On the TLC show “What Not to Wear,” what happens to the clothes that are “trashed?” I would assume/hope that they’re given to charitable organizations. Also, do the victims really get ALL of their clothes taken away, or just a large representative portion?
Wikipedia says they’ve said on-air that the clothes go to charity.
I’ve heard them say on the show that the clothes go to charity. Which kind of bugs me, really. I mean, it’s better than just throwing them out, but the message seems to be "These clothes aren’t good enough for you, but they’re good enough for poor people.’
But they only buy you three new outfits on the air! What else do you wear?
What? No they don’t. They give you a thousand dollar shopping spree. I could buy a whole hell of a lot of clothes for a thousand dollars. (If anyone wants to nominate me for WNTW, I wouldn’t be offended!)
Also, they don’t make you throw away ALL of your clothes, just the ones they deem to be the absolute worst.
Five thousand, I think.
Well, they only show three outfits at the end. Plus they’re uber expensive outfits. And you can’t just buy stuff you’d like–it has to pass their test. But maybe they buy other stuff? I was just assuming you only buy three outfits.
ETA: With a grand, I don’t think you could buy THAT much, since often they drop about a hundred on each article of clothing. But with five grand, maybe you could buy like ten outfits.
It’s definitely $5000.
I think the hosts encourage and help them to find a lot of pieces they can mix and match, so they don’t just have ten “outfits”, but a lot of different possibilities with the stuff they buy.
Also, while they do buy a lot of really expensive stuff, they also shop at cheaper places, like H&M.
I’d be concerned about certain articles of clothing that I keep for nostalgic purposes but never wear. My first boyfriend gave me that OSU football jersey, and he made me memorize the name and position of the player whose number was on the front (Mike Lanese, wide receiver, #1, went on to play for the Browns, class of ‘86). I’ll be damned if you’re chuckin’ that out. I never wear it. But I’d be heartbroken (and so would he) if it was taken away from me.
The other thing that bothers me is this: what am I supposed to garden in? The $450 shorts set with matching blazer? How do I paint the house if I’m only allowed to buy nice stuff and you’ve thrown out all my ratty t-shirts? People keep old, ratty clothes for lots of reasons aside from having nothing else to wear.
Actually, a lot of things bother me about that show, now that you’ve got me on a rant. 
For example, styles are regional and seasonal. When I lived in South Florida, I used to go to Key West, sit near the sidewalk in front of Sloppy Joe’s and guess where the tourists were from based on what they were wearing. You can tell NY/NJ from OH/MI from 100 paces. I can tell Floridian from Virginian from 200 paces. Buyers buy for regions… so to send me shopping in NYC means I will come home with a bunch of clothes that will make me overdressed for 80% of the places I would go and therefore, I’d stick out like a horrible sore thumb. Which seems to me to be the opposite of what their purpose is. For example, office dress code around here is generally always business casual unless you work in a bank or something. There’s no need for heels, hose, suit jackets, and all that nonsense (unless I have a big meeting or presentation and then I spiff it up a bit). Dining and going out around here are even more casual. I look at some of the outfits they put together for people and I cannot imagine going to a place in this town that is nice enough to warrant clothing that formal. This is a khaki shorts and t-shirt kinda place!
The last thing is I have no idea how I’d replace my Florida wardrobe in NYC, especially if they had me there when all the fall/winter clothes are out. You’re going to toss out 12 pairs of shorts and then leave me in the Winter Coat store? WTF am I going to do with wool and all those heavy fabrics? I know when I am shopping in Ohio (visiting the fam), I stock up on sweaters and sweatshirts because I can’t find good heavyweight fabrics down here. By the same token, it’s really difficult to find lightweight linens, cottons, and very lightweight silks in Ohio in February.
So I’d like to throw down a challenge to What Not To Wear. I believe that, with their rules, anyone could find $5,000 worth of clothing in New York City (given that you get to shop for weather-appropriate clothing during the appropriate season). But I don’t have access to all those frou frou stores in my little city. We don’t even have an H & M that I’m aware of. We just got a Kohl’s a little over a year ago. Kohl’s and Macy’s is probably about the best quality I can find here (and you can do a lot in those stores). But I challenge them to go to Podunk, Nowhere and make someone replace their entire wardrobe with little more than Walmart or Target. There are plenty of places where that’s the only store within 25 miles. I’d like to see Stacy and Clinton dress people out of discount shops because for most of us who live in the real world (and not in NYC), these are the best options we have.
Well, a lot of the people’s problems is that they are wearing the wrong clothes FOR THEM. Or they’re leaving the house in something that they shouldn’t be wearing (something tattered, something too frumpy, etc).
So the 30-year-old mom who dresses like a teen, her clothes can go to an actual teen. The professional guy who hangs out in ripped jeans, his jeans can go to a guy who needs clothes for his physical labor-type job. The woman who wears nothing but sweatshirts, her shirts can go to someone who needs warm clothes to sleep in.
Now of course that’s a pie-in-the-sky answer, but it’s a lot more optimistic than your train of thought 
I think we should consider the show a cautionary tale - think before you go out in public in that outfit. Is it a candidate for a montage video of you looking like a rumpled, clueless hobo? Maybe leave them as painting pants, then, and go splurge on a new pair of pants at Wal*Mart. 
And while you’re at it, get a structured jacket with a high stance that will show off the smallest part of you while keeping the “girls” locked and loaded.
Hmmm . . . I think I just invented the WNTW drinking game. (Probably not – I fully expect someone to pop in with a link to the Official What Not To Wear Drinking Game.)
Seriously, is there anyone that doesn’t get that recommendation from Stacy and Clinton?
I feel like they tailor the shopping to the person. I’ve noticed a trend where some guests shop at more high-end stores (i.e., they could afford to continue shopping in those stores without the free money) and others are directed to more affordable places like H&M. This is an unsubstantiated theory seeing as how I am only basing this on my impression of the homes where the shopper lives (if they show it) or the job that person has (or doesn’t have, as the case may be).
I watch this show a lot. The whole point is that the people’s clothes don’t fit them right, outfits don’t go together, etc. You can say “well these clothes aren’t good enough for you but they are good enough for poor people.” You ever been to a Goodwill or similar? A LOT of the stuff in those places is ugly, old, outdated, etc. Some of the clothes “chucked” on the show are downright gross ugly or weird, but a lot of the stuff just does not fit the person correctly or isn’t appropriate for their lifestyle. Lots of jeans and big sweaters for someone that is supposed to be wearing suits to work, etc. A big thing on the show is all these professional women dressing like crap for the office. It’s that they don’t know how to “dress up” or business-like and those are the types of clothes Stacey and Clinton want these women to buy. Pieces that are classic, pretty, appropriate for their life (usually work), and hopefully quality enough to last awhile. A lot of the people on the show bring in tons of clothes but it’s all cheap junk bought on sale. So I agree with ZipperJJ.
The show is extremely repetitive - everyone buy a structured blazer, straight dark jeans, pretty tops with embellishment around the neck, etc., but most of the people come out at the end looking fabulous.
I have no idea if they get to keep gym clothes/gardening clothes and stuff. I’ve seen them chuck like 15 fitted sweatsuits one lady had, but that is because she ONLY wore them and nothing else ever. They also got rid of a lot of similar stuff from a swimmer, but they let her keep things she really needed.
It seems like a lot of people featured on the show live in bigger cities. Some are already from NY, I recall San Francisco, Miami, etc. I don’t know how often they pick people from places where nicer stores are not accessible. And not everything they buy is expensive, some pieces are outrageous in price, some are downright cheap. But if you learn their “rules” and types of clothes to look for, if you have a mall close enough you should be able to at least dress better than when you walked in.
I don’t know if they’ve always done this, but I liked when they started telling the prices of the pieces in the outfits they were recommending at the end, and it was a mix of high-, mid- and low-price in one outfit.
So not only are they teaching people how to buy and put together mix-and-match pieces (which work for them), but they’re not restricting those pieces to one set of price points.
As an aside, I also like that they don’t push dieting, etc. (or even talk about it), but take the women for who they are and work with what they have – including pointing out their best features, which should be emphasized.
I also don’t think they throw out absolutely everything for the reasons already stated.
I just saw an episode where the woman they made over was some kind of environmentalist for a living, and dressing “green” was really important to her. Stacey and Clinton were still able to show her the right way to dress for her figure, lifestyle and career, all with clothes from consignment and second hand stores.
I think they’ve changed the format for this season. Instead of having people schlep their entire wardrobe (supposedly, as if they even would) to New York and have things tossed in their studio, they go straight to the person’s house from the surprise ambush and do the clothes-tossing right from their closet. They ask the person to pick out 3 outfits from those tossed, that they think best represents their favorites or things they’re most likely to wear, and bring just those 3 outfits to New York for exposure in the dreaded mirror room. I’ve noticed that when they’re officially done tossing things out of the closet, there are pieces still hanging, that obviously they find suitable to keep.
Even when they were implying that everything had been dragged to New York (even the schmata), I thought that was just a set somewhere closer to the subject’s home.
The new format makes sense though, including picking the three outfits they use for assessment purposes.
I also wish someone would nominate me. Not 'cuase I don’t have any fashion sense but I’m too lazy to make myself keep up my wardrobe.
I would SO nominate you if we lived in the same city and could claim some kind of acquaintance that would make me privy to your fashion faux pas. They are taking applications right now, though, so if you know someone well enough who’d be willing to apply on your behalf, I say go for it!
http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/whatnottowear/geton/index.html