Did you know that your brain may be the reason you’re not feeling or dressing as stylishly as you’d like? I’m not kidding. There is a high likelihood that your brain is sabotaging your style. There are a number of ways it can do this, but one of the most common ways is known as the Endowment Effect.
What is The Endowment Effect?
It is the tendency to place a higher value on something simply because you own it. Once an item is hanging in your wardrobe, it becomes “yours” and takes on an inflated sense of importance, even if it is uncomfortable, outdated, unflattering, or never worn.
You said “Yes” to that garment once (when you acquired it” which means you feel like you have to keep saying yes, because your brain doesn’t want you to feel like you make bad decisions.
The question becomes: Are you keeping this garment because it genuinely serves you, or because you’ve owned it long enough that letting it go feels like a loss?
How it shows up in your wardrobe
Here are the most common patterns I see in clients, brilliant, high-achieving women who want to make intentional style choices yet feel weighed down by decision fatigue.
1. Overvaluing past purchases
When you’ve spent money on something, you’re far more likely to keep it, even when it’s wrong. This is what economists call the “sunk cost fallacy”. Thinking that because you’ve already spent time, energy and money acquiring something that it has a greater value.
This can sound like:
“It was expensive, so I should keep it,” even if you’re never going to wear it
“I haven’t had my money’s worth yet.” Even if it’s out of style, it doesn’t make you feel or look great, or isn’t your personality.
Yet every time you see it, it quietly drains confidence, space and energy.
2. Keeping items from a former identity
Clothes linked to a past version of yourself often hold emotional weight. You may overvalue them because they represent who you once were or who you felt you should be. Just because you’ve enjoyed wearing a garment in the past doesn’t mean you should keep it. Ask yourself, “Can I imagine wearing this garment again, and would I be excited about wearing it?” If the answer is no, let it go.
This can keep you from dressing for who you are now.
3. Holding onto “almost right” pieces
These are the garments that nearly work, but not quite: the 80 per cent fit, but it’s too hard or expensive to alter, the colour that’s a bit off, but you’re not prepared to dye it into a great colour, the neckline you’re always adjusting because it doesn’t sit quite right.
You might keep them because they feel familiar, but familiarity is not the same as value.
If you’re overlooking pieces in favour of others, because they’re not quite right, and if you’re not prepared to make the alteration to make it fabulous, let it go so someone else gets the value from that piece.
4. Rationalising with imagined future use
The mind says, “I might need this one day for a pirate-themed fancy dress party”.
How likely is this to happen in reality?
But that imagined moment rarely arrives. What it does do is block the present, adding clutter and clouding clarity.
Clutter creates decision fatigue, which adds further stress to your already busy mornings.
5. Emotional attachment masking as practicality
Sometimes you tell yourself you’re being sensible by keeping something, when what’s really happening is emotional attachment.
This includes gifts, sentimental purchases or pieces tied to big life moments.
The longest kept but least worn garments are gifts (see my post here about this).
Keep the love in which the gift was given, but give away the garment. Your loved ones don’t want you to feel burdened by their gifts.
Why the Endowment Effect matters for style
A wardrobe full of overvalued items creates a constant sense of friction. Instead of supporting you, it becomes a museum of sunk costs, old identities and wishful thinking.
When a woman understands this, she can start asking more empowering questions:
Does this garment express the woman I am becoming?
Does it make getting dressed easier?
Does it increase my confidence and presence, or drain it?
Letting go becomes less about waste and more about alignment.
How to work with the Endowment Effect rather than against it
Here are a few powerful ways to shift the pattern.
1. Create a vision of your future style
When you’re clear on the woman you are becoming, anything that doesn’t fit that identity becomes easier to release. If you’re really not sure of who you are now and what your style aesthetic is, I highly recommend you do my Visualise Your Style program – it will help you become clear about your future style vision and keep you on track.
2. Calculate the true cost of keeping
Ask yourself:
What is this piece costing me in space, clarity and dressing ease?
Often, that cost is far greater than the money you spent.
Remember that energy, space and time also have value.
3. Use the “neutral decision maker” technique
Imagine the garment does not belong to you.
- Would you buy it again today at full price?
- Would you buy it in its current state from a thrift store?
If the answer is no, that tells you what you need to know.
4. Replace guilt with learning
Every purchase teaches you something about your preferences, your colour palette, your silhouette and style preference and your lifestyle.
Instead of holding on, extract the lesson and let the item go.
5. Experiment with a temporary separation
A “maybe box” creates psychological safety. If you don’t miss the items after a set time, that tells you they don’t hold real value anymore.
The Deeper Shift
The Endowment Effect is not a wardrobe flaw. It is human nature. But when a woman starts to see it at play in her closet, she begins to see it in other areas of life too: work, relationships, self image.
And that awareness becomes liberating.
- It creates space not just in the wardrobe, but in the mind.
- It opens room for authentic expression.
- It helps her step into the woman she is today, rather than clinging to the woman she once was.
What are you holding onto that you should be letting go of?
What Do You Do With an Unwanted Fashion Gift
