Ah, spring cleaning: when I’m forced to confront all my past fashion selves | Emma Brockes

Ditching the Republican-wife wrap dresses is easy, but my mother's 196os boots are replete with memories

I'm spring cleaning and last week filled eight huge boxes with clothes during a once-in-a-decade pass through my wardrobe. We put these things off for a reason: the time it takes, and more than that, what we have learned to call the emotional labour. Going through old stuff, whatever the particulars, threatens to drag us back through the years, but the wardrobe thing is particularly stark. Here, before me, is evidence that entire chunks of my life were lost to the delusion that the Banana Republic shirt dress was a thing I should wear.

Contrary to previous attempts, this time I vowed things would be different. I was in charge. I was going to be ruthless. I wasn't going to be bossed around by this stuff and its freight of memory. No hanging on to clothes so I could stare at them to spark images, when my memories could just as easily be preserved by taking a photo.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist