Q&A | How I decide if I need a new clothing item

Hello from the winter wonderland that is the eastern side of the U.S. right now!

We weathered the storm just fine, and I am super delighted to report that we never lost power. I think this is at least partly due to the fact that this storm brought really dry snow, which didn’t cling to anything but evergreen trees.

Less snow on trees = less weight on trees = less breakage.

That’s actually a pretty tall split rail fence…the bottom rail is just hidden by all the snow.

So, yay!   I did make chicken noodle soup the day before the storm, thinking that I could heat it in the crock pot, which we could run off of the generator.   But we got to heat it up on the stove! In a warm house!

All was well.

For today’s edition of Q&A, we have a question from a reader who’s having trouble minimizing her wardrobe.

Hi! I desperately need help maintaining a minimalist wardrobe, partly based on need and partly based on wanting less laundry. 😉 How do you decide if you need an article of clothing? I find myself thinking I “need” a new shirt because I don’t have one like it, or I have one like it and I really like it, or it’s too good of a deal to pass up… basically, I have no rules and it turns into not having a minimalist wardrobe. At. All. I know everyone has different needs for their wardrobe, but could you share how you decide whether or not to add another article of clothing?

Thanks!

Jen

I’m sort of a quasi-minimalist when it comes to clothing. I don’t have a stuffed closet, but I’m also not getting by with 10 items or anything like that.   I do have a small enough wardrobe that both seasons fit into one dresser and one side of a regular American closet (not a walk-in!), though.

When it comes to clothing, my decision-making process comes down (as it so often does) to one question:

How much can I regularly and thoroughly use?

This question is useful in all sorts of scenarios (kitchen equipment, sports gear, house size), and I think it works pretty well for clothing too.

Basically, I want to own the amount of clothing that I will regularly use.

If I have too much, I end up only wearing a small portion of it, and it’s just taking up extra space in my house.

So, when I’m shopping, I ask myself if the item is something that I will wear regularly, and if the answer is no, I don’t buy it, no matter how great of a deal it is.

The amount of clothing a person can regularly use will vary greatly, which means the amount that works for me might be all kinds of wrong for you.   And that’s why I like using this questions rather than following rules, like a prescribed number of items…it’s super flexible.

(Note: I do also think about things like item quality, whether the color is good for me, and so on, but really, all of those questions are sort of sub-questions to the one above.   I will wear something regularly if it’s a good color, it’s made well, it’s practical, it fits me properly, etc.)

Answering that main question should help you on the shopping end of things, but I’m guessing you probably   also want to do some minimizing of your current clothing collection.

When it comes to paring down what you already own, you can certainly look through your closet and cull the items you know you haven’t worn/won’t wear.

But beyond that, I’ve found it helpful to go a step further and do a test.   I pile one category of clothing (say, winter shirts) on top of my dresser and select items from the pile each day when I get dressed.

Once an item is worn, I launder it and put it back in the drawer.   At the end of a month or so, I figure that whatever is left on top of the dresser isn’t all that necessary, and I donate it (unless there’s an extenuating circumstance…like a shirt I wear in the snow, but it hadn’t snowed that month.)

I know people turn their hangers backwards in their closet at the beginning of a season for the same reason.   All the hung items that are still backwards at the end of the season get donated.

So, maybe give something like that a try as you clean out your current wardrobe, and then as you shop in the future, give some hard thought to whether or not you can really use a new item to its fullest potential.

Hopefully the combo of those two tactics will help you end up with a wardrobe that is right-sized for you!

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Readers, weigh in!   What’s your process for deciding whether or not you need a new clothing item?

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P.S. “How much stuff should you own? The answer is simpler than you think.” talks more about this “How much can I really use?” question.

P.P.S. Joshua and I have week two of our 52 project up on the photo blog.   It’s landscapes this week, another weak area of mine, so I did kind of cheat (apparently landscapes are, technically, shot from a wide angle.   Whoops.)