I think I've posted before about how I'd like to be one of those minimalist types. You know, people who have 20 items of clothing in total, one laptop and this spare clean apartment with one sofa in it. Or something. But, I like shopping, so that's always been a problem for me.
But I set my mind on slightly reducing the number of possessions I have. Of course, this means that I have to wait for suitable moments of time and energy in which I can tackle such projects, but I am on a clothing kick right now.
Last week I reduced the number of casual pants I have to 40 (this includes all shorts, track pants, yoga pants as well as jeans and weekend stuff). It makes me cringe a bit to relate that I had to reduce to this number, as 40 still seems impossibly high. Why 40? It just kind of happened. I had 50 in my head as a number for pants overall (with the aim some day of having 50 pants + skirts, and then whittling the number down further). But I didn't have the energy to tackle work pants, so I started with the closet section that has casual pants in it, and once I'd tried everything on and put everything that didn't fit or I didn't like or just plain wasn't going to ever happen again on to the "donate" pile, it came out to 40 left. So I stopped there. More than 20 pairs of pants got donated. Eeek. So much STUFF. Too much.
This week I went on a shoe buying binge (hey! BOGO!), so it came time to tackle shoes. I have gone up half a size in shoes in the last 5 years or so (mostly I think due to gaining weight but I lost 22 lbs and have kept it off for ~18 months and the feet have not shrunk). So there are many shoes that I just couldn't wear any more without wincing. Onto the donate pile they went, and when I counted what was left, I had .... 39 pairs of shoes. Given that I like round numbers, one pair of shoes was rescued from the donate pile to make 40. It's weird how that number cropped up again.
Maybe 40 will be my number. Maybe I'll try for 40 tops next. [Well, being honest, it'll probably be 40 sweaters, 40 tops/shirts, and 40 t-shirts.]
Of course, the trick is going to be to reduce my shopping tendencies. Having limited spare time has helped with this, of course, and I am making a conscious effort NOT to just buy things mindlessly. I'd rather buy fewer, higher quality pieces of clothing that will last a long time, than keep consuming, consuming, consuming. But it's so damn hard to change ingrained habits.
2 comments:
I know someone whose wardrobe is exactly as you've described - minimalist. I envy her. She doesn't buy crap (like I do). She probably has 8 dress pants and they're all the finest quality. She has 2 pairs of jeans but they were probably $1,500 each. She has 4 bras - all from La Perla. And so on. This is why she always looks dynamite. She doesn't walk into Target and buy a super cute sweater on sale that'll look ratty soon enough.
She's also a size 2 - which doesn't hurt. :)
As for the minimalist home...I'm not as into that. Kind of cold.
Jane
Gosh. This is the first post of yours I've ever read! I'm amazed! I have one pair of winter pants (we call them trousers) and one pair of summer ones. Plus two pairs of leggings, one fashion type one running, and one pair of sweats for lounging round in. oh, also some very very patched old trousers for gardening, and three pairs of shorts. I can't imagine the size of your wardrobe! xx
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