“Know, first, who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly.” – Epictetus
Consider for just a moment how your life would look different if you owned fewer clothes:
- You would have more disposable income.
- You would have more time to live your life.
- Mornings would feature less stress.
- Your closets would be well-organized and uncluttered.
- Packing for trips/vacations would take less time.
- Laundry days would be easier (not necessarily less, but definitely easier).
Unfortunately, instead of enjoying the benefits of owning fewer clothes, most of us buy into the lie that more is better. And because we do, we accumulate more and more clothing each season. We are convinced that new clothes will make us more joyful, more fashionable, and more popular. Unfortunately, they just end up getting in the way.
Consider going a different route with your life. Try owning fewer clothes. You may be surprised at how much you enjoy the freedom that it brings.
Whether you are hoping to minimize your wardrobe to the absolute minimum or just trying to pare down some of the excess in your closet, you will find these 10 steps practical and applicable. They are the same steps that we have used in our home:
- Admit that you own too much clothing. That’s all you really need to get started.
- Wear fewer colors. Most of us already have a few favorite colors that we wear most often anyway – usually because we like the way we look in them. Choosing to intentionally wear fewer colors means less accessories (shoes, belts, jewelry, handbags, etc.). It also makes too much sense not to try.
- Embrace the idea of one. When one can be enough, embrace it – one black dress, one swimsuit, one winter coat, one black belt, one pair of black shoes, one pair of sneakers, one handbag… insert your own based on your occupation, lifestyle, or climate.
- Donate, sell, recycle, discard. Depending on the size of one’s existing wardrobe, an initial paring down won’t take long. Make a few piles – donate, sell, or recycle. Start with the clothes that you no longer wear. You’ll be surprised how much you can remove.
- Donate, sell, discard some more. Removing the clothes you no longer wear is easy. Removing the clothes that you don’t really need can be a tougher choice. Turn around all the hangers in your closet. After the season, remove every article of clothing that wasn’t worn. That should help get you started on a second round of paring down.
- Impose an arbitrary moritorium on shopping. For many, clothes shopping is just a habit – and habit always takes over for inattention. To begin breaking the cycle of purchasing and discarding (the average American throws away 68 lbs. of textiles each year), set a self-imposed buying freeze. I recommend 90 days. If given enough time, this simple exercise in self-discipline will change your view of your clothing and the stores that produce, market, and sell them.
- Set a monthly spending limit. Pick a low number and stick to it.
- Purchase quality over quantity. Only buy clothing that you truly love – even if it costs more. If you stock your closet full of things you love, you will have less desire to add to it.
- Avoid the sale racks. Sales can (and should) be used to help you get a better price on something you need. Unfortunately, most sale racks are designed to convince us to purchase something we don’t.
- Impress with your character, not your clothes. Lee Mildon once said, “People seldom notice old clothes if you wear a big smile.”
{ 46 comments… read them below or add one }
The idea of one is key for me. If I want to buy something, it needs to replace the one that I have, and I usually don’t like it enough!
Great post. My mother and I love together. It bugs her that my closet is not full. She thinks I need more clothes. I’m thinking I need to get rid of a few more things. Guess I will have to do it on the sly just to keep her quiet. Grin.
Great tips! I have a mostly minimalist closet and have for some time. I try to keep my belongings down to 7 of each type of clothes (7 sweaters, 7 pairs of pants, 7 lighter tops, 7 pairs of summer pants, and so on). In addition, all of my clothes (including underwear) are in a narrow range of colors that I can wash together – no reds to turn whites pink! Laundry day is so easy as a result because I don’t have to sort and can do everything that’s dirty in one load.
This comes as good timing for me, the sewing bug as bitten me hard. Thankfully I’m mostly reworking my current clothes because of having lost weight. After I get done with that, I’m going to have to be careful. Thanks for the reminders.
“Packing for trips/vacations would take less time.”
That’s funny, I just told my wife the other day how much easier it’s going to be packing for trips because I’ll can just bring everything I own (well the stuff that’s in season).
Summer = sandals so no socks either
I left on a trip today. And literally just added that benefit after I realized how much less time I spend packing now then before we became minimalist.
This is an incredibly important part of simplifying/minimalism. It’s one of the first big things I did when I began to seriously unclutter my home and life, and it has saved so much time, money, space, and raised so much awareness, that I could equate it with a major life change.
Our clothing choices are tied to our identities, and the need to buy too many things or to stay on top of the latest fashions or to buy things just because they were cheap does not say much good about our identities, does it? Getting down to the fewest things and the best quality we can afford sounds like a much classier way to go.
Clothing is one of the first things that people seem to have questions about – that, and books. The questions and comments I have gotten from others led to the inspiration for this post.
The idea of quality over quantity is a key component to a minimal wardrobe. If I purchase clothing at a thrift store, it costs less but then I think I can have more clothing. And often I don’t like the thrift store item as much so I don’t wear it. So it’s a lose-lose situation. I’d rather have two great prs of slacks than even three cheaper pars I don’t love.
Well, I have never been used to full closets and now
I find useful to buy some more tshits,topsand underwear because doing the laundry every night or two is boring, time consuming and costs a lot in energy.
We have enough for 10-14 days around here, precisely for that reason. That’s still not a large amount of clothing, though, as the extras are mostly t’s, undies, and socks. It works out to the most efficient use of laundry time and loads large enough to not waste water or electricity. I had a much smaller stacked washer and dryer at our previous residence and weekly laundry was the most efficient then.
I really like the idea of turning around my hangers to see what I’ve worn. For some reason, reducing my clothes has been one of the harder things to do. Like someone else commented, clothes are tied to our identities. Odd thing is, I don’t really like a lot of the clothes I wear anyway. I think it has something to do with losing the sense of feeling prepared for whatever situation arises. I will definitely use these steps in working on reducing my closet – thanks for the ideas!
Maggie, I don’t know if this will help, but I did something similar in my closet. I put a plastic ring around my closet rod, on the left, and every time I did laundry I’d hang up the clean shirts on the left of the rod. I tried to wear more things from the right of the rod, over time, until I had worn everything once (or discarded it).
After a month I decided to put up a new plastic ring for each month, so that I would always know the month in which I last wore something. It helps me see what I really haven’t worn in a while (do I still like it?) and reminds me to keep wearing everything I have.
I still have 56 shirts on the hangers and maybe that’s a bit much, but the system has helped a lot.
The hangar tip was my favorite. How easy it makes it to dump the stuff you haven’t used. I just cleaned out my closet last week and this will help narrow it down further.
I have been simplifying my wardrobe and I love it. I only have kept things I love and wear. I was given a huge bag of clothes from my sis-in-law. I went through it and only kept about 10 items (there was about 50+ items). I cannot tell you the amount of clothes I have brought on sale and hated, but the price was to good to pass up (or so I thought).
This is the principle I now follow. If I buy a dress for $5.00 and wear it once, it cost $5.00 a time. If I buy a dress for $50.00 and wear it 50 times, it only cost me a dollar a time. So in theory the more expensive it the cheapest.
I love this post, what about kid clothes? I would like your ideas on how many kid clothes one child should have. Thanks:)
If my daughter had a say she would have her 4 dress up dresses and that’s it. I would do a similar thing as you do with your own clothes. Whatever they never choose to wear, just get rid of. My daughter is 3 and loves her dresses and skirts. I just got rid of all but a couple pairs of pants and shorts since she never wore them.
This whole article is win.
Reason no. 8 probably stands out for me the most.
I shop at American Apparel and get a few disapproving opinions for it because it’s expensive for a store that mostly sells basics. But then again, AA makes clothes I like, plus the fact that the clothes aren’t made in sweatshop conditions. Knowing that I can select a few things from there which I enjoy wearing makes it so much easier keeping that wardrobe down.
Not sure why, but some people (aka my friends) just don’t get the whole quality over quantity thing.
“Not sure why, but some people (aka my friends) just don’t get the whole quality over quantity thing.”
I call that ‘Wal-Mart thinking’. Many people think along the lines of “Why spend more when you can purchase the same thing twice at half the cost (never mind it only lasts 1/8 as long); even better, stock-pile items when they are on sale.”
My Grandmother suffers from ‘Wal-Mart thinking’.
I’ll take a devil’s advocate position on one point: laundry. To a certain extent, less clothes means less laundry to wash. However, there is a point at which less clothes can complicate your laundry cycles.
It is much simpler and less time-consuming to batch your laundry into large loads, for instance, than to do multiple smaller loads. You should have enough clothes so that when you need to do laundry, you have enough for a full large-cycle washer. There is a clothes “tipping point” where you go from one load a week to two loads a week.
I so needed to read this today. Our family is on a no spending money this month and the idea of keeping everything simple and getting rid of things we don’t need or use has me looking at my closet and dressers. I’m so ready to just keep my favorites and donate the rest. I like the idea of a 90 day clothes shopping freeze.
One nice thing I have going for me is that I have a couple of friends who hand down their kids clothes to me. But even that can get crazy with getting to many things. You just have to know when to say no more. Thanks for this post!
Great ideas Joshua. I have a very small wardrobe and sometimes think that people must get sick of seeing me in the same things, but then I realize, people are likely not paying any attention to what I’m wearing. I’ve never been into fashion, but I think your tips could make for a great wardrobe — flexible, quality and enough. People who need new clothes every season have bought into a big sales gimmick of “new colours” and the “latest styles”. It’s all part of a larger issue — an addiction to shopping as entertainment.
I must be terribly out of style, because I can never find anything I want. So I’m a clothing minimalist by default.
I like Jay Leno’s idea of wearing denim shirts and jeans every day. After a year or two, donate them all and buy a new set.
Of course, I haven’t been able to find any denim shirts I like…
Gip
I haven’t found any denim shirts that I like either.
I only have 10 items of clothing (not including shoes and underwear). I often have a shower with my clothes on instead of doing the laundry when they need washing.
I really like what you said about embracing the idea of one. When I use to go into a thrift store and see all these sweet clothes for so cheap, it was hard to resist buying. Now, I have a different mindset that my style isn’t in all the different outfits I wear but the fact that I wear the same outfit all the time. Took a little bit for that switch to happen in my mind, though.
As a woman, over the years, I felt pressure to have a closet or 2 full of clothing…society pressure. Over the years, as I have fully accepted myself as I am, I found basics in a few great colors and styles get me farther and MORE compliments than closets full of clothing. I have to dress for work, no business casual for me. I wear a lot of black, white, red/pink, a little bit of khacki and purple, which all look nice against my skin. I can mix and match my little heart’s desire away. Funny thing is, people always say I dress nice, neat, professional and pretty.
I just got rid of more than half my clothes, after about 4 rounds of paring down further. I know there’s more I can donate or give away if I go through it yet again. It was almost a sense of relief seeing how much extra space I now have in my closet.
I like the ideas of wearing fewer colors and the notion of less stress in the mornings. I know that if we are presented with too many choices, the decision becomes more difficult (and stressful), but I hadn’t thought of it in terms of choosing what to wear. Awesome.
I think it goes back to the danger of having too much. “A man with two watches is never sure what time it is, the man with one watch always knows”
I could never do this. I love fashion. The thing is i wear ALL my clothes. If they aren’t being worn i give them to charity. I only keep what i wear and yes, i’ve a lot of outfits. It would be nice to have more space but i know i would not be happy with just a few items in my wardrobe. Its all very organised and colour coordinated. I can pick out what i want to wear in a second despite the amount of garments. This was a really interesting discussion. Although i won’t be becoming minimalist- i want to say good luck to all of you who are. x
Great article, when it comes to clothes, I am a minimalist. I have no interest in shopping for clothes unless if its absolutely necessary. As a result my parents and siblings tell me off, that I am miserly. I just tell them, I like spending money on things that are more valuable to me.
I have one question though, What do I do with clothes with which good memories involved from various events. They don’t fit in me anymore.
Any advice.
“I have one question though, What do I do with clothes with which good memories involved from various events. They don’t fit in me anymore.”
You could sew some of the fabric into something new, or ask a friend or family member who sews to do so. I had a friend who sewed a small piece of corduroy pants (that I had loved but worn almost literally to pieces) into a cool wrist band punk bracelet thing for me that takes up much less space. Other ideas would be stuffed animals or of course quilts.
“I have one question though, What do I do with clothes with which good memories involved from various events. They don’t fit in me anymore.”
After a major clean out of clothing for some kids, and faced with serious reluctance from the kids of passing on some favourites, we decided they could keep two items each. They chose favourite shirts, and by sewing up the opening and stuffing with fibre filling, turned them into snuggle pillows. When I was in high school, I (with help) turned a jacket that no longer fitted into a book bag, and recently transformed a chambray shirt into a handbag. I am currently working on a project turning a favourite pair of jeans into an apron.
For the more important things, the things I can’t bear to change or donate, I have a memory chest.
Hi Tariq
If clothes don’t fit me- i get rid of them. Clothes with special memories can be sorted through. I have the dresses i wore to my university ball, my graduation and my final year at school ball. I never seem to grow much so, i still fit into them. They are much too fancy to wear but i really hope for an opportunity to wear one again. I do not keep these dresses in my wardrobe. I have put the dresses in storage bags and packed them away neatly in the storage area of my house. I also change my wardrobe around according to season. For example, now i have a lot of skirts and light tops in my wardrobe and all my wool clothes and heavy coats are in storage until the cold weather returns.
If you feel you can’t part with some of the clothes with memories attached- you could always send them to storage if you have space for this.
Cool that you are a minimalist. As ive said already i love to buy clothes. My parents and siblings tell me off for buying too many. I’m actually about to sort my wardrobe and have decided im on a clothes shopping ban. Despite having a lot of clothes- i like to keep them all hung or folded away neatly and right now im at risk of running out of space. So, i guess even i should stop shopping for now. This has been a cool article. Thanks minimalists- you may save me some money if i can keep up the current clothes ban lol and good luck with deciding what to do with the clothes with good memories Tariq. Eileen x
I feel this is a topic that is always easier for men. All the minimalist bolggers seem to be men, especially the ones that only own 13 things and list them for all to see.
It comes very naturally to me in one way, because I hate to shop. But getting rid of things is really hard for me. Also, I would wear jeans and t-shirts all the time, but not only is this not acceptable at work, my husband complains if I do that every weekend, and also nags me to buy more shoes.
One thing I like to do is get together with friends (of a similar size) with all of the clothes we are getting rid of. A few of those things will be rescued that way, and loved in a new home. But don’t grab anything you won’t wear just because it’s free.
Deborah, for a female’s point of view, try rowdykittens.com or simplerabbit.com. They are both minimalist blogs written by women.
I don’t think we need to look for perfection in this or make it a competition. After a number of rounds of getting rid of unnecessary clothes or things that no longer fit or are completely at odds with my current life, I’ve found myself with a closet of nice clothes that all feel good to wear. I don’t worry if one person thinks I have too many or another thinks I have too few. Learning to shop consciously rather than recreationally has been a challenge and a lot harder than throwing things out, but one that is getting easier with time. What I’ve tried with a lot of success is to be much more conscious of my purchases and only buy things that I truly enjoy wearing and meet my needs. A beautiful dressy dress may entice me, but the reality is that I only need one of those in my life. When something wears out, I don’t automatically replace it but instead think about how many similar items I have and whether I have enough already. Gradually, my closet gets more spacious and I find it easier to look well dressed for the life I lead.
Hmmmm…I’ve already done a fair bit of paring-down, but I think this has inspired me to do another round.
I’m commenting mainly in response to the idea that women don’t/can’t do the extreme-minimalism with clothes. I just read an article about a six-clothing-item challenge that a few hundred people (mostly bloggers) are doing right now. A lot of women are doing it successfully. I don’t think I could do it because my work and non-work clothing needs are so different. I could probably do six items for EACH for a couple months with no problem.
I have another kind of “one” for clothing. I try to only buy one thing at a time unless I really need more than one of something. Sometimes I stretch that to one outfit. I find that it makes me focus on which thing I like the best and which one works best with what I already have. I just went shopping for a pair of dressy sandals and couldn’t decide between a pair I liked and a different shoe that I really didn’t need. In the old days I would have bought both of them; this time I bought neither.
One other thing I do is never to use a credit card to buy clothing. It’s the debit card or no purchase at all.
Thanks for a great blog. I’m also a minimalist when it comes to clothes. I have discovered 10 years ago that modern merino wool is a good way to achieve minimalism. They are expensive initially, but you don’t need that many. I have about 10 summer weight merino wool t-shirts made by Icebreaker, Ibex, and Patagonia, and I can wear a shirt like 5-10 days without washing, even in the heat of summer. (One can say I have too many shirts since I don’t even need to wear all my 10 shirts in a season.) And when they do get soiled, I hand wash them in the sink. I wear them running too, and they feel fresh even after multiple exercise sessions. They dry quickly which makes them good for traveling. On a recent trip to Iceland, I wore a merino shirt, brought 1 shirt, 1 merino sweater, and 1 merino undie – that was my entire wardrobe that I took with me. They are of very high quality, and if you don’t put them in the drier, they will last for years.
Personally I’m passionate about passion, and maybe that’s because I’m 17, but almost all of my clothing I buy at consignment/thrift stores, so I feel that I am saving money and also the planning by buying “recycled” clothing. However I do like what this post is promoting, and I think I could stand to lessen my recently growing addiction to buying clothes from “the man”.
Meant to say “passionate about fashion”
@Joshua Becker — what an interesting topic! I’ve been slowly going through my closets and cabinets in an attempt to reduce clutter. I’m amazed at the vast number of clothing items and shoes that I’ve collected that go virtually unworn! Some items are too big, some are too small (boo!) but many are just right and yet they never make it onto my body! I’m generally not the type of girl who cares much about fashion but even so I’ve found myself falling into the trap of “one more pair of black pants won’t hurt”. Ummm… yeah: I have a dozen and I wear 3 regularly. I’ve slacked off recently in my sorting and purging but coming across this site has inspired me to renew my efforts!
@pumagirl — thank you for the tip about merino wool. I will definitely be looking into that as I start to replace worn out travel staples in the future!
We lost everything in a fire, I recall about a dozen brand new recently purchased winter boots new in boxes. Of course I had lots of other clothing, mostly expensive and anyway its a lot easier to live more simply when you realize those type things dont matter in the grand scheme of things and if you are confident and feel you are beautiful wheather on the inside, out or both you can make anything look good, items from goodwill, thrift stores or designer it just all takes a little planning and good taste in choosing. I mostly enjoy black, a couple designer jeans and mix and matching is key. I get my tops at good will and have True religion jeans. I dont waste money on shirts I have little kids they ruin everything! I love designer jeans and would rather have a couple pair then 20 I dont like. Just feel lovely and dress for yourself or your mate. Women get caught up in dressing for other women and trying to impress. Honestly its a lot more fun to dress for yourself or just dont dress at all to impress someone you love generaly that doesnt require to much clothing heheheheh
I have a closet full of clothes, that I’ve “Not” worn for years.I have gained lots of weight, my health in the crapper & the meds.I’m on has really packed the pounds on.I have clothes I bought way,way back still with price tags on.I was much thinner then.But when all happend to me,the beautiful new clothes just stayed in my closet.After reading all many wrote,has inspired me to get out my big plastic bags and get emptying my closet.Same goes with my shoes,I have many, but haven’t worn them in?? I know when my hubby comes home from wk.one night,& he goes into the closet to get/set up his clothes for wk.he hehe. He will really think I’ve flipped when he see, my side of our walk in,with next to nothing hanging in our walk in.:) Thanks again, for all who posted nice to know I’m not in this alone.
I’ve recently been going through all of my posessions and ruthlessly paring down to the essentials. I’ve gotten to the clothes, and have done pretty well. I could still do more, though. What I realized in going through my clothes is that the difficulty in ridding my closet of items I literally NEVER wear is the sense of security they bring. A lightbulb went on in my head and I realized…I don’t even like this shirt. I like the security of knowing that I could wear it if I wanted to, even if I don’t. I like knowing that I could be this smart, sophisticated woman who wears a sheer green dress shirt to work…but I’m not. I’m not that woman. I’m a nurse. I wear scrubs. And on the weekends I wear jeans and t-shirts…Because I like to. Because THAT is who I am.
After that flash realization, going through everything in my house (including clothes) has been so much easier. It’s like I’m ripping up this giant security blanket I never even knew I needed.
It feels good. I also just took a trip, and packing was SO easy! I took the smallest suitcase ever!
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