Why the value of a garment cannot always be measured by how often it is worn.
By Eliane Haddad, founder and designer of ELLY
For Valentino's Spring/Summer 2027 collection, Alessandro Michele drew on the idea of the Antibiblioteca.
The official notes trace the idea through Nassim Nicholas Taleb's account of Umberto Eco's library. The unread books were not evidence of failure. They represented knowledge and possibilities that had not yet been explored. Valentino extended that thought to clothes and the lives they may allow us to imagine.
It is a beautiful idea, but clothing adds another dimension to that possibility: our relationship with a changing body. A dress may cease to fit or feel right to wear, even while remaining meaningful to keep.
That difference made me think about the pieces we keep.
A garment can hold possibility, but possibility is not the only reason it may continue to matter. Sometimes its value remains even when its wearing life is over.
Possibility is not the same as postponement
Some clothes remain unworn because the right moment has not arrived.
An evening dress may wait longer than a black trouser. A distinctive jacket may have a narrower place in the wardrobe than a simple knit. A handmade piece may be worn carefully because it would be difficult to replace.
These garments can still have a future.
But “perhaps one day” can also become an easy answer when we do not want to make a decision.
The Antibiblioteca celebrates unrealised possibility. In a wardrobe, I think possibility needs to be considered more honestly. Do I still want the life in which I imagine wearing this garment? Does the piece itself continue to interest me? Or am I postponing the moment I admit that it no longer represents me?
A possibility has meaning when it still belongs to us. Otherwise, it may simply be delay.
Keeping deliberately is different from accumulating
A wardrobe can become so full that we stop seeing what is inside it.
There is a difference between keeping deliberately and accumulating without thought.
I would begin by asking why the garment remains.
Do I still respond to the garment itself, or only to the idea of keeping it?
Am I preserving a memory I choose to keep, or reacting to guilt about letting the garment go?
Would I still value it if I accepted that I might never wear it again?
These questions do not lead automatically to removing the garment. They make the reason for keeping it clearer.
A considered wardrobe can include pieces that are rarely worn and pieces that will not be worn again. What matters is that their presence is intentional.
Some value remains when wearing ends
There are garments whose importance cannot be measured through future outfits.
A dress may hold the memory of a person, an occasion or a period of life we do not want to reduce to a photograph. A piece of handwork may remain worth examining even when it no longer has a practical role. A fabric may still be beautiful. A particular construction may continue to reveal the care that went into making it.
In those cases, the garment is no longer being asked to prove that it can return to daily use.
What interests me here is not only the life a garment might still have, but the life it can continue to hold.
Possibility does not have to mean a future occasion. A garment can continue to open something in us: a memory, an appreciation of craft or a way of understanding who we once were.
That is still a relationship, even when it is no longer an active outfit.
A garment can preserve the decisions inside it
The value of a garment can also reside in the process it records.
In the Draped Orange Dress I designed for ELLY, resolving the bodice required a careful balance. The upper section needed enough control to sit securely, but too much control removed the movement that had made the fabric interesting.
That process is explored more fully in What the Fabric Changed.
The finished line holds that negotiation between structure and movement.
For me, this is one reason a garment can remain meaningful beyond its number of wears. A resolved fold, an unusual seam or a piece of handwork can preserve the thinking and skill that produced it.
We do not have to turn every garment into an archive. But when a piece genuinely contains something we continue to notice, usefulness is not the only way to understand its worth.
Restyling is one possibility, not an obligation
Some older garments do return through new styling.
A dress once worn formally may later work with a simpler shoe. A jacket may be separated from the trousers it originally accompanied. Jewellery, proportion or a different layer can change the surrounding context while leaving the garment's essential character intact.
That can be a valuable continuation, but it should not become another demand placed on everything we own.
A garment does not need to prove that it can be restyled five ways before we are allowed to keep it. Nor should a styling exercise be used to avoid admitting that the piece no longer represents us.
Sometimes new context reveals another life for the garment. Sometimes its active life is complete.
Both conclusions can be honest.
A wardrobe can hold use, memory and possibility
The Antibiblioteca resists the idea that value exists only in what has already been consumed or completed.
A considered wardrobe can make room for a similar thought, but clothes ask us to be selective. Keeping everything would not preserve possibility. It could make the meaningful pieces harder to see.
Some garments can be released without denying that they once had value. Others remain because we have consciously chosen what they preserve.
The unread book represents knowledge still waiting.
The unworn garment may represent a future, but it may also hold a past that continues to speak.