importance of Lydia's clothes

After learning of the affair between Alex and Lydia, Christine quickly begins picking up all of Lydia's clothes that are strewn about her house and shoving them into a garbage bag, a symbol of her anger at Lydia and her immediate inclination to end the friendship. Later, she wore one of Lydia's jackets to the orchestra. The narrator explains, "Sometimes she wanted to violently destroy the clothes, sometimes she fantasised that she could hurt Lydia more by wearing and flaunting them" (202). Christine simply wants to punish Lydia for betraying her, but also could never do something that might actually cause serious suffering, so she becomes fixated on the clothes.