What I Learned from My Grandmother's Coat Closet

My grandmother died in February, at ninety-one, and in the slow process of going through her apartment we came eventually to the coat closet. There were six coats in it. The newest was from 1998. The oldest was from the early 1970s. All of them, without exception, were in better condition than anything currently in my closet.

I found this disturbing in a way I have been thinking about ever since. My grandmother was not wealthy. She was a retired schoolteacher who lived modestly in a two-bedroom in Queens. She did not, by any stretch, dress fashionably — her clothes were chosen for warmth, occasion, and the long view. And yet, by every measurable standard, her closet was a more functional, more beautiful, and more economical wardrobe than the one I, with considerably more disposable income, currently maintain.

The lesson, when I worked it out, was not about quality or quantity. It was about the timescale. My grandmother bought a coat as a ten- or fifteen-year decision. She thought about it for weeks. She tried it on. She brought my grandfather along. When she bought it, she did not look at coats again for a decade.

I, by contrast, buy a coat the way I buy a sandwich. I have, at the moment, four. None of them, I suspect, will be in my closet in 2040. My grandmother's, in some form, will probably still be in my mother's.