago, the sun was high and we had had our first lunch outside. It’s been cold and rainy ever since. All my warm, cozy clothes are at my parent’s place.
Damn rite of spring.
