Lately I have been on a journey to less things, yes me the self proclaimed maximalist. Unfortunately I suffer from acute Rebecca Bloomwood syndrome. Much like our favorite consumeristic shopaholic Rebecca, I am addicted to the allure of stores, fast fashion, and spending money. With the swipe of that hard plastic I can get my next perfect hit of dopamine. Though unlike Isla Fisher’s ‘True Confessions of a Shopaholic’ character I tend to frequent craft stores nearly as often, if not more than clothing stores. And yet I still own a small department store worth of clothing.

My personal goal by the end of 2024 is to find the perfect-sized wardrobe for myself. No one is asking you to become a minimalist. In fact, I’m not even asking this of myself, but if you join me on this journey, I promise you will see many benefits of owning a little less. If upon glancing in your closet you have ever in your life said to yourself “I hate everything I own” or “I have nothing to wear.” This post is just what you might need.

Courtney Carver blogger of Be more with less and Author of Project 333 reiterated the idea that we own “tons of clothing” and have “nothing to wear.” She created the 333 clothing concept which is essentially a capsule wardrobe you rotate out over the year with the changes of seasons. Each ‘capsule’ should contain 33 items including shoes and accessories for 3 months, which means even if a person’s Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer capsules had zero overlap the max number of total items you would own is 132. Although, many practitioners of 333 own far less than even this, and their wardrobes do contain several overlaps between seasons no “Wardrobe benchwarmers.” Which means there is nothing in the closet they won’t reach for on a regular basis.

In 2013 fellow “recovering shopaholic” Debbie researched “Normal-Sized” wardrobes – she first looked at her own closet to do a De-clutter fest of her and then her husband’s closets. Their final numbers of this purge round came.¹

Debbie: 262 items (315 with shoes)
Her Husband: 142 items (154 with shoes)

After the initial item count the rest of her observations came down to math. Her husband’s 112 shirts averaged only a 3.3 per year wear rate and her shirt wardrobe was even lower at a 2.9 wear rate. Which means they were wearing each of their shirts less than 1x each per quarter/season of the year.

Wardrobe math is simple: if you own too many items, then you wear many items very infrequently. The effect of too many items means your closet is probably stuffed to the brim with items, you often cannot find the item you are looking for. Plus, many people wear only a small percentage of their wardrobe, as you usually only reach for items you already love. According to Debbie, her ideal wardrobe is 120 items including shoes instead of over 300.

Basic Wardrobe math: To determine your individual optimal frequency of wear rate, first select 5 shirts and ask yourself for each how many times do you want to/ expect to wear that item in the next 30 days, 90 days, and 1 year. If you say 1 time for 30 days, 2 for 90 days and 10 per year then a 10x rate is perfect for that item, but if you say 1 per 90 days and 3 per year – that may be a item to either declutter or put into a specialty/seasonal section for sometimes wear, to be considered for removal later.
5x wear rate = 73 shirts/dresses/rompers (pants & skirts don’t get counted in your wear rate as you wear them with one of your shirts).
10x wear rate = 37 shirts/dresses/rompers
12x wear rate = 31 shirts/dresses/rompers
15x wear rate = 25 shirts/dresses/rompers

MY WARDROBE

Now, how my wardrobe currently stacks up and what I am doing about it. Over the past two months, I have decluttered between 100 and 150 clothing items from my closet and my husband who has far fewer items to begin with has removed around 70 items from his own closet. Even with this declutter I still own over 450 clothing items.

Here is the breakdown:

• Tops – 144
• Dress/Romper/Overalls – 51
• Bottom (pants, skirts, leggings) – 54
• Covers = Jackets, Sweaters, Shrugs, vests, etc – 53
• Leisure – Workout, yard work, sweats, pajamas – 58
• Shoes –
• An additional box I haven’t counted yet with probably 60 items
• A costume closet with costumes, and specialty holiday items (Christmas sweaters, Halloween shirts) that I don’t wear on a daily basis about 65 items

160 of these items either no longer fit me at the moment, they are out of season, or ones I do not reach for consistently. They are stored in clear bins above my closet. The costume closet is downstairs in our room of requirement (Our catch-all craft room, decorations, my office, etc). The additional 260 items, plus shoes hang or are folded in my closet. Each month I create a capsule wardrobe from 81 of the items currently in my closet: decorative tops (31), Dresses (19), Rompers (13) skirts (18). Always available to wear but not included in my capsule are t-shirts, long-sleeved shirts, tanks, undershirts, leisure wear, covers, joggers and leggings which equals to 166 items. My 24 t-shirts and 7 long sleeve shirts I rotate through during my 104 weekend days. My T-shirts therefore have an annual wear rate of 3.35 (104/31). The rest of my items have a 4.96 wear rate (313 or 6 days a week/63). Divided only by 63 instead of 81 because skirts would almost always be worn with a decorative shirt.

Is my closet still excessively large? YES!! Am I holding on to a ton of items that are just being stored above my closet (160 items). Also yes. Do I own a crazy number of t-shirts, leisure wear, joggers, and more. Again yes.

In my defense, however, I have decluttered a bunch!! Over the past year, I have certainly decluttered over 250 items of clothing. Slow and steady making changes and being a maximalist with less. I should also own up to the fact that I am focusing only on school and fertility stuff instead of having a full-time job, so except for events I leave the house for, I typically wear the same 20 or 30 items which mostly consist of t-shirts, onesies, pajamas, and other leisure wear.

My ideal wardrobe will never be even as low as 132 items for the whole year including shoes, accessories, and clothes. One day I might be able to let go of or fit into some of my 160 stored items. I also conveniently don’t count my costume items in my regular items even though I sometimes wear those items on a somewhat regular day. It is unlikely I will reduce my number of wear-rate items, but realistically could reduce my non-capsule items by a few items during future declutters.

Tips and ideas with some help from other organization experts

In another post Debbie further explains that it is not as simple as picking a frequency wear rate we also should consider:

“Desired frequency of wear (which may be different for various wardrobe categories)
Climate needs (how many seasons you have, how long they last)
Lifestyle needs (work wardrobe needs, social and leisure activities, formal events)
What types of clothes you wear (how often you wear skirts/dresses vs. pants, topper needs, etc.)
How often you “get dressed” (in “regular” clothes vs. lounge wear or “gear”)
Any other considerations that are important to you (budget, closet size, desired wardrobe size, etc.)”²

Since shirts/dresses are the most unique clothing item in a wardrobe those are the items you count for your wear rate (as mentioned above). Pants, skirts, undershirts, outerwear, seasonal items, and shoes can be worn more frequently and usually make up a much smaller percentage of clothing totals.

Many minimalists, organizers, ‘declutter-ers’ suggest several tips when making a new clothing purchase.

1. Giving the item a score from 1-10 or from 1-100 and only purchasing items that score an 8/80 or higher on that scale. I still find it hard to hold myself to this standard because if I love something in the store I don’t think twice about bringing it home. I especially need to work on this one as I tend to like many items less once it is a clothing option in my own closet.
2. Ask yourself a set of questions – Where will I wear this? How often will I wear this? Does it fill a gap in my closet? Or any number of questions that fall into the categories listed in the quote above.
3. Delayed gratification, if you find a clothing item you want to buy that is $30 or more then wait at least 30 hours to purchase it. Joshua Fields Millburn, of The Minimalists, suggests that the thirty hour wait reveals to you how much you actually want a certain item. If the next day your desire to purchase the item has diminished then you probably don’t actually need or want the item. I personally have found that if I do this online I frequently place items in my cart and forget them there for days. Then, when I finally return to the website, just as the minimalists suggest, I don’t actually want the items.
4. One in One Out. If you purchase one new item that means an old similar item must leave your closet. You can also make this your own by doing 1 in 2 out or the opposite of 2 in 1 out, this way your closet doesn’t get completely overwhelmed by the constant influx of new items. I super struggle with this rule, so instead I try to declutter my wardrobe every six months or so instead of one in, one out.
5. Declutter!!

According to a reddit post, the “average American buys 64-68 new garments each year.” Within the same post a European thought this was crazy saying they purchased only 17 new items not including undergarments etc. Though that said, items in America are typically cheaper than many European countries. So the person who purchased 17 items in Europe and the person who purchased four times that amount (68 items) in America could have spent only around double the amount. 20 ($40 items) and 40 ($20 items) cost the same. ³

Stats

Ultimately the sad reality of consumerism is that landfills, donation centers, and clothing stores are bursting at the seams with items. It is also believed that more than half of all items go straight to landfills and are not recycled. Fast fashion entices us to purchase the next new (or old and returning) trend. I myself habitually peruse the 30-70% off section of Target on my way to buy deodorant, milk, and gum. In a weird non-consumeristic world we would all own less than 100 total clothing items and would rent all specialty items they need for non-day to day events.

As of May of 2017 – If every person in the world owned just one pair of pants, a shirt, and a jacket, globally already “21 billion pieces of clothing would have to be supplied to the global population”
I thankfully spend less than the believed annual average of $1700 consumers spend on clothing each year. The average price of an apparel item in the United States is $19.

This article breaks down the average amounts various groups spend annually on the $2.56 Trillion clothing and textile industry.

• Men – 16 and over: $304
• Boys – 2 to 15: $78
• Women – 16 and over: $562
• Girls – 2 to 15: $101
• Children under 2: $91
• Footwear: $303
• Other related products and services: $261

Courtney Carver comforts those like me just starting this journey towards minimalism that it is “not a project in suffering.” Rather, in my opinion it is a way to simplify your life, so you are spending less energy on stuff and more energy on the things that matter most.

Megan Acuna a youtuber said in one of her videos about the amount of stuff she owns “In Ye Old times when they had one tea kettle, like why do I have 4 tea kettles.” I laughed and then nearly cried because this can especially apply to a closet. Why do I, Diana, have multiple of the same shirt in different colors, and wear none of them? Why do I feel the need to own 64 pairs of socks (3 different styles, but still)? It must have something to do with my need to collect and hoard things.

As with all of my posts, remember SWUAN! ‘Start where you are now.’ Don’t get yourself down with negative self-talk about the should have, could have, would have topics. Things that happened yesterday or even much prior are in the past. Though the past shows where a person has been, it doesn’t dictate who you must be in the future. Choose today to do something small to move you in a better direction towards a better tomorrow. Let me know how coming up with your own perfect-sized wardrobe is going and I will keep you posted as well.

1. https://recoveringshopaholic.com/2013/02/12/what-is-a-normal-sized-wardrobe/ ↩︎
2. https://recoveringshopaholic.com/2014/03/27/ideal-wardrobe-size/ ↩︎
3. https://www.reddit.com/r/femalefashionadvice/comments/e72daq/the_average_american_bought_buys_68_new_articles/ ↩︎