In the past five months, I wore everything I own at least twice!

...with only a few exceptions for dressy stuff and gear. Here's where my wardrobe is at now, in terms of clothes I can wear for most occasions:

bottoms - 19
dresses - 13
layer - 20
tops - 42
leggings - 4
tights - 4
scarves - 11
belts - 11

I only managed to wear one my my fancy dresses once (for NYE), and my other fancy dress and my fancy top went unworn for the past year. I've decided to hold onto these items since they don't take up much space, and do come in handy when I need them, though I may be turning the other fancy dress into a skirt so that I can get some more use out of it. At this point in my life I'm not buying anything that is too fancy for me to teach in or wear in a business setting - I just don't have any occasion to wear dressy items.

I've also got a good collection of casual clothes that I never wear outside of the house.

Keeping better track of what I wear and how often I wear things has been quite insightful. I don't have any new items to donate now, because I spent a lot of time throughout the last five months coming to terms with which items in my closet just weren't working for me, and weeded them out as I went along. I would encourage anyone who is interested to adapt and adopt this challenge in a way that fits with your wardrobe size, seasons, and lifestyle.

Moving forward, I'm going to continue to keep track of what I wear everyday. I have an excel document with worksheets for clothing, accessories, shoes, fancy clothes, and a list of items to be on the lookout for. I'm not going to be as strict about donating everything I haven't worn twice, but keeping track will help me to be conscientious of what I wear most, what I don't wear much, and help keep my outfit pairings "fresh". I'm also going to try tracking my jewelry usage too...

Finally, here were my earlier updates:

http://youlookfab.com/welookfa.....h-check-in
http://youlookfab.com/welookfa.....h-check-in
http://youlookfab.com/welookfa.....h-check-in

13 years ago

Jenava

(website)

Veteran

Kate, this is so cool that you did this! I need to do something similar, too. Although, I know the items I hang onto and don't wear of those items that I loved but no longer fit. (-: I'm not quite willing to purge them in the hopes of fitting back in to them!

Anonymous

I need to do something like this since I am trying to form a more efficient wardrobe. This is very inspirational! Its time to be more realistic and purge the stuff I just do not wear!

I'm impressed!! I sort of started doing this with turning the hangers around and jotting down what I wore that wasn't hung up on a piece of paper. But I lost track of the paper so it's just down to the hangers now. It is helpful and I can see that what I *think* I want more of isn't necessarily what I'd wear more. For me it's that Tuesday afternoon vs Saturday night syndrome someone mentioned. Good job - I'm going to check out your previous posts now.

Lisa

Kudos! Great job. This is something I need to do. I just spent the past few hours setting up an excel spreadsheet trying to group my tops, bottoms and boots together in the hopes of being able to grab and go more easily.

taylor

You are amazing!!

Laura

Did you wind up getting rid of a lot of items you didn't wear? Or find you needed items to make outfits?

Maybe I need to read your past posts to find out ...

Kate

Laura, I didn't do a good job of keeping track of what I started with 5 months ago, but here's the net change from October 1 to today:

bottoms - 27 to 19
tops: 49 to 42
layers - 27 to 20
dresses - 16 to 13
scarves - 9 to 11
tights - 5 to 4
no change: leggings and belts

I had already purged some items in August and September, and I know that 8 months ago I had 64 tops!!!

The best part is that even though my wardrobe is smaller, I feel so much better about it now than I did before. Funny how that works.

Theresa

This has been really interesting to read Kate! Well Done!!

Do you think it gave you insight into your wardrobe choices and gave an idea of where to head at all?

(I'm rather fascinated by all forms of wardrobe insight gaining exercises!!)

marianna

This is SO neat! Well done!

MNsara

This IS impressive, Kate! I wish I had it in me to take on such a project. Maybe I can figure a way to accomplish something similar.

Light bulb: my daughter leaves in two weeks for semester in Fance. I'll stuff everything in question into her closet and see what I retrieve by her return at end of May. . . . it just may work

MNsara - That's a GREAT idea! And it should be a touch less obsessive than my version because you don't have to keep any lists, you can just physically move the items over and keep track that way. Let us know how it goes!

Theresa - It really helped me to realize that I'm at a pretty good place right now. I did buy new things to fill gaps during the five months, but overall I cut my wardrobe by about 30 items! And it's more usable and most items are pretty versatile. I feel confident doing SYC because I know that the things I have now have gotten me through the past 5 months, so they will definitely be enough to get me through the next 3 months.

Lynne

Kate, this is impressive! What a good feeling to know that everything there is useful. Well done!

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