The June count - YouLookFab Forum

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The June count

Laura (rhubarbgirl)

(website)

Veteran

My contribution to Sterling's 'choose your own adventure' June was to write down my outfits every day, and count the number of different items I wore. Including shoes and exterior garments but not tracking jewelry or bags, my number for June was 79.

79?!?!? At first I'm a bit taken aback by this number. I know that a lot of you would end up with a much lower number, and even I managed to get through 30x30 in April. June was a variable month as far as weather - July will probably be more consistently hot - but then most months here are variable. I made no attempt to repeat anything like I did in April; I just picked things as I would normally and then wrote them down.

So I find myself wondering, is 80-something items what I tend to want/need per season? If I multiplied it by four, that would be 300+ items total for the entire year, and even I don't have that many clothes.

I'm not sure what I've learned from this exercise, other than I have a lot of clothes and enjoy variety. I guess I did realize, looking at the list, that I strongly prefer separates, am picky about what shoes go with which outfits, and almost always want a third piece even if I don't wear it all day because of weather.

Dressing

14 replies

Latest reply was from Laura (rhubarbgirl)

Word Lily

Veteran

Or is that 80-something number pulling from two difference seasons, with the month's variable weather?

Definitely interesting.

Anonymous

Laura, you must have many wardrobe pieces that overlap seasons, so wouldn't need 80 different ones per season. I took an idea from Suz and change out the closet 6 times per years. That accommodates seasonal overlaps and winter holidays nicely. Several items stay for more than one change.

Just curious, did you count shoes in your count. I kept track through a few months but have not been up to actually coming up with a count. I'll bet it would be similar to yours.

carter

Veteran

Laura, I don't thnk 79 is over the top at all. I wore 57 items in June, but I wasn't working. Had I been dressing for work, I'm quite sure I would have been over or above your number. As for extrapolating to get an annual need for 300+ items, I struggle with this a bit myself. My assumption is that the vast majority of my clothes are 3 season items (either Sp/Su/Fa or Fa/Wi/Sp)...think many jeans, cotton sweaters, layering items like tanks, etc. Then, I have a much smaller grouping that's really only worn in either super hot or super cold weather (shorts/stand-alone tanks or chunky sweaters/blazers). Of course, I still have no idea what numbers make sense!

Did you count how many total outfits you wore during the month? How many work? How many casual?

Aida

Veteran

Laura I think it can be tough to judge some of these types of numbers for those us who live in climates where we can wear a lot of all-season weight clothing; there's just a lot of overlap between seasons, function-wise.

I just counted my worn items the same way you did for June. Ended up with 64, with a repeated/not repeated split of 24/40 (and I'm not sure I actually repeated a full outfit in the month, now that I look back at it; these covered a broad range of dressiness too, from work to BBQing to hiking). Most of that variation came at the start of the month, when the weather was cooler and I was able to wear my all-season items; I have also been needing to wear two outfits on some days, day and evening. But the past couple weeks have been unseasonably hot, and my hot weather items are much more limited so they are getting more repetition now.

FWIW I think my happy wardrobe spot is probably right around 300 if you're including shoes/bags. Closer to 225 otherwise.

Laura (rhubarbgirl)

(website)

Veteran

You guys are right that the weather variations probably mean that all of the items I wore wouldn't be worn in the same weather conditions. I didn't note down the temperature each day, although that would be an interesting exercise to do sometime. Of course, what's going on makes a difference too - if I've got a meeting somewhere I might wear more formal, warmer clothing even if it's hot outside.

Ok, thinking about this got me curious, so I just calculated some more numbers. If I added correctly, I wore four different dresses, eleven knit tops, six woven ones, nine different pairs of jeans, four pants that aren't jeans, three different shorts, three different skirts, nine cardigans and two non cardigan toppers, seven pairs of closed shoes and seven pairs of sandals. i didn't repeat any outfit exactly but I did wear the same outfit with different shoes a couple of times, and a couple of the dresses with different cardigans.

deb

Veteran

I just counted my items except bags and glasses and have 39. I did not count the days I wore my sleeveless mumus. Those days I did not leave the house and it was so darn hot.

carter

Veteran

I count 17 tops and 19 bottoms on your list. Is that right? This is the question I ran into on my Challenge recap yesterday. I was under the impression that we were "supposed" to have roughly twice as many tops as bottoms. Have you tracked long enough to know if June's numbers are typical for you? Thoughts on whether this means anything for your wardrobe planning/packing efforts?

Suz

(website)

Veteran

I haven't been counting this season, Laura, but now I wish I had been! I think the point about your climate is well taken. Joy is correct that I do sort of "mini-switches" about 6 times a year, but my main switches are for F/W and S/S. There is some (but not a lot) of crossover -- mainly denim. Anyway, I have about 50-60 items for spring/summer (depending how many jeans I allow myself -- and that depends entirely on weather.) And more for F/W -- my total now is about 130 not counting coats, gear, undies, etc.

So your number doesn't surprise me at all, really. I'd say if you were dressing for all possible weathers in June, then it's reasonable for someone who likes a fair bit of variety and gets that through clothing vs. switching out accessories. Did you count scarves, BTW? I didn't, in my counts.

Anonymous

I love these types of posts. I learn so much from other people!!

I don't think 79 is that many pieces (worn over the course of an entire month and adding in a third piece). I cannot say how many different pieces I wear in a given month. I know it is more than 30 pieces. I had to REALLY work on it when we were doing the 30 x 30. I found 30 pieces to be stifling. I did get really tired them after a while and wanted a change.

I like Carter's idea of continuing to track to see what is typical for you over the course of the year. That should really help you define your wardrobe. There is no magic number when it comes to wardrobes. Although I have been reading a lot of posts recently about minimalism, I found during our 30 x 30 challenge that minimalism (although nice) does not work for me. I need variety. I need color! The 30 x 30 challenge helped me to understand that. I stopped reading silly posts on minimalism. Why work toward something that would not make me happy.

To that point, yesterday I started to read a post by a woman that wanted all her possessions to fit into one backpack and one box that she could ship anywhere. I laughed and moved onto another post. My life is very different than hers and our goals are obviously different.

shedev

Veteran

Carter, I have about twice as many tops as bottoms total, but half are warm weather and half are for cold weather, so that for summer I have the same number of tops to bottoms in the season. I don't really think there is a right or wrong, It's just a preference and I like as much variety in bottoms as I get in tops.

Daria

Interesting. Assuming that you wear 4 pieces a day, each piece was worn 1.5 times approximately. Which is not too bad, given variable weather! I don't track, but my hunch is that I would end up with about 50.

Anonymous

Carter -- I probably have just slightly more tops than bottoms. I really like buying bottoms and I hate buying tops.

Anonymous

Well done for keeping track so diligently. I've never done this myself, but I have to agree with others who mention the overlap of seasons. You live in a varied climate area don't you? I think your numbers are justified in that case.

Laura (rhubarbgirl)

(website)

Veteran

I organize a lot of my life each year around the cross-quarters (the solstices, equinoxes, and the days halfway in-between each of them), including my clothing budget, and I try to spend some time near each cross-quarter day, if I haven't already done it recently, reorganizing my closet, pulling out/putting away unseasonable items, making notes on my shopping wishlist, etc. So I guess I'm already doing a bit of a mini-season update eight times a year.

One thing that occurred to me is that summer is the time where I wear the most different pairs of shoes - all my sandals, and whichever spring/fall shoes I need for cooler days and dressy occasions. 14 different pairs of shoes (and that's not counting workout sneakers) is a lot for a month. I don't think I'd wear that many different shoes in a spring or fall month, and I don't have as many boots as I do sandals, so I couldn't do it in winter.

Sterling, 30 pieces was way too small for me, and 79 was probably bigger than I really have to have - so a happy medium for me is probably somewhere in the 50-60 range. (Re number of possessions, when I was younger I made a point of only having enough stuff that it would all fit in my car (and I was cheating, really, because I still had a lot of things at my parents' house I would have hated to lose). Trying to do that now just sounds anxiety-provoking in the extreme. I'd get rid of everything if I had a good reason to, but in the meantime I like having things I like around me.)

Carter, I suspect I probably have a ratio of 3 to 2 as far as tops and bottoms - for me, I think 2 to 1 wouldn't be enough, but straight 1 to 1 would seem excessive (not to mention hard to find enough different pairs of pants/jeans).