Fashion Challenge

Every morning I stand in front of my full wardrobe of clothes and imagine several outfit possibilities for the day. That’s step one.  Step two, I take a piece of clothing or two off the rack and make some sort of lame I-look-like-I’m-trying-too-hard outfit. Step three, I take another piece of clothing off the rack, tear something off in a huff, and repeat. I didn’t use to have this problem; I went to an all-girls, Catholic high school where we wore uniforms. MAN, those were the days.

But no more. Now that I’m technically an “adult” I’m under unspoken pressure to have my act together clothing-wise. My “let’s try anything and get away with it” childhood and teenage years are over, and now I have to dress either professionally and/or clearly express my sense of style. Granted, much of this worry is self-imposed, but I know I’m not the only one.  Regardless, I could use a break.

Enter Six Items or Less.  The experiment, which began late June this year, called for participants to spend one whole month selecting outfits from only 6 pieces of clothing. Of course there were caveats: accessories, coats and shoes didn’t count, but the point was to drastically minimize the amount of clothing that each person used. Crazy? Maybe, maybe not.

Other experiments, like The Uniform Project, which used one little dress to raise money for charity, and The Great American Apparel Diet, which curbed participants’ shopping habits for a full year, while ultimately serving different goals, had one common purpose: lose the excess.  Could I abstain from adding to my own wardrobe for a whole year? Probably not (damn you Anthropologie!).  But I can do my part to work on my own sustainability–and my wallet for that matter–by being more conscious about my clothing purchases. Ultimately, it will only increase my well-being when I stand in front of my mirror in the morning.

Shoppers on a ‘Diet’ Tame the Urge to Buy [New York Times]
Six Items or Less
The Uniform Project
The Great American Apparel Diet
Photo by Andrew Testa [The New York Times]