The Ikea Effect: Why Handmade Clothes Are Harder to Let Go

What Is the Ikea Effect?

This week I stumbled across the term The Ikea Effect while watching a YouTube video (sorry, I can’t remember the exact one — I might have watched a few too many YouTube videos this week). But, as per usual, it got me thinking — specifically about why I create and what it means to me.

Why I Struggle to Let Go of Handmade Clothes

I’ve been making things for years, but I only started sewing my own clothes in 2017. Since then, I’ve made a lot of garments — some a success, and some a complete mess — but regardless, I always feel really attached to them. Even to the point where I boxed up some of my clothes to donate to charity over a year ago and only got the courage to actually take them last week. It felt wasteful somehow, even though I never wore them anymore and most don’t fit.

Could I Upcycle Instead?

I thought about reusing the fabric — cutting them up, removing the buttons, zips, etc., to make something new — but I couldn’t stomach cutting up perfectly functional clothes. I get this a lot recently. Every time I throw something in the bin, it feels so wasteful or destructive. I’ve read too many articles and watched too many TV series about waste and recycling to not understand that most of what I throw away will either be burned or become someone else’s problem, and that makes me feel an immense sense of guilt.

Perhaps that is the cost of educating ourselves — to understand how what we choose to buy and make impacts the earth. Please don’t think I say that from a pedestal either. I still buy items in plastic wrap and make clothes from polyester, but I do so consciously, knowing that this might have an adverse effect on the environment, and that I should strive to do better.

The Power of Making Something Yourself

Before I donated my cherished box of clothes, I went through the box one last time (obviously — I had to check if I could hold onto them after all). I realised that the items I had purchased on a whim many years ago and only wore a handful of times meant nothing to me — in fact, I couldn’t even remember when or where I had worn them. I shoved them back in the box without a second thought. But the garments I had made were the ones tugging at my heartstrings.

I could remember where I had made them (we’ve moved a couple of times since I started sewing), where I had worn them, and the memories I had made while wearing them. For example: birthday parties, family gatherings, Christmas, nights out with friends, and wedding receptions — and it made me smile. Of course, there were a few garments I hadn’t made that had the same effect on me, but those were the ones made from natural fabrics, made really well, and still looked completely fine. Those garments also had memories because I had worn them for many, many years.

Anyway — back to The Ikea Effect: “a cognitive bias in which consumers place a disproportionately high value on products they partially created.” Anyone who has ever put together a piece of Ikea furniture will relate to this. It is no easy feat.

But I would say that this cognitive bias is even stronger with items that we truly create. So much effort goes into making a garment. We remember the mistakes (often a little too much!), but we all understand that feeling you get when you put on a garment you made with your hands and wear it out of the house for the first time.

My wonderful PT instructor has a saying: “after-workout smugness.” Well, I reckon she wouldn’t mind if I altered that saying in relation to making clothes — “me-made smugness.” That feeling when someone asks where you got your dress, and you smugly (obviously with complete humbleness) say, “Thanks, I made it.”

Does Making Make Us More Mindful?

So perhaps the Ikea Effect is a real phenomenon. Making things with our own hands seems to impart a kind of essence into what we’ve created — and we cherish those items more because of it. Making is mindful, and that mindfulness makes us less likely to be wasteful. And surely, that can only be a good thing.

Do You Feel the Same?

How does everyone else feel about the garments they’ve made? Do you cherish them more than the garments you buy? How does recycling your clothes — or throwing them away when you’re finished with them — make you feel? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Happy Sewing!

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