Link: "What I Learned From Wearing 6 Items For a Month"

The Globe and Mail just featured an article called "What I Learned From Wearing 6 Items For a Month". Apparently, as a means of showing that you can actually make do with way less clothing than the average North American keeps in their closet, the writer challenged herself to only wear 6 different pieces of clothing (not including accessories and undergarments) for 30 days.

It's an interesting read for anyone who either has a closet stuffed with clothing or looks in their closet and, regardless of how much stuff is in there, always feels like they have nothing to wear. There's a great message in it that these types of people need to hear: when you're buying clothing, buy strategically.

It's not hard to keep your clothing budget low by only buying things that are super cheap, but that can be the easiest way to a pile of clothing that isn't flattering, is of low quality, doesn't match, and/or you don't love to wear. The trickier proposition, but the one that brings the most joy (and the least clutter) in the end, is to buy less things, but make sure the things that you buy fit beautifully, are made well so they'll last, make you giddy to wear, and, most importantly, all match each other.

Seriously, the matching thing is the secret to a budget wardrobe. If everything you own can pretty much be worn with everything else you own, then you've got an obscene amount of outfit combinations that all look great. Take a look at the six pieces of clothing picked for the Globe and Mail experiment. Everything in that capsule wardrobe can be worn together in a flattering way.

So why doesn't everyone do this? Well, there's a lot of reasons, but mostly because it's not the easiest thing to do. It's only in the last year or so that I've felt I've gotten remotely competent at this approach to fashion. It's hard, but it's pretty damn satisfying once you get it to work.

I figured an affordable, non-cluttered wardrobe that you love to wear fits in with the more expanded scope of this blog, so over the next few months I'm going to be writing posts about some of the tips I've used to work on building a functional, pared down wardrobe... it's a process, so we'll be taking it one small step at a time.