Consumption Conundrum: Ode to the Closet

The greatest secret of comfortable living is to keep everything about you in the right place.

I can’t seem to do that. Surely it isn’t difficult. But it is the excess. And who doesn’t have excess? It is so easy to accumulate and it collects so fast. Where do you put it all? Once you give it away, more seems to arrive. Excess clutters. People are coming over in five minutes! Dear god, what to do with the excess? Quickly… throw it in a closet.

Closets are not only a good place to hide excess, but they also offer a place for self-expression. What is worn in a moment of time is only a fleeting sign of expression. It is transitory. Something can be borrowed from a friend, it can bought then returned, it can be a guilty splurge or received as a great gift.

But an area stowing away an assortment of things and garments can reveal quite a bit about a person. Are the sweaters spun of soft cashmere? Any vintage handbags or a pair of fantastic heels for a stranger on the street to covet? A pair of jeans adorned by the BeDazzler, perhaps? Some of us can justify spending half a months salary on a handbag. Some of us can’t. Don’t judge a book by its cover? But we do. Some people – consciously or not – look at a person’s outfit or shoes or handbag and make some conclusions. Like it or not, clothing assigns what type of group we are in. What we fancy and what idiosyncrasies we have. Who we are is what we wear.

Most of us complain that our closets are too cluttered, too overstuffed, and lacking organization. Does this reflect who we are? Disorganized and dirty, or collected and catalogued. Or is it simply because most closets are too small and we have too much stuff. If I only had a large well-organized custom-made closet, then I could better run my life, I think to myself practically everyday.

Long before closets as we know today, there were small rooms adjoined to a bedroom or a library. These were very personal, small little rooms tucked away in the private more secretive areas of the house. These rooms had a variety of uses.

In the Middle Ages wealthy people would keep their valuables in it. Or use it as a study for learning. Maybe have a little quiet time for meditation or prayer.

During the Italian Renaissance, closets became quite a fad for the rich. They used these rooms for all sorts of reasons – even to display their growing collection of objects d'art, books and miniature exotic artifacts. It was a private sanctuary. Only men had these spaces, and these rooms were richly decorated.

Occasionally, if the closet was really special, it would be used for a Christening or a marriage ceremony.

In seventeenth-century England, the closet was the most significant room of an estate. Only very important people were allowed in the closet. It was where the most serious business was undertaken. It had to be magnificently decorated. Sometimes there was a secret backdoor to the closet along with a set of stairs. Not only could servants access the stairs, but it could also serve and an escape route, when needed.

The Queen’s closet at Ham House in Surrey was outfitted in full baroque splendor with red satin brocade and gold and striped silk for the extravagant Elizabeth Murray, Countess of Dysart.

Queen Catherine had her closet decorated with sky blue damask and gold lace. A nice soothing color to be surrounded by as her husband, King Charles II, was notorious for his perfidious ways. Sometimes when one has a really bad day and the house is full of people, there is no place to hide for a moment to collect one’s thoughts but the closet.

In France, dressing tables, tea tables and some comfortable seating were tucked away in the closet. Even daybeds, settees and an occasional fauteuils de commodité could be found. One of Louis XIV’s special lady friends, Louise de la Vallière, was said to have such a grand closet that she could comfortably seat up to 18 people. However, The Sun King’s second wife, Madame de Maintenon, topped her by accommodating 29 people in her private closet.

The decoration of these rooms allowed for a more personal and fanciful experimentation in decorating. It was a place for informal gatherings, secret liaisons and sometimes as a dressing room.

By the end of the eighteenth century, the closet became less secretive and more functional. Bedrooms were becoming more private. The acts of dining, meeting and sleeping were not carried out in the same room as before and the importance of the closet to wane. By the nineteenth century, the closet was almost obsolete.

Across the ocean, early American settlers used chests, trunks and wall-mounted pegs for storage. Closets, if they existed at all, were tiny. Pioneers had few material belongings to their name. With the Industrial Revolution came money. Wealth, most often, symbolized decadence. With the improvement of the printing press, books and magazines spread the latest French fashions to a mass audience. People with means had to have them. Clothing, shoes, linens and things were gathered ferociously. The closet provided a place for all that.

Consumerism grew and after World War II, and the walk -in closet was born.

Closets in the past were accessible, but not conspicuous. The items stored away in a closet were hidden behind a door in a bedroom room. Today, closets can be quite extravagant, many times a converted bedroom or even a showroom to itself complete with furnishings such as a comfortable chair, table, lamps and rug.

Many of us go into denial as to how much money we actually spend on clothing or a saucy new pair of heels. And most of us yearn to have a custom-made well-organized closet where we can throw open the doors, gently throw ourselves on a daybed, look up and give a little prideful sigh of our impulse purchases.

Our own little Cabinet de Curiosité … will the closet be the new stylish and welcoming space where people want to socialize.