#I eventually realized I was freaking out excessively and that ~magic~ was literally the answer

[my-wayward-son]

2 months on T-------------------> 7 months on T

I’m late with this post.  Again.  Because I’m doing really shitty.  Again.

First, let me address the obvious: yes, I’ve lost weight. (Well, if you wanna get technical, I weigh the exact same thing as when I started, which I probably shouldn’t).  But beyond that, I don’t want to talk about it.  That change is probably 25% due to testosterone and the tendency it has to aid in the development of lean muscle, and 75% due to other factors.

All the previous changes I’ve noted in these posts are still happening/happening more, such as still more body hair growing/thickening.  There’s really nothing new to report, except that I pass better when I have on glasses and teenage boy clothes (as opposed to professional clothes), but still get a lot of gender neutral and she/her designations mixed in with the he/hims.  

I had a dream last night about correcting my dad (his typical naming convention for me is Laura, I mean, Laur, she, I mean, Laur...) . So he’s trying when he’s in front of me, but it’s obvious he isn’t trying when he’s talking to my mom without me present.  I’m torn between being upset about it and letting it go.  My dad was diagnosed with Aspergers as an adult and he struggles with shifting his perspective.  This is something else I don’t want to talk about, but just know that my far-from-NT-yet-decidedly-allistic ass has a hard time reconciling it.

But anyhow, the transition is going great, and I have no reason to be upset about anything, but I’m upset about everything, and the rest is going under the cut because it’s going to be full of triggers (suicide and ED stuff).

For my whole life I never understood why anyone would want one of those dolls that you can customize to look exactly like you.  My thought was always, ‘what’s so special about me?  I kind of suck.’  I thought so little of myself and my live, even as a little kid, that I would rather pick the princess or the American Girl or whatever with the most interesting story and change myself to match.  Like I’d beg my mom for an outfit the same color as the character’s, or wear sunglasses with the lenses popped out, or only style my hair the same way as the character in order to adapt into that character.  

Of course all those phases were just that, phases.  They were highly tied to the media I consumed, and as I aged, that media changed.  So I was always editing myself to match my current obsession.  I never gave thought to what I was actually like, deep inside.  Like it didn’t matter what my actual personality was.  I hardly even thought about it until the end of high school, and then a series of traumas knocked me down a few pegs, and that sense of self didn’t come back to the surface until mid 2017.

In mid 2017, I went to a 2-week dance convention.  At that time I was living as female, had basically given up on the idea of transitioning, and was just trying to push through as a painfully shy 24-year-old who worked full time and danced part time with a local ballet company.  At the convention, I studied various styles of dance, realized I was extremely untrained in every field but ballet, and spent the entire thing on the verge of tears because I was with students over 10 years my junior in most of the classes.  It was an “all ages” program, but literally all the other adults were in professional level classes for all styles.  I was only in the professional level class for ballet.  I couldn’t wait for the convention to end.  I hated every second of it.  I had a chronic foot injury that made dancing painful (but not dangerous), but I’d always pushed through it because I loved it.  Now I could barely stand to go to class, even back with my regular company.  So I made arrangements to retire. 

I retired from professional dance in May 2018 and had foot surgery in June 2018.  I could dance again, if I wanted to, but I’m not ready yet.  Eventually I might go back as a recreational adult dancer, just taking class from time to time.  But I don’t know.  

I still love ballet, but as of a year ago, ballet was the one thing hanging over me that I hated.  I hated the obligation; I hated the way it tore up my body; I hated the way it made me exhausted and ate up all my spare time. However, I was damn productive.  I wrote so many fics and drew so many pictures, and I went to therapy at least every other week, and sometimes to PT.  I was at the studio approximately 20 hours a week, on top of working 40 hours a week.  But I guess I was so busy and tied to my obligations that I quite literally couldn’t fall apart.  

My uncle died (suicide, marking the 4th attempt and 2nd success in my family) and my granddad died (heart condition), so I had good reason to fall apart.  I was freaked out and sad for a while, but I was also fine.  I was a robot.  When I look back, I realize that the last time I was happy was prior to the 4th of July 2017.  I call that the “Wonder Woman Moment.”  I did a photo shoot for a ballet personal training/nutrition service that dressed me up in WW-esque dancewear.  We blasted Patty Smythe and had a ball.  Even though it was a really feminine thing, it was so much fun, and I had no worries.  It was July 1st 2017.  Before my uncle died, and before my granddad died and before I went to the dance convention.  That’s my last happy memory.

After unpacking some acute issues with grief and anxiety, my therapist started talking to me about my issues with gender ID.  By November 2017 I was thinking about transitioning (I had thought about it before, but never felt it was feasible).  By December, I’d decided it felt right.  I sought out a doctor in January 2018 and had my first appointment in February.  I told my mom on Superbowl Sunday.  Then a month later at my Oscar party, she basically washed her hands of me.

I love film crit and the Academy Awards almost as much as I love fanfiction and ballet and coffee and all the other good things.  I’ve been on the edge of my seat waiting for the 2019 noms to drop.  I know a few of them just from the grapevine, but I haven’t looked them up yet.  I’m still working from my early prediction spreadsheet, even though the actual noms are just a few clicks away.  I’m scared of the feelings that’s going to bring up.

One year ago, all I could think about was getting through the next 6 months and reaching a series of milestones: my company’s production of Alice in Wonderland.  Moving to a new apartment.  My company’s production of Water for Chocolate (an original contemporary ballet choreographed on me and 14 other dancers).  Starting testosterone.  Retiring from ballet.  Foot surgery.  I thought my life would be so much better.

And in a way, it is.  I have the confidence to do random shit, like walk into Autozone and talk to the workers about what is wrong with my car, then help them fix it.  A year ago, I would have panic attacks over things like that.  But a year ago, my mom loved me.  A year ago, I thought I’d have my current job forever.  A year ago, I thought once I got on T, my eating disorder behaviors would go away.

I’ve gained personal confidence, but lost so much else.  Lost my family.  Gained a new one, but still, I lost my relationship with my biological mother and father.  Lost my job satisfaction, which makes me worry that at some point I will have to interview for a new job and integrate with a new company, which is frightening in the extreme.  T has changed my body shape in the way I like, but it’s not magic.  I’m still afraid of eating, and stress doesn’t help.  I’ve also had health complications that add pressure and make me feel run down.  Some is my own damn fault (Hi, I’m Laur and I abuse OTC medications like a rebellious teenager, which is apparently not advisable when also on several prescriptions).  Some is a fluke.  But feeling like shit while also mentally feeling like shit has destroyed me.  I hate my life.  I hate everything.  I don’t see the value in anything.   

I know there’s a Spider-Man: Far from Home trailer out there.  I haven’t seen it.  I don’t know what to expect.  I want to see it.  But I also don’t want time to move forward.  I like the MCU as it is (I like it pre-Infinity War, actually, but nobody asked me, so I won’t belabor you with my opinion).

And that’s a good metaphor for my life right now.  It’s a mess.  I can’t picture anything far in the future, so the light from my proverbial headlights is dim and dull.  I’m afraid of moving forward, so my tires are spinning in place, kicking up mud and dust.   I’m incapable of shifting side to side, so when I do roll ahead a few inches, I hit every obstacle in the path.  If I just changed the lightbulbs, twiddled the steering wheel, took a breath and let myself move, I’d probably be fine.  But somehow that seems like the most impossible choice.  

I could slam the car into one of the cave walls, triggering a rockslide and killing myself.  If I did that, I know it would hurt a lot of people in my life, but it would also fulfill all of my hopes and dreams.   Peace.  Calmness.  Stillness.  Not having to deal with a world that insists on moving forward with the passage of time.  

The most compelling reason is that I can’t find a reason not to.  I wish I was an undergraduate student again, because I want to get a degree in philosophy.  I don’t know why living is so highly valued.  I can’t figure out what makes this “will to live” the correct way of thinking and the desire to die the wrong way of thinking.  Right and wrong are subjective.  They don’t exist, really.  There is not value behind things and thoughts and actions.  They just are.  What’s to say that a lack of serotonin or whatever in a depressed brain is really not normal?  The non-depressed brain may have an excess.  Normal is relative.  Averages don’t mean correct.  Just because most people in the class chose answer B doesn’t mean that it is the right answer to the question.  Just because most Americans are a little overweight doesn’t mean that that’s the healthiest body type.  

Sometimes I really want to try to get well and forge ahead and get my life together.  Sometimes I want to say fuck it and take all the pills in the house and lay down and drift away.  I can’t decide which is better because neither is better, they both are just choices.  I can’t use other people’s reasoning to back up either one, for they are slanted for reasons I cannot understand.  They have a bias toward life.  I have to choose what I really want most, and I just don’t know.  I truly don’t.  My wants and desires-the deep ones in the core of my being- have been so long ignored, given up for what a character would do, or what my mom would do, that as an adult, I hardly know how to access the decision-making skills that most children have already mastered.  I’m a fucking goldfish; when I’m upset, I’m only upset, and I’ve always been upset.  When I’m happy, I’m only happy and I’ve always been happy.  I don’t know how to take a step back and see both at the same time.  I can’t hold contradictory truths at once.  I’m not wise.  I’m set up to fail because there are cracks in my foundation.

As long as I continue to not decide, I don’t take action.  I’m stuck in a holding pattern of “I don’t know,” and “what’s going to get me through the next 5 minutes,” and “just fuck it all, it doesn’t matter.”  

I’ve never, ever, in my life imagined myself as an elderly person.  I’ve thought of myself as a middle-aged adult, but never past 40 or so.  Sometimes I see myself as a woman, sometimes as a man, sometimes an NB person.  But that’s not what matters.  I don’t see myself living to old age.  Mortality is comfort.  The fact that this life doesn’t go on forever is one thing that honestly makes it seem ok to keep living.  But by definition, it also makes it seem like a good choice to die when things go wrong.  Because I will in the end.  

I see my life as a project, and I’ve always had this dilemma with projects: if I make a mistake, what point is too ruined to salvage?  What factors make it more worthwhile to backtrack and fix the mistakes vs. just throwing it away.  Fixing the mistakes shoes dedication and perseverance, but it’s frustrating.  Hot.  Angry.  Uncomfortable.  Embarrassing to show youthful ineptitude to the world.  Throwing it away is quick.  Easy.  Zen.  Brings immediate cool relief with grace and style.  But it’s selfish.  So fucking selfish.  

If you’ve read this far, please proceed to pour water into your ears and shake vigorously.  This was not meant to be imprinted on your brain.  This is for me to sort out my thoughts, which are, and shall always be, unable to be ordered.

#laur talks #trans #suicide tw #mental health tw #philosophy #death tw #family issues #eating disorders tw #ed tw #maybe do not read below the cut

[j0ebay]

Spiraling Ch 4

Peter Parker x Stark!OC, platonic!Loki x Stark!OC

Warning(s): light swearing, jealous!peter, holy fluff

Word Count: 2241

A/N: IT’S UP I’M SO HAPPY! So, this basically takes place after infinity war assuming all the dead people come back. I’m really stoked this chapter is finally out so enjoy and feedback is deeply appreciated!! 💙💙

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add yourself to my taglist!!

chapter 3     chapter 5

“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams” -Dr Seuss

The night before school started for Geneva Stark was hectic to say the least. She paces around the lab with excessive questions like

“What if I’m not caught up enough on the curriculum and fail everything?”

“What do I do if everyone hates me?”

Tony lets out a heavy sigh “Those two questions alone can be answered with one sentence. You’re a Stark. You’re smart because the rest of your family is smart and nobody is gonna hate you cause you’re a Stark.”

Unfortunately, her angst didn’t go away. “But am I actually gonna be there as ‘Stark’ or am I going as ‘Starr’ cause I’m fine with either but I don’t wanna mess that up. And what if it freak out and use my abilities again?”

There’s a silence before Tony gulps and says “If you want to go as Stark, that’s fine with me and if you feel you’re starting to freak out, just take deep breaths and count to 10”

She inhales and exhales until her nerves settle. The two hear a loud thud, jolting their heads to the right to see a table come crashing down from the air. The two turn their heads back at each other and couldn’t help but laugh.

Unfortunately, that pep talk only helped a little bit as it runs through Geneva’s head at 1:00 in the morning. Turning to lay on her stomach, once again as Brooklyn Nine-Nine plays, softly on her TV, distracting her from all her problems. She flashes back to memories with Peter.

“Okay Gee. Fuck, marry, kill. Peralta, Jeffords aaaaaand” He pauses and scratches his chin, in pretend thought. She lets out a small giggle and throws a pillow at him.

“Boyle? Yeah let’s go with that. Peralta, Jeffords, Boyle.”

She lets out a long groan. Peter knows how much she hates Charles Boyle’s character.

“Umm,” She trails off and ends with another nervous giggle

“Fuck Jeffords, marry Peralta and kill Boyle?” He looks at her with wide eyes

“You wouldn’t marry Jeffords?” She shakes her head

“He seems really sweet and all but he’s already got a wife and kids and I can’t mess with that.”

Peter nods and turns his attention back to the TV. Geneva, however looked at him for a while longer, sat on her bedroom floor in the early stages of night. She knew he would have to leave soon and it made her worried sick. She hates seeing him all bruised and bloody, especially when she’s the one patching him up.

Geneva snaps out of her thoughts but holds onto the feeling of his curls on her neck whenever he hugs her. She remembers how it felt to be held close to him at night and wished for the same thing to happen again. Eventually she found it harder and harder to keep her eyes open.

She wakes up to her phone alarm blaring the intro to Iron Man by Black Sabbath and looks at her phone.

“Almost five hours, not bad” she mumbles to herself as she rolls out of bed. Trudging to the kitchen, she pulls open the fridge door, taking out the bag of bagels and the pitcher of iced tea.

“Damn you for being so loud” She silently cursed at the plastic bag, while putting the bagel in the toaster and pouring herself a glass of the caffeinated beverage.

“Well good morning to you too” She hears from the couch. Geneva jumps in surprise and sees Loki sitting, watching The Office and laughing.

“Yeah, sure, whatever” she mumbles “Why are you laughing?”

He just smirks and says “It’s just funny to see you rush around so early in the morning”. Needless to say, Loki got hit with a bagel.

Next part in Geneva’s new routine was makeup. Of course she knew what she was doing. Occasionally, she’d have to get some information or access to things out of people’s nephews or sons and the only way she really knew how to pull that off was to make herself look pretty and flirt like there’s no tomorrow. She does the works, a bit of concealer, some eyeshadow, a little bit on the eyebrows to even them out and next, mascara. This is a delicate process. One false step and she gets a whole lot of black on her eye. Gently, she brushes the product on her right eyelash. Success. Next, left. Right as she was almost done, there’s a loud bang on the door, causing her to jump and get the makeup all over her orbital bone. She hears laughing from the other side of the door as she screams

“LOKI I’M LITERALLY GONNA KILL YOU”

“You said she started today right?” Ned asks. Peter nodded, keeping his eye on the door. His hands were fidgeting with the string of his backpack. He was worried out of his mind.

‘What if she sees how overall nerds people consider us as? What if Ned outs my crush on her?’ Peter was snapped out of his thoughts by Flash walking by and loudly saying

“Awww is little Penis Parker waiting for his imaginary Geneva Stark? Face it, she isn’t real, nerd. And even if she was? She wouldn’t go for you.” while laughing. Peter’s phone buzzes

Geneva Stark✨ So where exactly are you guys? Happy just pulled in, I have my schedule on my phone and I wanna look like I know what I’m doing

“Believing in Geneva Stark is like believing in ghosts,” MJ butts in out of nowhere

“Some people don’t believe in her. The others are just fucking crazy”

Right on cue, Geneva walks through the door checking her phone to see what Peter had said.

Peter Parker🕷 Walk straight. Ned and I are by the lockers towards the left.

She instantly looks up and sees the two boys, waving at them and walking over.

“Holy loads of people. God, I do not miss public school” She says laughing.

“How have you guys been?” She excitedly asks while pulling them both into hugs.

After comparing schedules it turns out that Geneva and Peter have 6 out of 7 classes together and Ned and Geneva have the class that Peter doesn’t have with her, plus some others. All was well for the first few. The three stuck close together but next was chemistry. The problems being, Ned not being there, Peter’s web fluid drawer and chemistry being the first class Peter had with Flash.

“No one sits by me in this class so if you want to hang out with me you totally can.” He says to her, quietly.

Her eyebrows raise and the blush creeps on her cheeks

“Really?”

He nods and the two of them sit together and steal glances at each other the whole time.

During passing time, Gee goes into the bathroom to check her makeup and clean herself up. She looks at herself in the mirror trying to roll out her insecurities & imperfections by using the magic of makeup. She sees a girl with black, curly hair and black clothes approach to her left out of the corner of her eye. Geneva continues to touch up her makeup.

“Hey” says the other girl “This might be really weird for me to ask but, you’re Geneva Stark right?

Gee smiles and nods, asking “Yeah, why?”

The girl moves the hair from one side to the other

“Ah, well I kinda told this kid you didn’t exist”

There’s a pause between the two.

“Peter Parker?”

The two girls both look at each other and laugh. The girl holds her hand out

“I’m Michelle, most people call me MJ”

The rest of the day went by fairly smoothly and now, at the end of the day, Geneva stands by her locker, putting notebooks in her bag and waiting for Peter.

“Hey, Geneva can I talk to you?”

She turns around to see Ned behind her and smiles

“Yeah! Sure what’s going on?” He scratches the back of his neck

“You can’t tell Peter I told you any of this but, Gee, he-”

“Peter!” She quickly says after catching glimpse of the boy, cutting Ned off while quickly whispering

“We’ll talk about this later”

Ned nods as Peter approaches

“Hey, I’m still walking you home right?” He asks while looking down, trying to hide the blush creeping up on his cheeks.

“Y-yeah is that cool with you? I know you usually uh, how do I phrase this without spilling anything?” she asks while looking at Ned and then back at Peter.

“Oh! No, it’s fine he knows about the whole internship thing” Peter says once he catches onto what she was talking about.

“Oh, okay cool! I just, I thought that you did patrols and stuff after school ‘n whatever. But if you actually want to do homework like you talked about, I wouldn’t mind your company, if we’re being honest here. Plus,”

She says, pausing to put a hand on his shoulder and giving it a light squeeze.

“You could use a break from being a superhero, or Youtube guy, or whatever you wanna call it. Let the cops do their job for once” The three teenagers laugh and start to walk out of the school.

Eventually, Ned goes in a different direction leaving Peter and Geneva to walk the majority of the way to Stark Tower with each other, stopping to get churros of course.

“Hey what did you say that one asshole’s name was?”

“Who? Flash?”

“Oh! Yeah that guy. Was he there today?”

“Uh,” Peter gulps “Yeah, he was there today. W-why do you ask?”

She laughs

“I seriously doubt anyone in that school is dumb enough to come up with a nickname as stupid and cliché as ‘Penis Parker’ but, that’s just a personal opinion.”

As if he was summoned by the light mention of his name, Flash pulls up to the two in a car yelling

“Penis Parker! Who’s the pretty girl that’s walking shockingly close to you?”

Gee laughs and says

“Well, I stand corrected. I’m Geneva”

Flash’s eyes widen.

“G-Geneva S-Stark?”

She laughs even harder

“Yeah! And I guess you’re um,” she snaps her fingers like she’s trying to remember something.

“Flash? Flash Thompson? I think we have chemistry and PE together?” He cuts her off, somewhat shocked she doesn’t recognize him.

Her eyes widen in an attempt to mimic realization

“Oh yeah maybe we do!”

He laughs and says

“So what are you doing with a guy like Peter? You need a ride somewhere?”

She looks at Peter and then back at Flash

“No, no. Peter’s walking me home. Home being Stark Tower, of course and he’s got internship stuff to do. Right, Pete?”

She looks at Peter again, subtly intertwining her hand with his.

Peter feels the blush dusting his cheeks again

“Y-yeah, internship stuff”

Flash raises his eyebrows

“You sure, Geneva? I mean, you’re way too pretty to be hanging out with someone like Penis Parker over here.”

She lets out a small giggle and says

“Maybe. Once you think of a better name than ‘Penis Parker’. Then come talk to me.”

They approach Stark Tower as she continues

“This is our stop. Uh, bye Flash”

After getting inside the tower and into Gee’s room. The two were discussing homework and just general gossip about school.

“I think today went better than I expected” Geneva says, trying to make conversation.

“Cool” Peter replies, obviously deep in thought.

“I met MJ today” She continues, trying harder to get some reaction from him.

“That’s great” He responds, still looking at her floor.

She smirks and says

“I’m pregnant”. Peter doesn’t direct his gaze up but just says

“Mmmhmmm”.

She sighs, gets up and sits in front of him, putting her thumb & pointer fingers on his chin and tilts his head up to meet her gaze.

“Hey,” she says in a soft tone “What’s going on with you?”

His eyebrows knit together in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t give me that, Pete. Something’s up. Spill.”

“Stop reading my mind, Geneva” He quickly snaps back

Her eyebrows raise.

“I wasn’t reading your mind, dumbass. I literally told you I was pregnant and all you said was ‘mmmhmmm’. You didn’t even look up so there’s gotta be something wrong. If you don’t wanna talk about it, that’s completely fine with me but at least tell me please.”

He looks down, avoiding her gaze

“It’s just, I-uh, you’re not into Flash are you?”

Your eyebrows raise

“What?” she asks

“I mean, he was flirting with you kind of a lot a-and it just kinda pissed me off y’know? Cause you deserve so much better than some asshole like him.”

She lets go of his chin and looks away, smiling.

“You really think so, Pete?”

He nods

“I mean look at you! You’re smart. You’re funny. You’re absolutely gorgeous. You’re extremely caring and you put everyone’s needs before your own! What’s not to like about you?”

She lets out a small giggle with a hint of nerves and says a soft

“Thank you, Pete” She leans forward and gives a quick peck on his cheek before getting up and saying

“C’mon, let’s watch a movie or something”.

Peter sat in shock, rubbing the spot where her soft lips met his rosy cheeks. He turns around, sitting on her bed right next to her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“Netflix?”

TAGLIST

EVERYTHING: @og-baby-ob14 @were-all-gay-down-here @softiespidey @saturn-aka-six

SPIRALING: @upsidedownparker @baglebites @spidergirl192327 @theasexualbunny  @nerdofthehighestcalibre @james1730

#spiraling #spiraling fic #spiderman #peter parker x oc #peter parker #peter parker x stark!oc #new fic #new series #platonic!loki #platonic!loki x stark!oc #oc #original character fic #original character #chapter 4

[soldierstark]

She's Not You | TOM HOLLAND X READER

Description: In which the reader, in an effort to get over her crush on Tom, decides to set him up but for some reason none of the girls ever get a second date. Tom's problem is that the one girl he wants to go out with seems to be hell bent on setting him up with someone else.

Author's Note: I'm back hoes what's good? I'm pretty proud of how this turned out and I hope you liked reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Inspiration for this fic came from something I read a while ago and last night it popped into my mind for some reason so yea now there's this. Anyway, let me know what you think!

Word Count: 2219

FANFICTION MASTERLIST

“So?” I prodded Tom, dragging out the o’s as long as possible. We were in his dressing closet after a long day of filming as he took out his regular clothes at a snail’s pace. You’d think since he’s somewhat of an athlete he’s be a quick changer but unfortunately that wasn’t the case.

Tom took out a pair of jeans and threw them on a nearby chair. “So what?” he asked not looking at me.

I threw my head back with a groan, he knew exactly what I was going to ask him. It was the same question I always asked him every time I set him up with a new girl. Each week I’d find a girl who would go on a date with Tom, which wasn’t that much of a challenge, and each week he’d take the girl to dinner.

The only problem was that none of these girls ever got a second date. Not a single one and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why.  I like to think I know Tom pretty well so I’m always surprised when the girls I think he’ll really like never get a second date.

“How was your date with Quinn?” I asked, eager to hear what he thought of her. This is the same question I’d ask every week with another girl’s name. I was hoping that Tom would say he liked her and that he would be taking her out again but-

“It was fine,” Tom answered pulling out a t shirt and shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly.

I another groan of frustration escaped from my lips as I slammed my head against the wall repeatedly. Every week I got the same answer. The date was always fine, not good or bad, just fine. I ran my fingers through my (Y/H/C) hair exasperated. I didn’t think getting over Tom would be so difficult.

For the first few weeks I was in deep denial, I keep telling myself that these feeling were purely in the moment and would pass eventually. When that didn’t work, I told myself that it was just a crush that would go away once he got a girlfriend because then I’d be forced to get over him.

That’s why I started trying to set Tom up on dates. I was hoping since I knew him so well that I’d be able to find a good girl for him, that they’d hit it off, start dating, and that my idiotic crush that I had on my devilishly handsome co-star would just go away.

But bad luck always seemed to follow me around so of course nothing would go as planned.

“Just fine?” I asked Tom with a raised eyebrow, to tired and frustrated to hide the annoyance laced in my voice.

He turned away from the closet and walked over to his dresser, taking off the sweater he had on over the flannel he was wearing. The classic Peter Parker look. “It was fine (Y/N),” he repeated in the same monotonous tone he’d been using the entire conversation.

I threw my hand up in the air trying to release the irritation that was building up inside of me. “It can’t be just fine Tom I swear Quinn is like the perfect girl for you!” I argued with my voice steadily rising.

Tom scoffed and reached his hands up to start unbuttoning the flannel he had on. “Clearly you don’t know me as well as you think you do,” he retorted starting to sound irritated as well.

At this point I had reached my maximum level of frustration. For weeks I had been trying to set him up and my tolerance has dissipated. I grabbed both of Tom’s shoulders with as much force as I could and turned him around to face me.

As soon as his deep brown eyes met mine, I could feel my expression immediately soften and I suddenly forgot how to put coherent sentences together. Tom’s eyes were wide because I’d never been forceful with him before. It must’ve been a spur of the moment thing because once I got a look at his face I calmed down significantly.

That’s when I realized how close we were. I could see every speckle of different colored browns in his eyes and the eyelashes that framed them. His curly brown hair was extremely disheveled and a lone piece fell into his face. Tom’s pink lips parted slightly as he stared straight at me in surprise.

Once I gathered my thoughts I released him and took a large step backwards, clearing my throat to try and regain the composure I had before his face was so close to mine.  Tom still stood facing me but his eyes went back to their normal size along with the stone-cold expression he wore earlier.

I crossed my arms and returned his glare before speaking. “You and I both know that’s not true. We’ve seen each other basically every day of the week for over a year now Tom. I do know you well, people can’t spend as much time together as we do without becoming close.”

Tom’s expression softened temporarily because he knew I was right. The process of filming and promoting a movie is very extensive and takes a long time which is the reason co-stars tend to become really good friends or even date in some instances.

I’ve seen every side of him. The goofy side that likes to play pranks on set and often laughs while filming a serious scene. The side that struggles to keep a straight face during emotional scenes and the side that’s serious and stays up till 3 am memorizing his lines for the next day. There’s the side that has mini-freak-outs over his newfound stardom and the side that handles the fame with ease.

I’ve always understood Tom, the way his mind works and the way he processes thoughts and makes decisions. I could predict his next move and read his mind with a single look, which is why I find it so strange that I can’t figure out why Tom kept turning down these really great girls.

This was the side of Tom that he never showed me, or anyone for that matter because he’s a genuinely sweet and happy guy. This side was cold, distant, and expressionless.  It was the one side I couldn’t stand.

“Quinn is perfect for you! She’s hilarious and beautiful. She wants to be a professional ballet dancer and she’s slightly awkward like you are but not afraid to try new things. Quinn is really nice, Jacob and Zendaya both really like her. Hell Tom, I do too, that’s why I set her up with you in the first place because I want you to be happy and I think she’ll do that for you!” I cried while stuffing my jealousy back down my throat.

Quinn was all of these things and any guy would be lucky to have her. I have many reasons to hate her but I just can’t because she’s such a kind person. It made me sick to my stomach thinking about it.

“Alright fine!” Tom shouted back. “Quinn is amazing and wonderful and she might literally be the nicest person I’ve ever met. She’s pretty, down to earth, and not afraid of mice or roller coasters. She’s literally the perfect girl!”

I blinked away tears that had begun to form during his little rant. I could feel my anger quickly dissolve into jealousy and heartbreak as I listened to him talk about Quinn like she was goddess. If you took one look at me, you could practically see envy leaking through every crack and flaw I had.

Because unlike Quinn, I wasn’t the perfect girl. Even though I knew the chances of Tom talking about me the way he talked about Quinn were very slim, I still pretended that I was as important to him as he is to me.

“Then why won’t you go out with her?” I sighed, not having the energy or the heart to yell anymore.

Tom ran his fingers through his already disheveled hair and turned back around towards his closet with a heavy sigh. “God (Y/N)… what are you doing to me?” he mumbled to the air in front of him. I pretended like I hadn’t heard him, but I did, every word and it only gave me more questions that I wanted answers too.

After a few silent beats passed, he broke the silence. “(Y/N) I- I just… it’s...just…you… why do you have to make this so dam difficult?” Tom moaned, his accent becoming very prominent.

I stepped forward, gaining some newfound courage. “I’m not the one making this difficult Tom, you are. So please just make this easier for the both of us and give me a straight answer this time,” I demanded, surprised at the steadiness of my voice.

I was done feeling do hopeless and vulnerable around him. He made me feel strong and self-assured but he was also the one person who could tear me down with a single word.  It was kind of ironic how the person in my life that made me stronger could also be my biggest weakness.

“Because!” he paused to run a hand through his hair yet again, an unfortunate habit he possessed that came out when he was nervous.

“Because…” I urged slowly, wanting an answer.

Tom let out a defeated huff and gripped his closet door tightly. His knuckles began to turn ghostly white from the amount of pressure he had on his grip. “Because she’s not you,” he whispered, looking up at me for a split second before he slammed the door shut and walked out the room.

I stood there frozen for moment, trying to register what he said. A part of me wanted to run up to Tom and kiss him senseless, but the bigger part of me wanted to go up to him and yell because he walked off. I chose to do the latter.

“Thomas Holland!” I yelled stalking towards him. He stopped with one foot in front of the other as I grabbed his shoulder and turned him around for the second time that day. His face was really close to mine but this time I was unfazed. “Y-You can’t… You can’t just do that!”

“Do what?” he asked causally shrugging his shoulders

“Y-You can’t just say something like that and walk away. This isn’t some movie where everything just magically falls into place,” I ranted with the excessive use of hand gestures. “You’re supposed to like Quinn! She’s perfect you even said so yourself. I ju-“

“What made you think that I want perfect,” Tom interrupted me. “Did you ever think that I don’t want perfect? That I want something real? (Y/N), did you ever wonder why I turned down every single girl you set me up with?”

“Why,” I whispered trying to keep a steady voice.

“Because of you… (Y/N). On every single date the only person on my mind was you. Trust me when I say that I’ve tried to get over you but I just can’t seem to do it. I’ve found myself comparing every girl I was with to you, and everything they I do I think about how you could do it ten times better. And to be honest, none of them hold a candle to you. Not even Quinn,” he whispered, although I didn’t have to listen closely to hear him because we were so close.

I felt his hot, jagged breath on my skin as he spoke. I shivered involuntarily from where his breathe tickled my neck. “I don’t want perfect (Y/N),” Tom continued. “I want someone who’s afraid to try new things because she over thinks everything and is the complete opposite of a ballet dancer.  I want someone who’s a little bossy sometimes and is insecure so I can remind her everyday how breath-taking she is. I want you.”

“I-“I stopped myself knowing that anything I’d say from this point would be babbling nonsense. Normally this would be the point of the movie were I would grab Tom and kiss him as if my life depended on it but like I said before, this isn’t a movie. “Are you sure?” I asked quirking an eyebrow.

His chest rumbled from laughter and a smile broke out on his face. Tom pulled me closer by the waist and in one quick motion he was kissing me. It only took a moment for me to melt into the kiss and return it with just as much intensity.

One of my arms slid around his neck while the other weaved itself into his hair, pulling his face closer to mine. What I was feeling at that moment was indescribable. It felt like the big drop of a roller coaster or the adrenaline rush you get when you do something you’re not supposed to.

Tom pulled away all too soon and grinned at me cheekily. “If I wasn’t sure before I sure am now,” he said playfully, wiggling his eyebrows.

All I did was laugh and pull him down for another kiss. And for the first time, ever in my life, I was fine with not being perfect.

 Tagged

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#peter parker x reader #peter parker #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker fic #peter parker imagine #tom Holland x reader #tom holland #tom Holland fanfiction #tom Holland fic #spiderman: homecoming #spiderman #spider-man: homecoming #spiderman fanfiction #off #fanfiction

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My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money

Whenever I’m asked about my clothes, I joke that I wear basically the same thing every day. But it turns out that even after years of saying that (and sharing that I had just one bra for many years on the blog), a whole bunch of people freaked out when they saw the hanging bar in my closet on Instagram recently. I got FLOODED with DMs about my sparse mostly black wardrobe. One person even said that seeing my closet was, and I quote: “the wildest thing they’ve seen on the internet in 2018.” That’s quite the statement considering 2018 also gave us Gritty.

To clarify I don’t actually wear the same items of clothing every day on repeat – I just have a fairly small number of clothes that I love and wear all the time – all of which are pretty similar in color/style/silhouette – which I lovingly call “my uniform.” Think Steve Jobs or Michael Kors… except with fewer turtlenecks and less of that billionaire vibe.

I’m not doing laundry any more frequently than anyone else (we do it once a week around here, which I think is pretty average), so it’s just about having enough outfits that you love to get you from laundry day to laundry day (whether they need to be warm, or dressy, or whatever works for your life) without having a ton of extra stuff that’s in the way of the things that you actually wear.

So if you’re tired of drawers and closets that are overflowing, or you love the idea of a more minimal wardrobe full of things you love – and less money spent on clothing excess – then this post is for you. There are definitely people with even fewer clothes, and folks who have other methods for paring down, but I’m just gonna lay out what works for me. And if you’re a wardrobe maximalist who loves having tons of clothes and a bunch of different looks and you ADORE your extensive wardrobe, then this post is not for you (do whatever works for you, boo! I’m ALL FOR THAT!).

Ok, so my plan is just to take you through my closet and all of my drawers, talk you through my process/formula for keeping my wardrobe minimal, and show you how I can create a bunch of outfits (from casual to dressy and from warm weather to cold weather) from a pretty pared down number of tops and bottoms that I lovingly refer to as: “my uniform.”

  And it bears mentioning that even if you have a completely different dress code for your profession, or if you hate the way I dress and the colors/styles/silhouettes that I wear, this is a formula. So you can plug in your favorite silhouettes and colors and everything else that YOU love to make this work for you!

Closet Video Tour

Let’s kick this puppy off with a video tour. I know you have questions (I vividly remember all those DMs I got on Instagram), but pictures are worth 1,000 words, and a video is worth 1,000 pictures. So I’m walking you through my closet and opening all of my drawers (and John’s – haha!) to show you exactly what I have and how I store it along with sharing a little bit more about why/how it works for me. Note: if you can’t see the video below and are reading this post in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the original post to see it. We also uploaded it here on YouTube.

Update: Got a few questions about where my painting clothes are since you saw John’s in the video, but I have a very *strange* method that we’ve actually shared in the archives. I paint with my PJs on inside out. You can see my tags sticking out in all their glory in this old post from 2011. Never said I was normal, guys!

Ok, so now that you’ve seen where everything is, and heard me talk a little bit about my uniform, let’s dive a little deeper. I’m just gonna answer things Q&A style for you below.

How Does A “Uniform” Work?

I’m not talking about a school uniform where your closet is filled with dozens of identical skirts and polos here, but it is almost like finding your own personal “dress code” – meaning the cuts, colors, and styles that you love the most and feel great in. Because if you find something that works, it makes sense that it’s going to be the thing that you’ll reach for and wear a whole lot more than everything else. So why not take a second to figure out why it works and why you love it so much so you can love every last item in your closet that much?! Sounds good, right?

That’s the core idea behind my “uniform” – just figuring out what you love and stopping the vicious cycle of buying other things to stay “on trend” or for the sake of “variety” or to “look different” and then realizing months later that you never wear them because they don’t make you feel as good or you don’t like the cut or the color nearly as much as your tried and true favorites. And the amazing thing is that once you truly understand why you like what you like, you can stand in a store or the dressing room and eliminate clothing that doesn’t fit within that criteria without much effort or thought! You can literally stop the cycle of buying yet another thing that you won’t really love AND you can keep your closet and drawers from filling up with unnecessary extras. Plus you get to keep a little more cash in your wallet.

I don’t think there’s just one magic wardrobe number that works for everyone (someone who goes to the gym every day or lives on a farm or does a team sport may have a need for more laundry/clothing than someone who doesn’t) but I’ll show you my “uniforms” in a second, just to serve as an example. Oh and I say “uniforms” with an S because there can be different ones for different seasons and occasions, like casual weekend uniforms, workout uniforms, work uniforms, etc. And the key is just to figure out how many of those you actually need and not have double or triple that amount all squeezed into your drawers and falling all over the floor of your closet. And did I mention you can save that money? I did? Ok, good. Just making sure.

So don’t tell yourself that just because you work in an office and have to dress up, or because you live in a colder climate that you can’t have a simpler closet. It’s not true!! I dressed myself with this method all the way back in NYC when I had an office job that necessitated me dressing up all the time. And this was in a colder climate where I walked city streets and stood on frigid subway platforms – so I definitely needed all the layering I could get. Why does it still work, even if you have to dress up or add a coat and a scarf and a hat? Because in the end, this is all math, GLORIOUS MATH!

What Exact Items Are In My “Uniform”?

If you’ve followed us for any amount of time, you probably already know my uniform. Black v-neck tops. Jeans. Black scoop neck tanks. Denim shorts. Blazers. Leather or suede jackets. More blazers. And a black dress or two to round things out. It has become kind of a joke, because you guys keep seeing me in a blazer at basically every speaking event or book signing. But here’s the thing: it’s not an accident. Because it’s the way I dress. It has become my uniform for those sorts of things – because I like the way they feel and look on me. And I actually reach for them in my closet and wear them (yesssssss) so I know they don’t sit around wasting space. And therefore I love these items. They work hard for me, make me feel good, and earn their space in my closet.

Six years of living in New York City instilled my love of black, and while I do branch out occasionally (I’ve been known to get wild and throw some navy or olive green in here and there) I’ve learned over the years that when I deviate and buy something in a brighter color, I rarely end up wearing it regularly because – well – I always have other options in my closet that I like better. And guess what? They’re black. It was something I had to realize over time, but ever since I embraced my love of black and stopped trying to make myself wear other colors that I ultimately didn’t wear because I didn’t like them as much (vicious cycle, much?!), two things have happened: 1) I feel GOOD in my clothes. Like all the time. There’s zero clothing drama for me when I get dressed. 2) I’ve stopped wasting money and time buying items I’ll probably just return or donate later. It’s freeing!

top: Old Navy but no longer sold / jeans / heels

I’ve also learned over the years that most of my favorite tops are a little more fitted than the average loose fitting cut, because it helps my 5’2″ body look a little less amorphous – like I’m wearing a potato sack. This realization makes it easy to pass over anything with a drapey look in the store – no matter how glamorous it looks on the mannequin or some long torsoed girl in the fitting room.

Same thing with shorts. I buy short shorts, because I’m petite and when I have tried buying longer shorts, they make me look frumpy, like I’m going golfing or something. And then I’d give those shorts the stink eye for wasting space in my drawer and eventually donate them. But the realization that shorter shorts work better for my body has been freeing. I no longer waste time or money buying longer shorts “just for variety” or to have “something different” because they don’t look as good on me – so duh, of course I won’t wear them as much and they’ll eventually end up in the donate pile!

Same thing with a certain cut of jeans or something. It’s easy to fall for the marketing that says “this bellbottom highwater pant that ends at your shin is the new cool thing!” but I gotta tell ya… it might not be something you actually like or feel good in. So I’m not saying blanketly that you should avoid all trends, but before you go to the store, just look through your clothes and see what you don’t wear – then figure out why. If you pull out one pair of jeans with a different cut that you bought “just to be different” but you never wear them because you don’t like how they look as much as every other pair you have, it’s a whole lot easier to dodge the urge to do that very same thing in the dressing room the next time around.

So let’s say you get to this point and you’re like “uh, but all of your clothes are black. That is so boring. I would die.” Yes, my clothes are mostly black. But this works with all the colors of the rainbow (and all styles and all body types). If you pull out your very favorite outfits from your closet – just the things you actually wear and love – and lay them on the bed, I’m betting they might have some things in common. Even if there are a bunch of different colored items on the bed. I would bet there are still some colors that come up more because you love how you look and feel in them. And you might also notice some trends with cut/silhouette, because chances are if a certain cut of jeans makes you feel your best, it may also be your favorite cut of dress pants. And you might have a few blazers or jackets with similar shapes that hit your body at just the right spot or something. Things are your favorite for a reason, right!?

I’m also a big fan of layering. It’s how I made it work in NYC while working in an agency where I had to get dressed up without even having a dresser in my apartment. That’s right, I had one small and narrow closet and that was it. So I taught myself to layer things. Five shirts that can be layered under five different jackets or blazers = 25 different combinations!!! I mean, how awesome is that math?! And if you add a few different pairs of shoes and some fun jewelry to switch out too, it’s a whole lot of looks without having a whole lot of things. Did I just have five of each thing? No, that would probably feel a little tight – but I probably had under 10 tops that I layered with maybe 7 blazers/jackets/cardigans and then had maybe 5 options for bottoms (jeans if I didn’t have to present that day, and black pants if I did).

The funny thing is that my current “typical uniform” of a black top + denim bottom is that it replicates exactly what I did in NYC when I worked in an office – it’s just a little less dressy. So I can easily transition between summer and winter just by layering – which is exactly what I did back then. When it gets cold I just swap my denim shorts or skirt for skinny jeans, and I throw a jacket right over my black summer tank (maybe a black leather jacket or a crisp blazer or an olive green faux suede jacket). It can even go from casual to somewhat-dressy (like a date night) because I can toss on some cute heels and big earrings and I’m ready to go!

jeans / black tank / green faux suede jacket / leopard heels

How To Pare Down Your Closet

Now I’m not in a position to tell you what YOUR uniform should look like, but one super easy tip for figuring yours out is to do what I touched on a little earlier in this section. Just pull all of your very favorite outfits out – the ones you love and wear all the time – and lay them on your bed.  Then count them. You might literally have enough right there to take you from laundry day to laundry day. If so: congrats! That is your uniform! Right there on the bed! The rest is excess and it can be shoved into a big tupperware bin or two and stashed in the attic or garage. Just see if you even need those items at all. This is the training wheels method – if you need something you can take it back out – but if you don’t miss it and this helps to show you that it’s just dead weight in your closet or your drawers, it feels amazing to consign or donate that extra fluff and just have a wardrobe you LOVE and actually wear!

Ok, but say you only have like five outfits on the bed and you need more than that to get you from laundry day to laundry day. The next step would be to try to identify the common threads, because you need more clothes that make you feel this way. Is it a certain color or color family that you notice when you stare at the winning clothes on the bed? Maybe it’s four favorite colors and tones instead of just one like me? Is it a certain cut? Maybe a fitted silhouette in general or a more voluminous skirt if you feel your best in something fun and swingy? Do a bunch of your favorite outfits follow the same “formula” – maybe a wrap dress with a cardigan and a cute colorful flat? Try to boil things down as much as you can so you have as much direction as you can moving forward. Try not to just say “I like boho stuff” or “anything at Anne Taylor!” because that won’t help you as much as a more detailed set of parameters will.

Calculating Your Closet Needs

Again, this isn’t about hitting a certain fixed number or quota in my closet, but I do find that thinking about this in numbers is helpful – especially just in illustrating why a lot of us have too many pieces in our closets and drawers. The basic idea is to have enough items to get you from one laundry day to the next, with a few – but not too many – extras (you know, in case you spill OJ down your shirt or you run a bit behind on washing a load).

We do laundry about once per week in our household, so I have 10 “bottoms” in my wardrobe to cover those 7 days: 4 pairs of jeans, 4 pairs of shorts, 1 skirt, and 1 pair of yoga pants (I also have a few dresses for dressier occasions). And no, I’m not wearing shorts in the winter to get from laundry day to laundry day – I just don’t wash my denim after each wear because I’m a rule follower and it’s not recommended (don’t torture your jeans, guys!). So 4 pairs of jeans or 4 pairs of denim shorts easily last me 7 days if I wear a few of them twice before tossing them into the hamper. Nobody has ever told me that I smell, and children are VERY honest, so I feel good about this.

Ok, so now forget about me and think about all the different uniforms YOU might need for your lifestyle, whatever that may be – like for work or exercising – and actually add up in your head how many of those outfits you’ll need to get you through to your next laundry day. Keep that number in mind. Next, peek into your closet and drawers and just look at the actual number of things you have. If you count 25 t-shirts and tanks for summer, I’d guess that you probably wear your favorite 10-ish tops on repeat from laundry day to laundry day, and the other 15 items stay shoved wherever they always live, just taking up space because you have so many other items that you like more. If that is the case – just keep your 10 favorites and put the rest into the tupperware bin. You can do this. It’s not permanent. It’s just to see if you really do miss them or need them.

The same logic applies to any part of your uniform. Why own 6 bathing suits if you only rotate between the 2 that you like best?! John recently realized he had 8 running shirts in his drawer but was only wearing 3 each week, washing them, and repeating that. This realization not only helped him get rid of those space-stealing extras (he still kept a couple back-ups) but it reminded him that he doesn’t need to buy any more when he’s standing there in the store staring at them. Win-win.

And for anyone who worries that just having a small number of favorite staples (aka: a uniform) might make you look like you’re wearing the exact same thing every day – it definitely doesn’t have to. Even with my very limited palette, I put together this little visual to show you how easy it is to layer things and change accessories to really switch things up. YAY PERMUTATIONS! I TOLD YOU THIS WAS MATH!

So those are some of the combinations I can make out of a few of my favorite items in my closet. Note that there are 10 different outfits in the image above – and they’re all made from just 4 different tops, 6 bottoms, and 2 dresses (the patterned skirt-looking-thing is a dress that feels too crazy for me, so I layer a tank over it to make it look like a skirt).

I love this demonstration because at first thought you might say… “Ok so if I want to have 10 work outfits and 7 causal outfits to get me from laundry day to laundry day comfortably with some wiggle room, that means I need 17 bottoms and 17 tops.” But wait! That’s bad math! Think about how you rewear your denim and maybe even a blazer if you don’t feel like it got too dirty – and then think about how many combo moves you can make by layering things in different ways! Remember that the 10 outfits above are made from just 12 pieces – not the 20+ you might initially think would be needed if you just assumed you’d need different bottoms and tops every single day.

Am I rewearing those black tanks between washes? Nope! So it does bear mentioning that I love those so much, and I wear them so often, that I have three of them. They’re inexpensive and so versatile and they stay looking crisp and fresh that way. So occasionally purchasing multiples of something that you wear a ton can be an awesome way to keep it looking nice long-term and allow yourself to wear it in a few different ways throughout the week.

A Few Other Reasons We Buy Stuff We Don’t Wear

A big part of my method is just being honest with myself about what I actually wear day in and day out, and then being willing to let go of the rest of the stuff that’s taking up space. I know a lot of us hold onto clothes that we think that we’ll wear for some future hypothetical occasion or circumstance (“aspirational wardrobe” is what I call it – it’s when you buy some item for some imaginary very glamorous event but you never actually wear it because this is real life and not the Simms, so you don’t actually go to those types of events). So sometimes that’s what gets us into this overcrowded closet situation.

It also might be a good deal that tips the scales for you (“ooh these are so cheap, I can’t say no! I’ve gotta have them even though I have 15 shirts I like better BECAUSE THESE ARE TWO DOLLARS!”). Or it could be this idea that buying a certain thing will make you more stylish or pulled together (but then you never actually wear it because it turns out you wear/love super comfy clothes and that item that looks more pulled together is way less comfy than your soft and cozy favorites, so…).

What About That One Super Colorful Thing In Your Closet?

See this colorful dress? I know, it’s kind of hilarious next to everything else in my closet. But it fills a need, and I wear it often enough to warrant it staying. Why do I have it? Well, it’s kind of like my one fake uniform. I like how I look and feel in black, but every few months or so we need to give someone a bio picture or get dressed up for a photoshoot (like for our furniture line for example) and this dress comes with me. All black in a picture can look like a big dark hole amongst an otherwise fun and colorful shot, so I literally bought this dress from J. Crew Outlet a few years ago just for photos. Life is weird, huh?!

But we might all have strange wardrobe guidelines. Mine might be weirder than yours, but I’m sharing this because the instinct might be to tell yourself “hey I have this weird part of my life and I need some outfits for that, so I should probably grab like 10” – but in reality, I don’t need 10 colorful “fake uniforms” – one does the trick. So I have one.

Shopping Tip: Protect Your Closet GPA

Here’s another way to think about paring down your closet: you want to maintain a high closet GPA (grade point average). This is how I’ve been thinking about my closet for YEARS, and it really helps me avoid impulse purchases. Imagine giving every item of clothing that you already own a grade that’s based on how much you like it AND actually wear it. The things you wear all the time and love are As. Wahoo – working towards that perfect 4.0 average.

But that random yellow sweater you picked up on a whim or because it was on sale, and have only worn once… well that stinker is closer to D or F territory. IT IS BRINGING DOWN YOUR ENTIRE CLOSET’S GPA. You want your closet to be filled with your very favorite and most wearable items – so when you’re out shopping, think to yourself “is this new shirt better than all the other shirts I already have, so it’ll bring up my average – or do I love everything I have more than this shirt? Because if the latter is the case, that bad boy is gonna bring down your GPA – and ain’t nobody got time for that.

I think in general we tend to overcomplicate our clothing needs – and stores are constantly telling us we need something new, different, and trendy in order to look better or live a happier life or whatever story they’re trying to tell you when you see those people dashing across the street and hailing a cab in the commercials. Once I got really really happy with my clothes (they make me feel good! I love everything in my closet!) that’s like armor against all of those temptations to buy the newest and trendiest clothing and accessories.

You Don’t Have To Be Minimal Everywhere

I’m not a minimalist in every stretch of the word, though! So here’s a caveat to help you embrace whatever items you might actually not want to pare down at all. This minimal wardrobe of mine is about making my life easier and making me happy – it’s not about deprivation! AT ALL! So take my earrings for example. I probably have over 20 pairs of big fun earrings along with some classic studs and other jewelry like a few bracelets, a watch, a few necklaces.

That might be a lot to you!! You might not even have one pair of big dangly earrings. But for me, they’re part of my uniform – just like blazers and black tanks. So I embrace the fact that I have this many. I’m totally cool with it, and I don’t beat myself up. Incidentally, I think my love of them grew in NYC when I had no space for lots of clothes but I could always fit a few more earrings in my tiny apartment! Ha!

Does Owning Less Cause More Wear?

I got a lot of questions about how my clothes hold up if I’m wearing and washing each item more often. I see how someone could jump to that conclusion, but… drumroll please… I’m just washing things once a week like everyone else. Everything you wear, you launder it every 7 days or so, on average, right? And you probably wear your favorite 10 or so outfits and then you launder them. Well same for me! I just don’t have that extra stuff hanging between each item or shoved into the back of the drawer.

Since I have fewer items, I’m encouraged to take better care of them. Things aren’t getting shoved or crammed onto a rod or into a drawer, and they’re not sitting crumpled somewhere because I don’t have space. I hesitate to say they’re “precious” (I do most of my shopping at places like Old Navy and Target) but when I have fewer backup items, I’m more inclined to take the time to get stains out, fix missing buttons, or follow the proper care instructions with the things I do own.

tank / jeans / fitbit 

In fact, I am SUPER NICE to my stuff because my uniforms work hard for me. I like to wash everything in cold water (helps to lock in colors/black), I wash denim and black things inside out (helps with fading), and I always do a gentle wash and a tumble dry low (nothing too harsh for my babies, I mean clothes). I also always try to put laundry away right after it’s done, so I’m not losing track of piles of clothes and then rewashing them because I’m not sure if they’re clean or dirty – which is definitely something that my friends with more clothes say happens to them.

I have blazers and jackets and tops and jeans that I’ve owned for three or even over five years… so it’s not like I’m rebuying this “minimal wardrobe” every season or even every year. Most of my staples work for at least a few years, although I do buy a few multiples of inexpensive items (like my black tanks) so they stay looking fresher for longer.

How I Combine My Outfits

This is pretty self-explanatory, so I’m not gonna linger on it too much (and your closet favorites might look completely different than mine do), but seeing how I switch out shoes and jewelry and purses or some other thing below might just help the whole “permutations” thing click into place in your head, so here we go…

These are examples of what I might wear on a date night or to a work meeting or something. You can see the “uniform” in total effect here. Both outfits are skinny pants + a fitted tank + a jacket (blazer on the right, leather jacket on the left). I like to play around with shoes and jewelry, so that helps to add a little something extra for me, and I’m good to go.

Left: jeans / heels / similar top / leather jacket

Right: jeans / shoes / striped tank / blazer / necklace / watch

This is another example of what I might wear if I want to be slightly dressier for a holiday gathering or some sort of dinner out or party or something. Once again it’s skinnies on the bottom, a fitted top, and some big earrings and fun shoes. I like a simple black clutch too (hi, have you met me? I like simple black accessories). One funny thing I didn’t even realize until I took these photos is that I also like nude and leopard in my shoes along with black.

Left: jeans / heels / top / black clutch / earrings

Right: jeans / leopard flats / top / green jacket / similar earrings / black clutch

This is an example of what I might wear in the summer to a super casual something (on the right) and a slightly less casual something else (on the left). Oh and to everyone who asked what I walk in (because I’ve been doing these awesome long walks over lunch or after bedtime) and the answer is: whatever outfit I wear that day + sneakers or even flip flops in the summer. I can’t stress how chill these walks are (there’s no sweatband and sprinting, these are delightful strolls) so as long as I have deodorant on, I’m good.

Left: skirt / similar shoes / striped tank / clutch / earrings

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / similar earrings /similar sunglasses

Here are some more summer casual “uniforms” I wear all the time. It may shock you to learn that my everyday purse is this tan crossbody bag (WHAT, IT’S NOT BLACK?!?!), but the reason I love it is because I’m almost always wearing black, so I like that it adds something interesting with another color and goes with everything.

Left: shorts / sandals / striped tank /similar sunglasses

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / earrings / similar purse /similar sunglasses

If I want to dress up a little for some reason (or no reason – I once wore the long black dress on the right to an ice cream parlor with the kids) these might be what I wear. I mentioned before that the left outfit looks like it’s made up of a patterned skirt and a tank but it’s actually a dress that feels way too crazy to me when it’s worn that way but I LOVE it with a black tank layered over it. Once again I add cute shoes and some big earrings and either of these outfits have me out the door in minutes. Isn’t it funny that they have the same silhouette too? Creature of habit right here ;)

Left: dress / tank / similar shoes / similar earrings

Right: dress / leopard flats / earrings / similar purse / similar sunglasses

Got Any Tips For Minimizing Kids Clothing?

There are lots of tricks for determining what you or your kids actually wear, versus what you think you wear. Like turning all of the hangers in one direction and then turning them around once an item is worn. The theory is that after a couple of weeks or months you can see exactly what didn’t get touched. You can also move everything to one side of your hanging rod and move it back once it has been worn. Any version of that works well for hanging clothes, but lots of us – especially kids – store big chunks of their wardrobe in drawers. BUT I HAVE A SOLUTION!

You just have to do one simple thing each week for a few weeks in a row. Ready for it? Just look in their drawers and at their hanging bar on laundry day. That means the things they love most and have already worn are all in the hamper, so they’ve sort of naturally selected their favorites for you – but instead of putting them on the bed they’re all nicely coralled in the hamper.

So with their favorites pulled out of the fray, go through their drawers and their hanging bar and take note of what’s left. If you do this for a few weeks in a row, you’ll start to notice a theme. Certain items never leave the drawer. A few things might always get shoved in the back of the closet or balled up on the floor. VOILA – there is your excess! Put that in a tupperware bin and see if you ever even need it again! And if you don’t, gleefully donate or consign it. And then remember what those “space wasters” were when you’re standing in the store about to buy another outfit for them – just to be sure you’re not repeating some pattern of thinking they’ll wear some item when in actuality they never do.

Whew. Ok, that’s 5,688 words and I’m feeling ready to call this turkey of a post done. I hope this was helpful in some way if you’re looking for ways to simplify the clothing situation in your house.

Psst – If you’re looking for more on this subject, here’s an old post I wrote about my clothing, here’s an awesome book called Simplicity Parenting that talks about decision fatigue and simplifying our homes in general (it totally changed my life and I’ve read it 3 times), and here’s a podcast we did with an amazing man named Matt who worked on the show Hoarders, and has some pretty enlightening and kind things to say about paring down. Also Katie Bower did a post about her one-rack wardrobe yesterday, which was a fun read too!

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My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money

Whenever I’m asked about my clothes, I joke that I wear basically the same thing every day. But it turns out that even after years of saying that (and sharing that I had just one bra for many years on the blog), a whole bunch of people freaked out when they saw the hanging bar in my closet on Instagram recently. I got FLOODED with DMs about my sparse mostly black wardrobe. One person even said that seeing my closet was, and I quote: “the wildest thing they’ve seen on the internet in 2018.” That’s quite the statement considering 2018 also gave us Gritty.

To clarify I don’t actually wear the same items of clothing every day on repeat – I just have a fairly small number of clothes that I love and wear all the time – all of which are pretty similar in color/style/silhouette – which I lovingly call “my uniform.” Think Steve Jobs or Michael Kors… except with fewer turtlenecks and less of that billionaire vibe.

I’m not doing laundry any more frequently than anyone else (we do it once a week around here, which I think is pretty average), so it’s just about having enough outfits that you love to get you from laundry day to laundry day (whether they need to be warm, or dressy, or whatever works for your life) without having a ton of extra stuff that’s in the way of the things that you actually wear.

So if you’re tired of drawers and closets that are overflowing, or you love the idea of a more minimal wardrobe full of things you love – and less money spent on clothing excess – then this post is for you. There are definitely people with even fewer clothes, and folks who have other methods for paring down, but I���m just gonna lay out what works for me. And if you’re a wardrobe maximalist who loves having tons of clothes and a bunch of different looks and you ADORE your extensive wardrobe, then this post is not for you (do whatever works for you, boo! I’m ALL FOR THAT!).

Ok, so my plan is just to take you through my closet and all of my drawers, talk you through my process/formula for keeping my wardrobe minimal, and show you how I can create a bunch of outfits (from casual to dressy and from warm weather to cold weather) from a pretty pared down number of tops and bottoms that I lovingly refer to as: “my uniform.”

  And it bears mentioning that even if you have a completely different dress code for your profession, or if you hate the way I dress and the colors/styles/silhouettes that I wear, this is a formula. So you can plug in your favorite silhouettes and colors and everything else that YOU love to make this work for you!

Closet Video Tour

Let’s kick this puppy off with a video tour. I know you have questions (I vividly remember all those DMs I got on Instagram), but pictures are worth 1,000 words, and a video is worth 1,000 pictures. So I’m walking you through my closet and opening all of my drawers (and John’s – haha!) to show you exactly what I have and how I store it along with sharing a little bit more about why/how it works for me. Note: if you can’t see the video below and are reading this post in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the original post to see it. We also uploaded it here on YouTube.

Update: Got a few questions about where my painting clothes are since you saw John’s in the video, but I have a very *strange* method that we’ve actually shared in the archives. I paint with my PJs on inside out. You can see my tags sticking out in all their glory in this old post from 2011. Never said I was normal, guys!

Ok, so now that you’ve seen where everything is, and heard me talk a little bit about my uniform, let’s dive a little deeper. I’m just gonna answer things Q&A style for you below.

How Does A “Uniform” Work?

I’m not talking about a school uniform where your closet is filled with dozens of identical skirts and polos here, but it is almost like finding your own personal “dress code” – meaning the cuts, colors, and styles that you love the most and feel great in. Because if you find something that works, it makes sense that it’s going to be the thing that you’ll reach for and wear a whole lot more than everything else. So why not take a second to figure out why it works and why you love it so much so you can love every last item in your closet that much?! Sounds good, right?

That’s the core idea behind my “uniform” – just figuring out what you love and stopping the vicious cycle of buying other things to stay “on trend” or for the sake of “variety” or to “look different” and then realizing months later that you never wear them because they don’t make you feel as good or you don’t like the cut or the color nearly as much as your tried and true favorites. And the amazing thing is that once you truly understand why you like what you like, you can stand in a store or the dressing room and eliminate clothing that doesn’t fit within that criteria without much effort or thought! You can literally stop the cycle of buying yet another thing that you won’t really love AND you can keep your closet and drawers from filling up with unnecessary extras. Plus you get to keep a little more cash in your wallet.

I don’t think there’s just one magic wardrobe number that works for everyone (someone who goes to the gym every day or lives on a farm or does a team sport may have a need for more laundry/clothing than someone who doesn’t) but I’ll show you my “uniforms” in a second, just to serve as an example. Oh and I say “uniforms” with an S because there can be different ones for different seasons and occasions, like casual weekend uniforms, workout uniforms, work uniforms, etc. And the key is just to figure out how many of those you actually need and not have double or triple that amount all squeezed into your drawers and falling all over the floor of your closet. And did I mention you can save that money? I did? Ok, good. Just making sure.

So don’t tell yourself that just because you work in an office and have to dress up, or because you live in a colder climate that you can’t have a simpler closet. It’s not true!! I dressed myself with this method all the way back in NYC when I had an office job that necessitated me dressing up all the time. And this was in a colder climate where I walked city streets and stood on frigid subway platforms – so I definitely needed all the layering I could get. Why does it still work, even if you have to dress up or add a coat and a scarf and a hat? Because in the end, this is all math, GLORIOUS MATH!

What Exact Items Are In My “Uniform”?

If you’ve followed us for any amount of time, you probably already know my uniform. Black v-neck tops. Jeans. Black scoop neck tanks. Denim shorts. Blazers. Leather or suede jackets. More blazers. And a black dress or two to round things out. It has become kind of a joke, because you guys keep seeing me in a blazer at basically every speaking event or book signing. But here’s the thing: it’s not an accident. Because it’s the way I dress. It has become my uniform for those sorts of things – because I like the way they feel and look on me. And I actually reach for them in my closet and wear them (yesssssss) so I know they don’t sit around wasting space. And therefore I love these items. They work hard for me, make me feel good, and earn their space in my closet.

Six years of living in New York City instilled my love of black, and while I do branch out occasionally (I’ve been known to get wild and throw some navy or olive green in here and there) I’ve learned over the years that when I deviate and buy something in a brighter color, I rarely end up wearing it regularly because – well – I always have other options in my closet that I like better. And guess what? They’re black. It was something I had to realize over time, but ever since I embraced my love of black and stopped trying to make myself wear other colors that I ultimately didn’t wear because I didn’t like them as much (vicious cycle, much?!), two things have happened: 1) I feel GOOD in my clothes. Like all the time. There’s zero clothing drama for me when I get dressed. 2) I’ve stopped wasting money and time buying items I’ll probably just return or donate later. It’s freeing!

top: Old Navy but no longer sold / jeans / heels

I’ve also learned over the years that most of my favorite tops are a little more fitted than the average loose fitting cut, because it helps my 5’2″ body look a little less amorphous – like I’m wearing a potato sack. This realization makes it easy to pass over anything with a drapey look in the store – no matter how glamorous it looks on the mannequin or some long torsoed girl in the fitting room.

Same thing with shorts. I buy short shorts, because I’m petite and when I have tried buying longer shorts, they make me look frumpy, like I’m going golfing or something. And then I’d give those shorts the stink eye for wasting space in my drawer and eventually donate them. But the realization that shorter shorts work better for my body has been freeing. I no longer waste time or money buying longer shorts “just for variety” or to have “something different” because they don’t look as good on me – so duh, of course I won’t wear them as much and they’ll eventually end up in the donate pile!

Same thing with a certain cut of jeans or something. It’s easy to fall for the marketing that says “this bellbottom highwater pant that ends at your shin is the new cool thing!” but I gotta tell ya… it might not be something you actually like or feel good in. So I’m not saying blanketly that you should avoid all trends, but before you go to the store, just look through your clothes and see what you don’t wear – then figure out why. If you pull out one pair of jeans with a different cut that you bought “just to be different” but you never wear them because you don’t like how they look as much as every other pair you have, it’s a whole lot easier to dodge the urge to do that very same thing in the dressing room the next time around.

So let’s say you get to this point and you’re like “uh, but all of your clothes are black. That is so boring. I would die.” Yes, my clothes are mostly black. But this works with all the colors of the rainbow (and all styles and all body types). If you pull out your very favorite outfits from your closet – just the things you actually wear and love – and lay them on the bed, I’m betting they might have some things in common. Even if there are a bunch of different colored items on the bed. I would bet there are still some colors that come up more because you love how you look and feel in them. And you might also notice some trends with cut/silhouette, because chances are if a certain cut of jeans makes you feel your best, it may also be your favorite cut of dress pants. And you might have a few blazers or jackets with similar shapes that hit your body at just the right spot or something. Things are your favorite for a reason, right!?

I’m also a big fan of layering. It’s how I made it work in NYC while working in an agency where I had to get dressed up without even having a dresser in my apartment. That’s right, I had one small and narrow closet and that was it. So I taught myself to layer things. Five shirts that can be layered under five different jackets or blazers = 25 different combinations!!! I mean, how awesome is that math?! And if you add a few different pairs of shoes and some fun jewelry to switch out too, it’s a whole lot of looks without having a whole lot of things. Did I just have five of each thing? No, that would probably feel a little tight – but I probably had under 10 tops that I layered with maybe 7 blazers/jackets/cardigans and then had maybe 5 options for bottoms (jeans if I didn’t have to present that day, and black pants if I did).

The funny thing is that my current “typical uniform” of a black top + denim bottom is that it replicates exactly what I did in NYC when I worked in an office – it’s just a little less dressy. So I can easily transition between summer and winter just by layering – which is exactly what I did back then. When it gets cold I just swap my denim shorts or skirt for skinny jeans, and I throw a jacket right over my black summer tank (maybe a black leather jacket or a crisp blazer or an olive green faux suede jacket). It can even go from casual to somewhat-dressy (like a date night) because I can toss on some cute heels and big earrings and I’m ready to go!

jeans / black tank / green faux suede jacket / leopard heels

How To Pare Down Your Closet

Now I’m not in a position to tell you what YOUR uniform should look like, but one super easy tip for figuring yours out is to do what I touched on a little earlier in this section. Just pull all of your very favorite outfits out – the ones you love and wear all the time – and lay them on your bed.  Then count them. You might literally have enough right there to take you from laundry day to laundry day. If so: congrats! That is your uniform! Right there on the bed! The rest is excess and it can be shoved into a big tupperware bin or two and stashed in the attic or garage. Just see if you even need those items at all. This is the training wheels method – if you need something you can take it back out – but if you don’t miss it and this helps to show you that it’s just dead weight in your closet or your drawers, it feels amazing to consign or donate that extra fluff and just have a wardrobe you LOVE and actually wear!

Ok, but say you only have like five outfits on the bed and you need more than that to get you from laundry day to laundry day. The next step would be to try to identify the common threads, because you need more clothes that make you feel this way. Is it a certain color or color family that you notice when you stare at the winning clothes on the bed? Maybe it’s four favorite colors and tones instead of just one like me? Is it a certain cut? Maybe a fitted silhouette in general or a more voluminous skirt if you feel your best in something fun and swingy? Do a bunch of your favorite outfits follow the same “formula” – maybe a wrap dress with a cardigan and a cute colorful flat? Try to boil things down as much as you can so you have as much direction as you can moving forward. Try not to just say “I like boho stuff” or “anything at Anne Taylor!” because that won’t help you as much as a more detailed set of parameters will.

Calculating Your Closet Needs

Again, this isn’t about hitting a certain fixed number or quota in my closet, but I do find that thinking about this in numbers is helpful – especially just in illustrating why a lot of us have too many pieces in our closets and drawers. The basic idea is to have enough items to get you from one laundry day to the next, with a few – but not too many – extras (you know, in case you spill OJ down your shirt or you run a bit behind on washing a load).

We do laundry about once per week in our household, so I have 10 “bottoms” in my wardrobe to cover those 7 days: 4 pairs of jeans, 4 pairs of shorts, 1 skirt, and 1 pair of yoga pants (I also have a few dresses for dressier occasions). And no, I’m not wearing shorts in the winter to get from laundry day to laundry day – I just don’t wash my denim after each wear because I’m a rule follower and it’s not recommended (don’t torture your jeans, guys!). So 4 pairs of jeans or 4 pairs of denim shorts easily last me 7 days if I wear a few of them twice before tossing them into the hamper. Nobody has ever told me that I smell, and children are VERY honest, so I feel good about this.

Ok, so now forget about me and think about all the different uniforms YOU might need for your lifestyle, whatever that may be – like for work or exercising – and actually add up in your head how many of those outfits you’ll need to get you through to your next laundry day. Keep that number in mind. Next, peek into your closet and drawers and just look at the actual number of things you have. If you count 25 t-shirts and tanks for summer, I’d guess that you probably wear your favorite 10-ish tops on repeat from laundry day to laundry day, and the other 15 items stay shoved wherever they always live, just taking up space because you have so many other items that you like more. If that is the case – just keep your 10 favorites and put the rest into the tupperware bin. You can do this. It’s not permanent. It’s just to see if you really do miss them or need them.

The same logic applies to any part of your uniform. Why own 6 bathing suits if you only rotate between the 2 that you like best?! John recently realized he had 8 running shirts in his drawer but was only wearing 3 each week, washing them, and repeating that. This realization not only helped him get rid of those space-stealing extras (he still kept a couple back-ups) but it reminded him that he doesn’t need to buy any more when he’s standing there in the store staring at them. Win-win.

And for anyone who worries that just having a small number of favorite staples (aka: a uniform) might make you look like you’re wearing the exact same thing every day – it definitely doesn’t have to. Even with my very limited palette, I put together this little visual to show you how easy it is to layer things and change accessories to really switch things up. YAY PERMUTATIONS! I TOLD YOU THIS WAS MATH!

So those are some of the combinations I can make out of a few of my favorite items in my closet. Note that there are 10 different outfits in the image above – and they’re all made from just 4 different tops, 6 bottoms, and 2 dresses (the patterned skirt-looking-thing is a dress that feels too crazy for me, so I layer a tank over it to make it look like a skirt).

I love this demonstration because at first thought you might say… “Ok so if I want to have 10 work outfits and 7 causal outfits to get me from laundry day to laundry day comfortably with some wiggle room, that means I need 17 bottoms and 17 tops.” But wait! That’s bad math! Think about how you rewear your denim and maybe even a blazer if you don’t feel like it got too dirty – and then think about how many combo moves you can make by layering things in different ways! Remember that the 10 outfits above are made from just 12 pieces – not the 20+ you might initially think would be needed if you just assumed you’d need different bottoms and tops every single day.

Am I rewearing those black tanks between washes? Nope! So it does bear mentioning that I love those so much, and I wear them so often, that I have three of them. They’re inexpensive and so versatile and they stay looking crisp and fresh that way. So occasionally purchasing multiples of something that you wear a ton can be an awesome way to keep it looking nice long-term and allow yourself to wear it in a few different ways throughout the week.

A Few Other Reasons We Buy Stuff We Don’t Wear

A big part of my method is just being honest with myself about what I actually wear day in and day out, and then being willing to let go of the rest of the stuff that’s taking up space. I know a lot of us hold onto clothes that we think that we’ll wear for some future hypothetical occasion or circumstance (“aspirational wardrobe” is what I call it – it’s when you buy some item for some imaginary very glamorous event but you never actually wear it because this is real life and not the Simms, so you don’t actually go to those types of events). So sometimes that’s what gets us into this overcrowded closet situation.

It also might be a good deal that tips the scales for you (“ooh these are so cheap, I can’t say no! I’ve gotta have them even though I have 15 shirts I like better BECAUSE THESE ARE TWO DOLLARS!”). Or it could be this idea that buying a certain thing will make you more stylish or pulled together (but then you never actually wear it because it turns out you wear/love super comfy clothes and that item that looks more pulled together is way less comfy than your soft and cozy favorites, so…).

What About That One Super Colorful Thing In Your Closet?

See this colorful dress? I know, it’s kind of hilarious next to everything else in my closet. But it fills a need, and I wear it often enough to warrant it staying. Why do I have it? Well, it’s kind of like my one fake uniform. I like how I look and feel in black, but every few months or so we need to give someone a bio picture or get dressed up for a photoshoot (like for our furniture line for example) and this dress comes with me. All black in a picture can look like a big dark hole amongst an otherwise fun and colorful shot, so I literally bought this dress from J. Crew Outlet a few years ago just for photos. Life is weird, huh?!

But we might all have strange wardrobe guidelines. Mine might be weirder than yours, but I’m sharing this because the instinct might be to tell yourself “hey I have this weird part of my life and I need some outfits for that, so I should probably grab like 10” – but in reality, I don’t need 10 colorful “fake uniforms” – one does the trick. So I have one.

Shopping Tip: Protect Your Closet GPA

Here’s another way to think about paring down your closet: you want to maintain a high closet GPA (grade point average). This is how I’ve been thinking about my closet for YEARS, and it really helps me avoid impulse purchases. Imagine giving every item of clothing that you already own a grade that’s based on how much you like it AND actually wear it. The things you wear all the time and love are As. Wahoo – working towards that perfect 4.0 average.

But that random yellow sweater you picked up on a whim or because it was on sale, and have only worn once… well that stinker is closer to D or F territory. IT IS BRINGING DOWN YOUR ENTIRE CLOSET’S GPA. You want your closet to be filled with your very favorite and most wearable items – so when you’re out shopping, think to yourself “is this new shirt better than all the other shirts I already have, so it’ll bring up my average – or do I love everything I have more than this shirt? Because if the latter is the case, that bad boy is gonna bring down your GPA – and ain’t nobody got time for that.

I think in general we tend to overcomplicate our clothing needs – and stores are constantly telling us we need something new, different, and trendy in order to look better or live a happier life or whatever story they’re trying to tell you when you see those people dashing across the street and hailing a cab in the commercials. Once I got really really happy with my clothes (they make me feel good! I love everything in my closet!) that’s like armor against all of those temptations to buy the newest and trendiest clothing and accessories.

You Don’t Have To Be Minimal Everywhere

I’m not a minimalist in every stretch of the word, though! So here’s a caveat to help you embrace whatever items you might actually not want to pare down at all. This minimal wardrobe of mine is about making my life easier and making me happy – it’s not about deprivation! AT ALL! So take my earrings for example. I probably have over 20 pairs of big fun earrings along with some classic studs and other jewelry like a few bracelets, a watch, a few necklaces.

That might be a lot to you!! You might not even have one pair of big dangly earrings. But for me, they’re part of my uniform – just like blazers and black tanks. So I embrace the fact that I have this many. I’m totally cool with it, and I don’t beat myself up. Incidentally, I think my love of them grew in NYC when I had no space for lots of clothes but I could always fit a few more earrings in my tiny apartment! Ha!

Does Owning Less Cause More Wear?

I got a lot of questions about how my clothes hold up if I’m wearing and washing each item more often. I see how someone could jump to that conclusion, but… drumroll please… I’m just washing things once a week like everyone else. Everything you wear, you launder it every 7 days or so, on average, right? And you probably wear your favorite 10 or so outfits and then you launder them. Well same for me! I just don’t have that extra stuff hanging between each item or shoved into the back of the drawer.

Since I have fewer items, I’m encouraged to take better care of them. Things aren’t getting shoved or crammed onto a rod or into a drawer, and they’re not sitting crumpled somewhere because I don’t have space. I hesitate to say they’re “precious” (I do most of my shopping at places like Old Navy and Target) but when I have fewer backup items, I’m more inclined to take the time to get stains out, fix missing buttons, or follow the proper care instructions with the things I do own.

tank / jeans / fitbit 

In fact, I am SUPER NICE to my stuff because my uniforms work hard for me. I like to wash everything in cold water (helps to lock in colors/black), I wash denim and black things inside out (helps with fading), and I always do a gentle wash and a tumble dry low (nothing too harsh for my babies, I mean clothes). I also always try to put laundry away right after it’s done, so I’m not losing track of piles of clothes and then rewashing them because I’m not sure if they’re clean or dirty – which is definitely something that my friends with more clothes say happens to them.

I have blazers and jackets and tops and jeans that I’ve owned for three or even over five years… so it’s not like I’m rebuying this “minimal wardrobe” every season or even every year. Most of my staples work for at least a few years, although I do buy a few multiples of inexpensive items (like my black tanks) so they stay looking fresher for longer.

How I Combine My Outfits

This is pretty self-explanatory, so I’m not gonna linger on it too much (and your closet favorites might look completely different than mine do), but seeing how I switch out shoes and jewelry and purses or some other thing below might just help the whole “permutations” thing click into place in your head, so here we go…

These are examples of what I might wear on a date night or to a work meeting or something. You can see the “uniform” in total effect here. Both outfits are skinny pants + a fitted tank + a jacket (blazer on the right, leather jacket on the left). I like to play around with shoes and jewelry, so that helps to add a little something extra for me, and I’m good to go.

Left: jeans / heels / similar top / leather jacket

Right: jeans / shoes / striped tank / blazer / necklace / watch

This is another example of what I might wear if I want to be slightly dressier for a holiday gathering or some sort of dinner out or party or something. Once again it’s skinnies on the bottom, a fitted top, and some big earrings and fun shoes. I like a simple black clutch too (hi, have you met me? I like simple black accessories). One funny thing I didn’t even realize until I took these photos is that I also like nude and leopard in my shoes along with black.

Left: jeans / heels / top / black clutch / earrings

Right: jeans / leopard flats / top / green jacket / similar earrings / black clutch

This is an example of what I might wear in the summer to a super casual something (on the right) and a slightly less casual something else (on the left). Oh and to everyone who asked what I walk in (because I’ve been doing these awesome long walks over lunch or after bedtime) and the answer is: whatever outfit I wear that day + sneakers or even flip flops in the summer. I can’t stress how chill these walks are (there’s no sweatband and sprinting, these are delightful strolls) so as long as I have deodorant on, I’m good.

Left: skirt / similar shoes / striped tank / clutch / earrings

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / similar earrings /similar sunglasses

Here are some more summer casual “uniforms” I wear all the time. It may shock you to learn that my everyday purse is this tan crossbody bag (WHAT, IT’S NOT BLACK?!?!), but the reason I love it is because I’m almost always wearing black, so I like that it adds something interesting with another color and goes with everything.

Left: shorts / sandals / striped tank /similar sunglasses

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / earrings / similar purse /similar sunglasses

If I want to dress up a little for some reason (or no reason – I once wore the long black dress on the right to an ice cream parlor with the kids) these might be what I wear. I mentioned before that the left outfit looks like it’s made up of a patterned skirt and a tank but it’s actually a dress that feels way too crazy to me when it’s worn that way but I LOVE it with a black tank layered over it. Once again I add cute shoes and some big earrings and either of these outfits have me out the door in minutes. Isn’t it funny that they have the same silhouette too? Creature of habit right here ;)

Left: dress / tank / similar shoes / similar earrings

Right: dress / leopard flats / earrings / similar purse / similar sunglasses

Got Any Tips For Minimizing Kids Clothing?

There are lots of tricks for determining what you or your kids actually wear, versus what you think you wear. Like turning all of the hangers in one direction and then turning them around once an item is worn. The theory is that after a couple of weeks or months you can see exactly what didn’t get touched. You can also move everything to one side of your hanging rod and move it back once it has been worn. Any version of that works well for hanging clothes, but lots of us – especially kids – store big chunks of their wardrobe in drawers. BUT I HAVE A SOLUTION!

You just have to do one simple thing each week for a few weeks in a row. Ready for it? Just look in their drawers and at their hanging bar on laundry day. That means the things they love most and have already worn are all in the hamper, so they’ve sort of naturally selected their favorites for you – but instead of putting them on the bed they’re all nicely coralled in the hamper.

So with their favorites pulled out of the fray, go through their drawers and their hanging bar and take note of what’s left. If you do this for a few weeks in a row, you’ll start to notice a theme. Certain items never leave the drawer. A few things might always get shoved in the back of the closet or balled up on the floor. VOILA – there is your excess! Put that in a tupperware bin and see if you ever even need it again! And if you don’t, gleefully donate or consign it. And then remember what those “space wasters” were when you’re standing in the store about to buy another outfit for them – just to be sure you’re not repeating some pattern of thinking they’ll wear some item when in actuality they never do.

Whew. Ok, that’s 5,688 words and I’m feeling ready to call this turkey of a post done. I hope this was helpful in some way if you’re looking for ways to simplify the clothing situation in your house.

Psst – If you’re looking for more on this subject, here’s an old post I wrote about my clothing, here’s an awesome book called Simplicity Parenting that talks about decision fatigue and simplifying our homes in general (it totally changed my life and I’ve read it 3 times), and here’s a podcast we did with an amazing man named Matt who worked on the show Hoarders, and has some pretty enlightening and kind things to say about paring down. Also Katie Bower did a post about her one-rack wardrobe yesterday, which was a fun read too!

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My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money

Whenever I’m asked about my clothes, I joke that I wear basically the same thing every day. But it turns out that even after years of saying that (and sharing that I had just one bra for many years on the blog), a whole bunch of people freaked out when they saw the hanging bar in my closet on Instagram recently. I got FLOODED with DMs about my sparse mostly black wardrobe. One person even said that seeing my closet was, and I quote: “the wildest thing they’ve seen on the internet in 2018.” That’s quite the statement considering 2018 also gave us Gritty.

To clarify I don’t actually wear the same items of clothing every day on repeat – I just have a fairly small number of clothes that I love and wear all the time – all of which are pretty similar in color/style/silhouette – which I lovingly call “my uniform.” Think Steve Jobs or Michael Kors… except with fewer turtlenecks and less of that billionaire vibe.

I’m not doing laundry any more frequently than anyone else (we do it once a week around here, which I think is pretty average), so it’s just about having enough outfits that you love to get you from laundry day to laundry day (whether they need to be warm, or dressy, or whatever works for your life) without having a ton of extra stuff that’s in the way of the things that you actually wear.

So if you’re tired of drawers and closets that are overflowing, or you love the idea of a more minimal wardrobe full of things you love – and less money spent on clothing excess – then this post is for you. There are definitely people with even fewer clothes, and folks who have other methods for paring down, but I’m just gonna lay out what works for me. And if you’re a wardrobe maximalist who loves having tons of clothes and a bunch of different looks and you ADORE your extensive wardrobe, then this post is not for you (do whatever works for you, boo! I’m ALL FOR THAT!).

Ok, so my plan is just to take you through my closet and all of my drawers, talk you through my process/formula for keeping my wardrobe minimal, and show you how I can create a bunch of outfits (from casual to dressy and from warm weather to cold weather) from a pretty pared down number of tops and bottoms that I lovingly refer to as: “my uniform.”

  And it bears mentioning that even if you have a completely different dress code for your profession, or if you hate the way I dress and the colors/styles/silhouettes that I wear, this is a formula. So you can plug in your favorite silhouettes and colors and everything else that YOU love to make this work for you!

Closet Video Tour

Let’s kick this puppy off with a video tour. I know you have questions (I vividly remember all those DMs I got on Instagram), but pictures are worth 1,000 words, and a video is worth 1,000 pictures. So I’m walking you through my closet and opening all of my drawers (and John’s – haha!) to show you exactly what I have and how I store it along with sharing a little bit more about why/how it works for me. Note: if you can’t see the video below and are reading this post in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the original post to see it. We also uploaded it here on YouTube.

Update: Got a few questions about where my painting clothes are since you saw John’s in the video, but I have a very *strange* method that we’ve actually shared in the archives. I paint with my PJs on inside out. You can see my tags sticking out in all their glory in this old post from 2011. Never said I was normal, guys!

Ok, so now that you’ve seen where everything is, and heard me talk a little bit about my uniform, let’s dive a little deeper. I’m just gonna answer things Q&A style for you below.

How Does A “Uniform” Work?

I’m not talking about a school uniform where your closet is filled with dozens of identical skirts and polos here, but it is almost like finding your own personal “dress code” – meaning the cuts, colors, and styles that you love the most and feel great in. Because if you find something that works, it makes sense that it’s going to be the thing that you’ll reach for and wear a whole lot more than everything else. So why not take a second to figure out why it works and why you love it so much so you can love every last item in your closet that much?! Sounds good, right?

That’s the core idea behind my “uniform” – just figuring out what you love and stopping the vicious cycle of buying other things to stay “on trend” or for the sake of “variety” or to “look different” and then realizing months later that you never wear them because they don’t make you feel as good or you don’t like the cut or the color nearly as much as your tried and true favorites. And the amazing thing is that once you truly understand why you like what you like, you can stand in a store or the dressing room and eliminate clothing that doesn’t fit within that criteria without much effort or thought! You can literally stop the cycle of buying yet another thing that you won’t really love AND you can keep your closet and drawers from filling up with unnecessary extras. Plus you get to keep a little more cash in your wallet.

I don’t think there’s just one magic wardrobe number that works for everyone (someone who goes to the gym every day or lives on a farm or does a team sport may have a need for more laundry/clothing than someone who doesn’t) but I’ll show you my “uniforms” in a second, just to serve as an example. Oh and I say “uniforms” with an S because there can be different ones for different seasons and occasions, like casual weekend uniforms, workout uniforms, work uniforms, etc. And the key is just to figure out how many of those you actually need and not have double or triple that amount all squeezed into your drawers and falling all over the floor of your closet. And did I mention you can save that money? I did? Ok, good. Just making sure.

So don’t tell yourself that just because you work in an office and have to dress up, or because you live in a colder climate that you can’t have a simpler closet. It’s not true!! I dressed myself with this method all the way back in NYC when I had an office job that necessitated me dressing up all the time. And this was in a colder climate where I walked city streets and stood on frigid subway platforms – so I definitely needed all the layering I could get. Why does it still work, even if you have to dress up or add a coat and a scarf and a hat? Because in the end, this is all math, GLORIOUS MATH!

What Exact Items Are In My “Uniform”?

If you’ve followed us for any amount of time, you probably already know my uniform. Black v-neck tops. Jeans. Black scoop neck tanks. Denim shorts. Blazers. Leather or suede jackets. More blazers. And a black dress or two to round things out. It has become kind of a joke, because you guys keep seeing me in a blazer at basically every speaking event or book signing. But here’s the thing: it’s not an accident. Because it’s the way I dress. It has become my uniform for those sorts of things – because I like the way they feel and look on me. And I actually reach for them in my closet and wear them (yesssssss) so I know they don’t sit around wasting space. And therefore I love these items. They work hard for me, make me feel good, and earn their space in my closet.

Six years of living in New York City instilled my love of black, and while I do branch out occasionally (I’ve been known to get wild and throw some navy or olive green in here and there) I’ve learned over the years that when I deviate and buy something in a brighter color, I rarely end up wearing it regularly because – well – I always have other options in my closet that I like better. And guess what? They’re black. It was something I had to realize over time, but ever since I embraced my love of black and stopped trying to make myself wear other colors that I ultimately didn’t wear because I didn’t like them as much (vicious cycle, much?!), two things have happened: 1) I feel GOOD in my clothes. Like all the time. There’s zero clothing drama for me when I get dressed. 2) I’ve stopped wasting money and time buying items I’ll probably just return or donate later. It’s freeing!

top: Old Navy but no longer sold / jeans / heels

I’ve also learned over the years that most of my favorite tops are a little more fitted than the average loose fitting cut, because it helps my 5’2″ body look a little less amorphous – like I’m wearing a potato sack. This realization makes it easy to pass over anything with a drapey look in the store – no matter how glamorous it looks on the mannequin or some long torsoed girl in the fitting room.

Same thing with shorts. I buy short shorts, because I’m petite and when I have tried buying longer shorts, they make me look frumpy, like I’m going golfing or something. And then I’d give those shorts the stink eye for wasting space in my drawer and eventually donate them. But the realization that shorter shorts work better for my body has been freeing. I no longer waste time or money buying longer shorts “just for variety” or to have “something different” because they don’t look as good on me – so duh, of course I won’t wear them as much and they’ll eventually end up in the donate pile!

Same thing with a certain cut of jeans or something. It’s easy to fall for the marketing that says “this bellbottom highwater pant that ends at your shin is the new cool thing!” but I gotta tell ya… it might not be something you actually like or feel good in. So I’m not saying blanketly that you should avoid all trends, but before you go to the store, just look through your clothes and see what you don’t wear – then figure out why. If you pull out one pair of jeans with a different cut that you bought “just to be different” but you never wear them because you don’t like how they look as much as every other pair you have, it’s a whole lot easier to dodge the urge to do that very same thing in the dressing room the next time around.

So let’s say you get to this point and you’re like “uh, but all of your clothes are black. That is so boring. I would die.” Yes, my clothes are mostly black. But this works with all the colors of the rainbow (and all styles and all body types). If you pull out your very favorite outfits from your closet – just the things you actually wear and love – and lay them on the bed, I’m betting they might have some things in common. Even if there are a bunch of different colored items on the bed. I would bet there are still some colors that come up more because you love how you look and feel in them. And you might also notice some trends with cut/silhouette, because chances are if a certain cut of jeans makes you feel your best, it may also be your favorite cut of dress pants. And you might have a few blazers or jackets with similar shapes that hit your body at just the right spot or something. Things are your favorite for a reason, right!?

I’m also a big fan of layering. It’s how I made it work in NYC while working in an agency where I had to get dressed up without even having a dresser in my apartment. That’s right, I had one small and narrow closet and that was it. So I taught myself to layer things. Five shirts that can be layered under five different jackets or blazers = 25 different combinations!!! I mean, how awesome is that math?! And if you add a few different pairs of shoes and some fun jewelry to switch out too, it’s a whole lot of looks without having a whole lot of things. Did I just have five of each thing? No, that would probably feel a little tight – but I probably had under 10 tops that I layered with maybe 7 blazers/jackets/cardigans and then had maybe 5 options for bottoms (jeans if I didn’t have to present that day, and black pants if I did).

The funny thing is that my current “typical uniform” of a black top + denim bottom is that it replicates exactly what I did in NYC when I worked in an office – it’s just a little less dressy. So I can easily transition between summer and winter just by layering – which is exactly what I did back then. When it gets cold I just swap my denim shorts or skirt for skinny jeans, and I throw a jacket right over my black summer tank (maybe a black leather jacket or a crisp blazer or an olive green faux suede jacket). It can even go from casual to somewhat-dressy (like a date night) because I can toss on some cute heels and big earrings and I’m ready to go!

jeans / black tank / green faux suede jacket / leopard heels

How To Pare Down Your Closet

Now I’m not in a position to tell you what YOUR uniform should look like, but one super easy tip for figuring yours out is to do what I touched on a little earlier in this section. Just pull all of your very favorite outfits out – the ones you love and wear all the time – and lay them on your bed.  Then count them. You might literally have enough right there to take you from laundry day to laundry day. If so: congrats! That is your uniform! Right there on the bed! The rest is excess and it can be shoved into a big tupperware bin or two and stashed in the attic or garage. Just see if you even need those items at all. This is the training wheels method – if you need something you can take it back out – but if you don’t miss it and this helps to show you that it’s just dead weight in your closet or your drawers, it feels amazing to consign or donate that extra fluff and just have a wardrobe you LOVE and actually wear!

Ok, but say you only have like five outfits on the bed and you need more than that to get you from laundry day to laundry day. The next step would be to try to identify the common threads, because you need more clothes that make you feel this way. Is it a certain color or color family that you notice when you stare at the winning clothes on the bed? Maybe it’s four favorite colors and tones instead of just one like me? Is it a certain cut? Maybe a fitted silhouette in general or a more voluminous skirt if you feel your best in something fun and swingy? Do a bunch of your favorite outfits follow the same “formula” – maybe a wrap dress with a cardigan and a cute colorful flat? Try to boil things down as much as you can so you have as much direction as you can moving forward. Try not to just say “I like boho stuff” or “anything at Anne Taylor!” because that won’t help you as much as a more detailed set of parameters will.

Calculating Your Closet Needs

Again, this isn’t about hitting a certain fixed number or quota in my closet, but I do find that thinking about this in numbers is helpful – especially just in illustrating why a lot of us have too many pieces in our closets and drawers. The basic idea is to have enough items to get you from one laundry day to the next, with a few – but not too many – extras (you know, in case you spill OJ down your shirt or you run a bit behind on washing a load).

We do laundry about once per week in our household, so I have 10 “bottoms” in my wardrobe to cover those 7 days: 4 pairs of jeans, 4 pairs of shorts, 1 skirt, and 1 pair of yoga pants (I also have a few dresses for dressier occasions). And no, I’m not wearing shorts in the winter to get from laundry day to laundry day – I just don’t wash my denim after each wear because I’m a rule follower and it’s not recommended (don’t torture your jeans, guys!). So 4 pairs of jeans or 4 pairs of denim shorts easily last me 7 days if I wear a few of them twice before tossing them into the hamper. Nobody has ever told me that I smell, and children are VERY honest, so I feel good about this.

Ok, so now forget about me and think about all the different uniforms YOU might need for your lifestyle, whatever that may be – like for work or exercising – and actually add up in your head how many of those outfits you’ll need to get you through to your next laundry day. Keep that number in mind. Next, peek into your closet and drawers and just look at the actual number of things you have. If you count 25 t-shirts and tanks for summer, I’d guess that you probably wear your favorite 10-ish tops on repeat from laundry day to laundry day, and the other 15 items stay shoved wherever they always live, just taking up space because you have so many other items that you like more. If that is the case – just keep your 10 favorites and put the rest into the tupperware bin. You can do this. It’s not permanent. It’s just to see if you really do miss them or need them.

The same logic applies to any part of your uniform. Why own 6 bathing suits if you only rotate between the 2 that you like best?! John recently realized he had 8 running shirts in his drawer but was only wearing 3 each week, washing them, and repeating that. This realization not only helped him get rid of those space-stealing extras (he still kept a couple back-ups) but it reminded him that he doesn’t need to buy any more when he’s standing there in the store staring at them. Win-win.

And for anyone who worries that just having a small number of favorite staples (aka: a uniform) might make you look like you’re wearing the exact same thing every day – it definitely doesn’t have to. Even with my very limited palette, I put together this little visual to show you how easy it is to layer things and change accessories to really switch things up. YAY PERMUTATIONS! I TOLD YOU THIS WAS MATH!

So those are some of the combinations I can make out of a few of my favorite items in my closet. Note that there are 10 different outfits in the image above – and they’re all made from just 4 different tops, 6 bottoms, and 2 dresses (the patterned skirt-looking-thing is a dress that feels too crazy for me, so I layer a tank over it to make it look like a skirt).

I love this demonstration because at first thought you might say… “Ok so if I want to have 10 work outfits and 7 causal outfits to get me from laundry day to laundry day comfortably with some wiggle room, that means I need 17 bottoms and 17 tops.” But wait! That’s bad math! Think about how you rewear your denim and maybe even a blazer if you don’t feel like it got too dirty – and then think about how many combo moves you can make by layering things in different ways! Remember that the 10 outfits above are made from just 12 pieces – not the 20+ you might initially think would be needed if you just assumed you’d need different bottoms and tops every single day.

Am I rewearing those black tanks between washes? Nope! So it does bear mentioning that I love those so much, and I wear them so often, that I have three of them. They’re inexpensive and so versatile and they stay looking crisp and fresh that way. So occasionally purchasing multiples of something that you wear a ton can be an awesome way to keep it looking nice long-term and allow yourself to wear it in a few different ways throughout the week.

A Few Other Reasons We Buy Stuff We Don’t Wear

A big part of my method is just being honest with myself about what I actually wear day in and day out, and then being willing to let go of the rest of the stuff that’s taking up space. I know a lot of us hold onto clothes that we think that we’ll wear for some future hypothetical occasion or circumstance (“aspirational wardrobe” is what I call it – it’s when you buy some item for some imaginary very glamorous event but you never actually wear it because this is real life and not the Simms, so you don’t actually go to those types of events). So sometimes that’s what gets us into this overcrowded closet situation.

It also might be a good deal that tips the scales for you (“ooh these are so cheap, I can’t say no! I’ve gotta have them even though I have 15 shirts I like better BECAUSE THESE ARE TWO DOLLARS!”). Or it could be this idea that buying a certain thing will make you more stylish or pulled together (but then you never actually wear it because it turns out you wear/love super comfy clothes and that item that looks more pulled together is way less comfy than your soft and cozy favorites, so…).

What About That One Super Colorful Thing In Your Closet?

See this colorful dress? I know, it’s kind of hilarious next to everything else in my closet. But it fills a need, and I wear it often enough to warrant it staying. Why do I have it? Well, it’s kind of like my one fake uniform. I like how I look and feel in black, but every few months or so we need to give someone a bio picture or get dressed up for a photoshoot (like for our furniture line for example) and this dress comes with me. All black in a picture can look like a big dark hole amongst an otherwise fun and colorful shot, so I literally bought this dress from J. Crew Outlet a few years ago just for photos. Life is weird, huh?!

But we might all have strange wardrobe guidelines. Mine might be weirder than yours, but I’m sharing this because the instinct might be to tell yourself “hey I have this weird part of my life and I need some outfits for that, so I should probably grab like 10” – but in reality, I don’t need 10 colorful “fake uniforms” – one does the trick. So I have one.

Shopping Tip: Protect Your Closet GPA

Here’s another way to think about paring down your closet: you want to maintain a high closet GPA (grade point average). This is how I’ve been thinking about my closet for YEARS, and it really helps me avoid impulse purchases. Imagine giving every item of clothing that you already own a grade that’s based on how much you like it AND actually wear it. The things you wear all the time and love are As. Wahoo – working towards that perfect 4.0 average.

But that random yellow sweater you picked up on a whim or because it was on sale, and have only worn once… well that stinker is closer to D or F territory. IT IS BRINGING DOWN YOUR ENTIRE CLOSET’S GPA. You want your closet to be filled with your very favorite and most wearable items – so when you’re out shopping, think to yourself “is this new shirt better than all the other shirts I already have, so it’ll bring up my average – or do I love everything I have more than this shirt? Because if the latter is the case, that bad boy is gonna bring down your GPA – and ain’t nobody got time for that.

I think in general we tend to overcomplicate our clothing needs – and stores are constantly telling us we need something new, different, and trendy in order to look better or live a happier life or whatever story they’re trying to tell you when you see those people dashing across the street and hailing a cab in the commercials. Once I got really really happy with my clothes (they make me feel good! I love everything in my closet!) that’s like armor against all of those temptations to buy the newest and trendiest clothing and accessories.

You Don’t Have To Be Minimal Everywhere

I’m not a minimalist in every stretch of the word, though! So here’s a caveat to help you embrace whatever items you might actually not want to pare down at all. This minimal wardrobe of mine is about making my life easier and making me happy – it’s not about deprivation! AT ALL! So take my earrings for example. I probably have over 20 pairs of big fun earrings along with some classic studs and other jewelry like a few bracelets, a watch, a few necklaces.

That might be a lot to you!! You might not even have one pair of big dangly earrings. But for me, they’re part of my uniform – just like blazers and black tanks. So I embrace the fact that I have this many. I’m totally cool with it, and I don’t beat myself up. Incidentally, I think my love of them grew in NYC when I had no space for lots of clothes but I could always fit a few more earrings in my tiny apartment! Ha!

Does Owning Less Cause More Wear?

I got a lot of questions about how my clothes hold up if I’m wearing and washing each item more often. I see how someone could jump to that conclusion, but… drumroll please… I’m just washing things once a week like everyone else. Everything you wear, you launder it every 7 days or so, on average, right? And you probably wear your favorite 10 or so outfits and then you launder them. Well same for me! I just don’t have that extra stuff hanging between each item or shoved into the back of the drawer.

Since I have fewer items, I’m encouraged to take better care of them. Things aren’t getting shoved or crammed onto a rod or into a drawer, and they’re not sitting crumpled somewhere because I don’t have space. I hesitate to say they’re “precious” (I do most of my shopping at places like Old Navy and Target) but when I have fewer backup items, I’m more inclined to take the time to get stains out, fix missing buttons, or follow the proper care instructions with the things I do own.

tank / jeans / fitbit 

In fact, I am SUPER NICE to my stuff because my uniforms work hard for me. I like to wash everything in cold water (helps to lock in colors/black), I wash denim and black things inside out (helps with fading), and I always do a gentle wash and a tumble dry low (nothing too harsh for my babies, I mean clothes). I also always try to put laundry away right after it’s done, so I’m not losing track of piles of clothes and then rewashing them because I’m not sure if they’re clean or dirty – which is definitely something that my friends with more clothes say happens to them.

I have blazers and jackets and tops and jeans that I’ve owned for three or even over five years… so it’s not like I’m rebuying this “minimal wardrobe” every season or even every year. Most of my staples work for at least a few years, although I do buy a few multiples of inexpensive items (like my black tanks) so they stay looking fresher for longer.

How I Combine My Outfits

This is pretty self-explanatory, so I’m not gonna linger on it too much (and your closet favorites might look completely different than mine do), but seeing how I switch out shoes and jewelry and purses or some other thing below might just help the whole “permutations” thing click into place in your head, so here we go…

These are examples of what I might wear on a date night or to a work meeting or something. You can see the “uniform” in total effect here. Both outfits are skinny pants + a fitted tank + a jacket (blazer on the right, leather jacket on the left). I like to play around with shoes and jewelry, so that helps to add a little something extra for me, and I’m good to go.

Left: jeans / heels / similar top / leather jacket

Right: jeans / shoes / striped tank / blazer / necklace / watch

This is another example of what I might wear if I want to be slightly dressier for a holiday gathering or some sort of dinner out or party or something. Once again it’s skinnies on the bottom, a fitted top, and some big earrings and fun shoes. I like a simple black clutch too (hi, have you met me? I like simple black accessories). One funny thing I didn’t even realize until I took these photos is that I also like nude and leopard in my shoes along with black.

Left: jeans / heels / top / black clutch / earrings

Right: jeans / leopard flats / top / green jacket / similar earrings / black clutch

This is an example of what I might wear in the summer to a super casual something (on the right) and a slightly less casual something else (on the left). Oh and to everyone who asked what I walk in (because I’ve been doing these awesome long walks over lunch or after bedtime) and the answer is: whatever outfit I wear that day + sneakers or even flip flops in the summer. I can’t stress how chill these walks are (there’s no sweatband and sprinting, these are delightful strolls) so as long as I have deodorant on, I’m good.

Left: skirt / similar shoes / striped tank / clutch / earrings

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / similar earrings /similar sunglasses

Here are some more summer casual “uniforms” I wear all the time. It may shock you to learn that my everyday purse is this tan crossbody bag (WHAT, IT’S NOT BLACK?!?!), but the reason I love it is because I’m almost always wearing black, so I like that it adds something interesting with another color and goes with everything.

Left: shorts / sandals / striped tank /similar sunglasses

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / earrings / similar purse /similar sunglasses

If I want to dress up a little for some reason (or no reason – I once wore the long black dress on the right to an ice cream parlor with the kids) these might be what I wear. I mentioned before that the left outfit looks like it’s made up of a patterned skirt and a tank but it’s actually a dress that feels way too crazy to me when it’s worn that way but I LOVE it with a black tank layered over it. Once again I add cute shoes and some big earrings and either of these outfits have me out the door in minutes. Isn’t it funny that they have the same silhouette too? Creature of habit right here ;)

Left: dress / tank / similar shoes / similar earrings

Right: dress / leopard flats / earrings / similar purse / similar sunglasses

Got Any Tips For Minimizing Kids Clothing?

There are lots of tricks for determining what you or your kids actually wear, versus what you think you wear. Like turning all of the hangers in one direction and then turning them around once an item is worn. The theory is that after a couple of weeks or months you can see exactly what didn’t get touched. You can also move everything to one side of your hanging rod and move it back once it has been worn. Any version of that works well for hanging clothes, but lots of us – especially kids – store big chunks of their wardrobe in drawers. BUT I HAVE A SOLUTION!

You just have to do one simple thing each week for a few weeks in a row. Ready for it? Just look in their drawers and at their hanging bar on laundry day. That means the things they love most and have already worn are all in the hamper, so they’ve sort of naturally selected their favorites for you – but instead of putting them on the bed they’re all nicely coralled in the hamper.

So with their favorites pulled out of the fray, go through their drawers and their hanging bar and take note of what’s left. If you do this for a few weeks in a row, you’ll start to notice a theme. Certain items never leave the drawer. A few things might always get shoved in the back of the closet or balled up on the floor. VOILA – there is your excess! Put that in a tupperware bin and see if you ever even need it again! And if you don’t, gleefully donate or consign it. And then remember what those “space wasters” were when you’re standing in the store about to buy another outfit for them – just to be sure you’re not repeating some pattern of thinking they’ll wear some item when in actuality they never do.

Whew. Ok, that’s 5,688 words and I’m feeling ready to call this turkey of a post done. I hope this was helpful in some way if you’re looking for ways to simplify the clothing situation in your house.

Psst – If you’re looking for more on this subject, here’s an old post I wrote about my clothing, here’s an awesome book called Simplicity Parenting that talks about decision fatigue and simplifying our homes in general (it totally changed my life and I’ve read it 3 times), and here’s a podcast we did with an amazing man named Matt who worked on the show Hoarders, and has some pretty enlightening and kind things to say about paring down. Also Katie Bower did a post about her one-rack wardrobe yesterday, which was a fun read too!

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My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money

Whenever I’m asked about my clothes, I joke that I wear basically the same thing every day. But it turns out that even after years of saying that (and sharing that I had just one bra for many years on the blog), a whole bunch of people freaked out when they saw the hanging bar in my closet on Instagram recently. I got FLOODED with DMs about my sparse mostly black wardrobe. One person even said that seeing my closet was, and I quote: “the wildest thing they’ve seen on the internet in 2018.” That’s quite the statement considering 2018 also gave us Gritty.

To clarify I don’t actually wear the same items of clothing every day on repeat – I just have a fairly small number of clothes that I love and wear all the time – all of which are pretty similar in color/style/silhouette – which I lovingly call “my uniform.” Think Steve Jobs or Michael Kors… except with fewer turtlenecks and less of that billionaire vibe.

I’m not doing laundry any more frequently than anyone else (we do it once a week around here, which I think is pretty average), so it’s just about having enough outfits that you love to get you from laundry day to laundry day (whether they need to be warm, or dressy, or whatever works for your life) without having a ton of extra stuff that’s in the way of the things that you actually wear.

So if you’re tired of drawers and closets that are overflowing, or you love the idea of a more minimal wardrobe full of things you love – and less money spent on clothing excess – then this post is for you. There are definitely people with even fewer clothes, and folks who have other methods for paring down, but I’m just gonna lay out what works for me. And if you’re a wardrobe maximalist who loves having tons of clothes and a bunch of different looks and you ADORE your extensive wardrobe, then this post is not for you (do whatever works for you, boo! I’m ALL FOR THAT!).

Ok, so my plan is just to take you through my closet and all of my drawers, talk you through my process/formula for keeping my wardrobe minimal, and show you how I can create a bunch of outfits (from casual to dressy and from warm weather to cold weather) from a pretty pared down number of tops and bottoms that I lovingly refer to as: “my uniform.”

  And it bears mentioning that even if you have a completely different dress code for your profession, or if you hate the way I dress and the colors/styles/silhouettes that I wear, this is a formula. So you can plug in your favorite silhouettes and colors and everything else that YOU love to make this work for you!

Closet Video Tour

Let’s kick this puppy off with a video tour. I know you have questions (I vividly remember all those DMs I got on Instagram), but pictures are worth 1,000 words, and a video is worth 1,000 pictures. So I’m walking you through my closet and opening all of my drawers (and John’s – haha!) to show you exactly what I have and how I store it along with sharing a little bit more about why/how it works for me. Note: if you can’t see the video below and are reading this post in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the original post to see it. We also uploaded it here on YouTube.

Ok, so now that you’ve seen where everything is, and heard me talk a little bit about my uniform, let’s dive a little deeper. I’m just gonna answer things Q&A style for you below.

How Does A “Uniform” Work?

I’m not talking about a school uniform where your closet is filled with dozens of identical skirts and polos here, but it is almost like finding your own personal “dress code” – meaning the cuts, colors, and styles that you love the most and feel great in. Because if you find something that works, it makes sense that it’s going to be the thing that you’ll reach for and wear a whole lot more than everything else. So why not take a second to figure out why it works and why you love it so much so you can love every last item in your closet that much?! Sounds good, right?

That’s the core idea behind my “uniform” – just figuring out what you love and stopping the vicious cycle of buying other things to stay “on trend” or for the sake of “variety” or to “look different” and then realizing months later that you never wear them because they don’t make you feel as good or you don’t like the cut or the color nearly as much as your tried and true favorites. And the amazing thing is that once you truly understand why you like what you like, you can stand in a store or the dressing room and eliminate clothing that doesn’t fit within that criteria without much effort or thought! You can literally stop the cycle of buying yet another thing that you won’t really love AND you can keep your closet and drawers from filling up with unnecessary extras. Plus you get to keep a little more cash in your wallet.

I don’t think there’s just one magic wardrobe number that works for everyone (someone who goes to the gym every day or lives on a farm or does a team sport may have a need for more laundry/clothing than someone who doesn’t) but I’ll show you my “uniforms” in a second, just to serve as an example. Oh and I say “uniforms” with an S because there can be different ones for different seasons and occasions, like casual weekend uniforms, workout uniforms, work uniforms, etc. And the key is just to figure out how many of those you actually need and not have double or triple that amount all squeezed into your drawers and falling all over the floor of your closet. And did I mention you can save that money? I did? Ok, good. Just making sure.

So don’t tell yourself that just because you work in an office and have to dress up, or because you live in a colder climate that you can’t have a simpler closet. It’s not true!! I dressed myself with this method all the way back in NYC when I had an office job that necessitated me dressing up all the time. And this was in a colder climate where I walked city streets and stood on frigid subway platforms – so I definitely needed all the layering I could get. Why does it still work, even if you have to dress up or add a coat and a scarf and a hat? Because in the end, this is all math, GLORIOUS MATH!

What Exact Items Are In My “Uniform”?

If you’ve followed us for any amount of time, you probably already know my uniform. Black v-neck tops. Jeans. Black scoop neck tanks. Denim shorts. Blazers. Leather or suede jackets. More blazers. And a black dress or two to round things out. It has become kind of a joke, because you guys keep seeing me in a blazer at basically every speaking event or book signing. But here’s the thing: it’s not an accident. Because it’s the way I dress. It has become my uniform for those sorts of things – because I like the way they feel and look on me. And I actually reach for them in my closet and wear them (yesssssss) so I know they don’t sit around wasting space. And therefore I love these items. They work hard for me, make me feel good, and earn their space in my closet.

Six years of living in New York City instilled my love of black, and while I do branch out occasionally (I’ve been known to get wild and throw some navy or olive green in here and there) I’ve learned over the years that when I deviate and buy something in a brighter color, I rarely end up wearing it regularly because – well – I always have other options in my closet that I like better. And guess what? They’re black. It was something I had to realize over time, but ever since I embraced my love of black and stopped trying to make myself wear other colors that I ultimately didn’t wear because I didn’t like them as much (vicious cycle, much?!), two things have happened: 1) I feel GOOD in my clothes. Like all the time. There’s zero clothing drama for me when I get dressed. 2) I’ve stopped wasting money and time buying items I’ll probably just return or donate later. It’s freeing!

top: Old Navy but no longer sold / jeans / heels

I’ve also learned over the years that most of my favorite tops are a little more fitted than the average loose fitting cut, because it helps my 5’2″ body look a little less amorphous – like I’m wearing a potato sack. This realization makes it easy to pass over anything with a drapey look in the store – no matter how glamorous it looks on the mannequin or some long torsoed girl in the fitting room.

Same thing with shorts. I buy short shorts, because I’m petite and when I have tried buying longer shorts, they make me look frumpy, like I’m going golfing or something. And then I’d give those shorts the stink eye for wasting space in my drawer and eventually donate them. But the realization that shorter shorts work better for my body has been freeing. I no longer waste time or money buying longer shorts “just for variety” or to have “something different” because they don’t look as good on me – so duh, of course I won’t wear them as much and they’ll eventually end up in the donate pile!

Same thing with a certain cut of jeans or something. It’s easy to fall for the marketing that says “this bellbottom highwater pant that ends at your shin is the new cool thing!” but I gotta tell ya… it might not be something you actually like or feel good in. So I’m not saying blanketly that you should avoid all trends, but before you go to the store, just look through your clothes and see what you don’t wear – then figure out why. If you pull out one pair of jeans with a different cut that you bought “just to be different” but you never wear them because you don’t like how they look as much as ever other pair you have, it’s a whole lot easier to dodge the urge to do that very same thing in the dressing room the next time around.

So let’s say you get to this point and you’re like “uh, but all of your clothes are black. That is so boring. I would die.” Yes, my clothes are mostly black. But this works with all the colors of the rainbow (and all styles and all body types). If you pull out your very favorite outfits from your closet – just the things you actually wear and love – and lay them on the bed, I’m betting they might have some things in common. Even if there are a bunch of different colored items on the bed. I would bet there are still some colors that come up more because you love how you look and feel in them. And you might also notice some trends with cut/silhouette, because chances are if a certain cut of jeans makes you feel your best, it may also be your favorite cut of dress pants. And you might have a few blazers or jackets with similar shapes that hit your body at just the right spot or something. Things are your favorite for a reason, right!?

I’m also a big fan of layering. It’s how I made it work in NYC while working in an agency where I had to get dressed up without even having a dresser in my apartment. That’s right, I had one small and narrow closet and that was it. So I taught myself to layer things. Five shirts that can be layered under five different jackets or blazers = 25 different combinations!!! I mean, how awesome is that math?! And if you add a few different pairs of shoes and some fun jewelry to switch out too, it’s a whole lot of looks without having a whole lot of things. Did I just have five of each thing? No, that would probably feel a little tight – but I probably had under 10 tops that I layered with maybe 7 blazers/jackets/cardigans and then had maybe 5 options for bottoms (jeans if I didn’t have to present that day, and black pants if I did).

The funny thing is that my current “typical uniform” of a black top + denim bottom is that it replicates exactly what I did in NYC when I worked in an office – it’s just a little less dressy. So I can easily transition between summer and winter just by layering – which is exactly what I did back then. When it gets cold I just swap my denim shorts or skirt for skinny jeans, and I throw a jacket right over my black summer tank (maybe a black leather jacket or a crisp blazer or an olive green faux suede jacket). It can even go from casual to somewhat-dressy (like a date night) because I can toss on some cute heels and big earrings and I’m ready to go!

jeans / black tank / green faux suede jacket / leopard heels

How To Pare Down Your Closet

Now I’m not in a position to tell you what YOUR uniform should look like, but one super easy tip for figuring yours out is to do what I touched on a little earlier in this section. Just pull all of your very favorite outfits out – the ones you love and wear all the time – and lay them on your bed.  Then count them. You might literally have enough right there to take you from laundry day to laundry day. If so: congrats! That is your uniform! Right there on the bed! The rest is excess and it can be shoved into a big tupperware bin or two and stashed in the attic or garage. Just see if you even need those items at all. This is the training wheels method – if you need something you can take it back out – but if you don’t miss it and this helps to show you that it’s just dead weight in your closet or your drawers, it feels amazing to consign or donate that extra fluff and just have a wardrobe you LOVE and actually wear!

Ok, but say you only have like five outfits on the bed and you need more than that to get you from laundry day to laundry day. The next step would be to try to identify the common threads, because you need more clothes that make you feel this way. Is it a certain color or color family that you notice when you stare at the winning clothes on the bed? Maybe it’s four favorite colors and tones instead of just one like me? Is it a certain cut? Maybe a fitted silhouette in general or a more voluminous skirt if you feel your best in something fun and swingy? Do a bunch of your favorite outfits follow the same “formula” – maybe a wrap dress with a cardigan and a cute colorful flat? Try to boil things down as much as you can so you have as much direction as you can moving forward. Try not to just say “I like boho stuff” or “anything at Anne Taylor!” because that won’t help you as much as a more detailed set of parameters will.

Calculating Your Closet Needs

Again, this isn’t about hitting a certain fixed number or quota in my closet, but I do find that thinking about this in numbers is helpful – especially just in illustrating why a lot of us have too many pieces in our closets and drawers. The basic idea is to have enough items to get you from one laundry day to the next, with a few – but not too many – extras (you know, in case you spill OJ down your shirt or you run a bit behind on washing a load).

We do laundry about once per week in our household, so I have 10 “bottoms” in my wardrobe to cover those 7 days: 4 pairs of jeans, 4 pairs of shorts, 1 skirt, and 1 pair of yoga pants (I also have a few dresses for dressier occasions). And no, I’m not wearing shorts in the winter to get from laundry day to laundry day – I just don’t wash my denim after each wear because I’m a rule follower and it’s not recommended (don’t torture your jeans, guys!). So 4 pairs of jeans or 4 pairs of denim shorts easily last me 7 days if I wear a few of them twice before tossing them into the hamper. Nobody has ever told me that I smell, and children are VERY honest, so I feel good about this.

Ok, so now forget about me and think about all the different uniforms YOU might need for your lifestyle, whatever that may be – like for work or exercising – and actually add up in your head how many of those outfits you’ll need to get you through to your next laundry day. Keep that number in mind. Next, peek into your closet and drawers and just look at the actual number of things you have. If you count 25 t-shirts and tanks for summer, I’d guess that you probably wear your favorite 10-ish tops on repeat from laundry day to laundry day, and the other 15 items stay shoved wherever they always live, just taking up space because you have so many other items that you like more. If that is the case – just keep your 10 favorites and put the rest into the tupperware bin. You can do this. It’s not permanent. It’s just to see if you really do miss them or need them.

The same logic applies to any part of your uniform. Why own 6 bathing suits if you only rotate between the 2 that you look best in?! John recently realized he had 8 running shirts in his drawer but was only wearing 3 each week, washing them, and repeating that. This realization not only helped him get rid of those space-stealing extras (he still kept a couple back-ups) but it reminded him that he doesn’t need to buy any more when he’s standing there in the store staring at them. Win-win.

And for anyone who worries that just having a small number of favorite staples (aka: a uniform) might make you look like you’re wearing the exact same thing every day – it definitely doesn’t have to. Even with my very limited palette, I put together this little visual to show you how easy it is to layer things and change accessories to really switch things up. YAY PERMUTATIONS! I TOLD YOU THIS WAS MATH!

So those are some of the combinations I can make out of a few of my favorite items in my closet. Note that there are 10 different outfits in the image above – and they’re all made from just 4 different tops, 6 bottoms, and 2 dresses (the patterned skirt-looking-thing is a dress that feels too crazy for me, so I layer a tank over it to make it look like a skirt).

I love this demonstration because at first thought you might say… “Ok so if I want to have 10 work outfits and 7 causal outfits to get me from laundry day to laundry day comfortably with some wiggle room, that means I need 17 bottoms and 17 tops.” But wait! That’s bad math! Think about how you rewear your denim and maybe even a blazer if you don’t feel like it got too dirty – and then think about how many combo moves you can make by layering things in different ways! Remember that the 10 outfits above that are made from just 12 pieces – not the 20+ you might initially think would be needed if you just assumed you’d need different bottoms and tops every single day.

Am I rewearing those black tanks between washes? Nope! So it does bear mentioning that I love those so much, and I wear them so often, that I have three of them. They’re inexpensive and so versatile and they stay looking crisp and fresh that way. So occasionally purchasing multiples of something that you wear a ton can be an awesome way to keep it looking nice long-term and allow yourself to wear it in a few different ways throughout the week.

A Few Other Reasons We Buy Stuff We Don’t Wear

A big part of my method is just being honest with myself about what I actually wear day in and day out, and then being willing to let go of the rest of the stuff that’s taking up space. I know a lot of us hold onto clothes that we think that we’ll wear for some future hypothetical occasion or circumstance (“aspirational wardrobe” is what I call it – it’s when you buy some item for some imaginary very glamorous event but you never actually wear it because this is real life and not the Simms, so you don’t actually go to those types of events). So sometimes that’s what gets us into this overcrowded closet situation.

It also might be a good deal that tips the scales for you (“ooh these are so cheap, I can’t say no! I’ve gotta have them even though I have 15 shirts I like better BECAUSE THESE ARE TWO DOLLARS!”). Or it could be this idea that buying a certain thing will make you more stylish or pulled together (but then you never actually wear it because it turns out you wear/love super comfy clothes and that item that looks more pulled together is way less comfy than your soft and cozy favorites, so…).

What About That One Super Colorful Thing In Your Closet?

See this colorful dress? I know, it’s kind of hilarious next to everything else in my closet. But it fills a need, and I wear it often enough to warrant it staying. Why do I have it? Well, it’s kind of like my one fake uniform. I like how I look and feel in black, but every few months or so we need to give someone a bio picture or get dressed up for a photoshoot (like for our furniture line for example) and this dress comes with me. All black in a picture can look like a big dark hole amongst an otherwise fun and colorful shot, so I literally bought this dress from J. Crew Outlet a few years ago just for photos. Life is weird, huh?!

But we might all have strange wardrobe guidelines. Mine might be weirder than yours, but I’m sharing this because the instinct might be to tell yourself “hey I have this weird part of my life and I need some outfits for that, so I should probably grab like 10” – but in reality, I don’t need 10 colorful “fake uniforms” – one does the trick. So I have one.

Shopping Tip: Protect Your Closet GPA

Here’s another way to think about paring down your closet: you want to maintain a high closet GPA (grade point average). This is how I’ve been thinking about my closet for YEARS, and it really helps me avoid impulse purchases. Imagine giving every item of clothing that you already own a grade that’s based on how much you like it AND actually wear it. The things you wear all the time and love are As. Wahoo – working towards that perfect 4.0 average.

But that random yellow sweater you picked up on a whim or because it was on sale, and have only worn once… well that stinker is closer to D or F territory. IT IS BRINGING DOWN YOUR ENTIRE CLOSET’S GPA. You want your closet to be filled with your very favorite and most wearable items – so when you’re out shopping, think to yourself “is this new shirt better than all the other shirts I already have, so it’ll bring up my average – or do I love everything I have more than this shirt? Because if the latter is the case, that bad boy is gonna bring down your GPA – and ain’t nobody got time for that.

I think in general we tend to overcomplicate our clothing needs – and stores are constantly telling us we need something new, different, and trendy in order to look better or live a happier life or whatever story they’re trying to tell you when you see those people dashing across the street and hailing a cab in the commercials. Once I got really really happy with my clothes (they make me feel good! I love everything in my closet!) that’s like armor against all of those temptations to buy the newest and trendiest clothing and accessories.

You Don’t Have To Be Minimal Everywhere

I’m not a minimalist in every stretch of the word, though! So here’s a caveat to help you embrace whatever items you might actually not want to pare down at all. This minimal wardrobe of mine is about making my life easier and making me happy – it’s not about deprivation! AT ALL! So take my earrings for example. I probably have over 20 pairs of big fun earrings along with some classic studs and other jewelry like a few bracelets, a watch, a few necklaces.

That might be a lot to you!! You might not even have one pair of big dangly earrings. But for me, they’re part of my uniform – just like blazers and black tanks. So I embrace the fact that I have this many. I’m totally cool with it, and I don’t beat myself up. Incidentally, I think my love of them grew in NYC when I had no space for lots of clothes but I could always fit a few more earrings in my tiny apartment! Ha!

Does Owning Less Cause More Wear?

I got a lot of questions about how my clothes hold up if I’m wearing and washing each item more often. I see how someone could jump to that conclusion, but… drumroll please… I’m just washing things once a week like everyone else. Everything you wear, you launder it every 7 days or so, on average, right? And you probably wear your favorite 10 or so outfits and then you launder them. Well same for me! I just don’t have that extra stuff hanging between each item or shoved into the back of the drawer.

Since I have fewer items, I’m encouraged to take better care of them. Things aren’t getting shoved or crammed onto a rod or into a drawer, and they’re not sitting crumpled somewhere because I don’t have space. I hesitate to say they’re “precious” (I do most of my shopping at places like Old Navy and Target) but when I have fewer backup items, I’m more inclined to take the time to get stains out, fix missing buttons, or follow the proper care instructions with the things I do own.

tank / jeans / fitbit 

In fact, I am SUPER NICE to my stuff because my uniforms work hard for me. I like to wash everything in cold water (helps to lock in colors/black), I wash denim and black things inside out (helps with fading), and I always do a gentle wash and a tumble dry low (nothing too harsh for my babies, I mean clothes). I also always try to put laundry away right after it’s done, so I’m not losing track of piles of clothes and then rewashing them because I’m not sure if they’re clean or dirty – which is definitely something that my friends with more clothes say happens to them.

I have blazers and jackets and tops and jeans that I’ve owned for three or even over five years… so it’s not like I’m rebuying this “minimal wardrobe” every season or even every year. Most of my staples work for at least a few years, although I do buy a few multiples of inexpensive items (like my black tanks) so they stay looking fresher for longer.

How I Combine My Outfits

This is pretty self-explanatory, so I’m not gonna linger on it too much (and your closet favorites might look completely different than mine do), but seeing how I switch out shoes and jewelry and purses or some other thing below might just help the whole “permutations” thing click into place in your head, so here we go…

These are examples of what I might wear on a date night or to a work meeting or something. You can see the “uniform” in total effect here. Both outfits are skinny pants + a fitted tank + a jacket (blazer on the right, leather jacket on the left). I like to play around with shoes and jewelry, so that helps to add a little something extra for me, and I’m good to go.

Left: jeans / heels / similar top / leather jacket

Right: jeans / shoes / striped tank / blazer / necklace / watch

This is another example of what I might wear if I want to be slightly dressier for a holiday gathering or some sort of dinner out or party or something. Once again it’s skinnies on the bottom, a fitted top, and some big earrings and fun shoes. I like a simple black clutch too (hi, have you met me? I like simple black accessories). One funny thing I didn’t even realize until I took these photos is that I also like nude and leopard in my shoes along with black.

Left: jeans / heels / top / black clutch / earrings

Right: jeans / leopard flats / top / green jacket / similar earrings / black clutch

This is an example of what I might wear in the summer to a super casual something (on the right) and a slightly less casual something else (on the left). Oh and to everyone who asked what I walk in (because I’ve been doing these awesome long walks over lunch or after bedtime) and the answer is: whatever outfit I wear that day + sneakers or even flip flops in the summer. I can’t stress how chill these walks are (there’s no sweatband and sprinting, these are delightful strolls) so as long as I have deodorant on, I’m good.

Left: skirt / similar shoes / striped tank / clutch / earrings

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / similar earrings /similar sunglasses

Here are some more summer casual “uniforms” I wear all the time. It may shock you to learn that my everyday purse is this tan crossbody bag (WHAT, IT’S NOT BLACK?!?!), but the reason I love it is because I’m almost always wearing black, so I like that it adds something interesting with another color and goes with everything.

Left: shorts / sandals / striped tank /similar sunglasses

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / earrings / similar purse /similar sunglasses

If I want to dress up a little for some reason (or no reason – I once wore the long black dress on the right to an ice cream parlor with the kids) these might be what I wear. I mentioned before that the left outfit looks like it’s made up of a patterned skirt and a tank but it’s actually a dress that feels way too crazy to me when it’s worn that way but I LOVE it with a black tank layered over it. Once again I add cute shoes and some big earrings and either of these outfits have me out the door in minutes. Isn’t it funny that they have the same silhouette too? Creature of habit right here ;)

Left: dress / tank / similar shoes / similar earrings

Right: dress / leopard flats / earrings / similar purse / similar sunglasses

Got Any Tips For Minimizing Kids Clothing?

There are lots of tricks for determining what you or your kids actually wear, versus what you think you wear. Like turning all of the hangers in one direction and then turning them around once an item is worn. The theory is that after a couple of weeks or months you can see exactly what didn’t get touched. You can also move everything to one side of your hanging rod and move it back once it has been worn. Any version of that works well for hanging clothes, but lots of us – especially kids – store big chunks of their wardrobe in drawers. BUT I HAVE A SOLUTION!

You just have to do one simple thing each week for a few weeks in a row. Ready for it? Just look in their drawers and at their hanging bar on laundry day. That means the things they love most and have already worn are all in the hamper, so they’ve sort of naturally selected their favorites for you – but instead of putting them on the bed they’re all nicely coralled in the hamper.

So with their favorites pulled out of the fray, go through their drawers and their hanging bar and take note of what’s left. If you do this for a few weeks in a row, you’ll start to notice a theme. Certain items never leave the drawer. A few things might always get shoved in the back of the closet or balled up on the floor. VOILA – there is your excess! Put that in a tupperware bin and see if you ever even need it again! And if you don’t, gleefully donate or consign it. And then remember what those “space wasters” were when you’re standing in the store about to buy another outfit for them – just to be sure you’re not repeating some pattern of thinking they’ll wear some item when in actuality they never do.

Whew. Ok, that’s 5,688 words and I’m feeling ready to call this turkey of a post done. I hope this was helpful in some way if you’re looking for ways to simplify the clothing situation in your house.

Psst – If you’re looking for more on this subject, here’s an old post I wrote about my clothing, here’s an awesome book called Simplicity Parenting that talks about decision fatigue and simplifying our homes in general (it totally changed my life and I’ve read it 3 times), and here’s a podcast we did with an amazing man named Matt who worked on the show Hoarders, and has some pretty enlightening and kind things to say about paring down. Also Katie Bower did a post about her one-rack wardrobe yesterday, which was a fun read too!

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My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money

Whenever I’m asked about my clothes, I joke that I wear basically the same thing every day. But it turns out that even after years of saying that (and sharing that I had just one bra for many years on the blog), a whole bunch of people freaked out when they saw the hanging bar in my closet on Instagram recently. I got FLOODED with DMs about my sparse mostly black wardrobe. One person even said that seeing my closet was, and I quote: “the wildest thing they’ve seen on the internet in 2018.” That’s quite the statement considering 2018 also gave us Gritty.

To clarify don’t actually wear the same items of clothing every day on repeat – I just have a fairly small number of clothes that I love and wear all the time – all of which are pretty similar in color/style/silhouette – which I lovingly call “my uniform.” Think Steve Jobs or Michael Kors… except with fewer turtlenecks and less of that billionaire vibe.

I’m not doing laundry any more frequently than anyone else (we do it once a week around here, which I think is pretty average), so it’s just about having enough outfits that you love to get you from laundry day to laundry day (whether they need to be warm, or dressy, or whatever works for your life) without having a ton of extra stuff that’s in the way of the things that you actually wear.

So if you’re tired of drawers and closets that are overflowing, or you love the idea of a more minimal wardrobe full of things you love – and less money spent on clothing excess – then this post is for you. There are definitely people with even fewer clothes, and folks who have other methods for paring down, but I’m just gonna lay out what works for me. And if you’re a wardrobe maximalist who loves having tons of clothes and a bunch of different looks and you ADORE your extensive wardrobe, then this post is not for you (do whatever works for you, boo! I’m ALL FOR THAT!).

Ok, so my plan is just to take you through my closet and all of my drawers, talk you through my process/formula for keeping my wardrobe minimal, and show you how I can create a bunch of outfits (from casual to dressy and from warm weather to cold weather) from a pretty pared down number of tops and bottoms that I lovingly refer to as: “my uniform.”

  And it bears mentioning that even if you have a completely different dress code for your profession, or if you hate the way I dress and the colors/styles/silhouettes that I wear, this is a formula. So you can plug in your favorite silhouettes and colors and everything else that YOU love to make this work for you!

Closet Video Tour

Let’s kick this puppy off with a video tour. I know you have questions (I vividly remember all those DMs I got on Instagram), but pictures are worth 1,000 words, and a video is worth 1,000 pictures. So I’m walking you through my closet and opening all of my drawers (and John’s – haha!) to show you exactly what I have and how I store it along with sharing a little bit more about why/how it works for me. Note: if you can’t see the video below and are reading this post in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the original post to see it. We also uploaded it here on YouTube.

Ok, so now that you’ve seen where everything is, and heard me talk a little bit about my uniform, let’s dive a little deeper. I’m just gonna answer things Q&A style for you below.

How Does A “Uniform” Work?

I’m not talking about a school uniform where your closet is filled with dozens of identical skirts and polos here, but it is almost like finding your own personal “dress code” – meaning the cuts, colors, and styles that you love the most and feel great in. Because if you find something that works, it makes sense that it’s going to be the thing that you’ll reach for and wear a whole lot more than everything else. So why not take a second to figure out why it works and why you love it so much so you can love every last item in your closet that much?! Sounds good, right?

That’s the core idea behind my “uniform” – just figuring out what you love and stopping the vicious cycle of buying other things to stay “on trend” or for the sake of “variety” or to “look different” and then realizing months later that you never wear them because they don’t make you feel as good or you don’t like the cut or the color nearly as much as your tried and true favorites. And the amazing thing is that once you truly understand why you like what you like, you can stand in a store or the dressing room and eliminate clothing that doesn’t fit within that criteria without much effort or thought! You can literally stop the cycle of buying yet another thing that you won’t really love AND you can keep your closet and drawers from filling up with unnecessary extras. Plus you get to keep a little more cash in your wallet.

I don’t think there’s just one magic wardrobe number that works for everyone (someone who goes to the gym every day or lives on a farm or does a team sport may have a need for more laundry/clothing than someone who doesn’t) but I’ll show you my “uniforms” in a second, just to serve as an example. Oh and I say “uniforms” with an S because there can be different ones for different seasons and occasions, like casual weekend uniforms, workout uniforms, work uniforms, etc. And the key is just to figure out how many of those you actually need and not have double or triple that amount all squeezed into your drawers and falling all over the floor of your closet. And did I mention you can save that money? I did? Ok, good. Just making sure.

So don’t tell yourself that just because you work in an office and have to dress up, or because you live in a colder climate that you can’t have a simpler closet. It’s not true!! I dressed myself with this method all the way back in NYC when I had an office job that necessitated me dressing up all the time. And this was in a colder climate where I walked city streets and stood on frigid subway platforms – so I definitely needed all the layering I could get. Why does it still work, even if you have to dress up or add a coat and a scarf and a hat? Because in the end, this is all math, GLORIOUS MATH!

What Exact Items Are In My “Uniform”?

If you’ve followed us for any amount of time, you probably already know my uniform. Black v-neck tops. Jeans. Black scoop neck tanks. Denim shorts. Blazers. Leather or suede jackets. More blazers. And a black dress or two to round things out. It has become kind of a joke, because you guys keep seeing me in a blazer at basically every speaking event or book signing. But here’s the thing: it’s not an accident. Because it’s the way I dress. It has become my uniform for those sorts of things – because I like the way they feel and look on me. And I actually reach for them in my closet and wear them (yesssssss) so I know they don’t sit around wasting space. And therefore I love these items. They work hard for me, make me feel good, and earn their space in my closet.

Six years of living in New York City instilled my love of black, and while I do branch out occasionally (I’ve been known to get wild and throw some navy or olive green in here and there) I’ve learned over the years that when I deviate and buy something in a brighter color, I rarely end up wearing it regularly because – well – I always have other options in my closet that I like better. And guess what? They’re black. It was something I had to realize over time, but ever since I embraced my love of black and stopped trying to make myself wear other colors that I ultimately didn’t wear because I didn’t like them as much (vicious cycle, much?!), two things have happened: 1) I feel GOOD in my clothes. Like all the time. There’s zero clothing drama for me when I get dressed. 2) I’ve stopped wasting money and time buying items I’ll probably just return or donate later. It’s freeing!

top: Old Navy but no longer sold / jeans / heels

I’ve also learned over the years that most of my favorite tops are a little more fitted than the average loose fitting cut, because it helps my 5’2″ body look a little less amorphous – like I’m wearing a potato sack. This realization makes it easy to pass over anything with a drapey look in the store – no matter how glamorous it looks on the mannequin or some long torsoed girl in the fitting room.

Same thing with shorts. I buy short shorts, because I’m petite and when I have tried buying longer shorts, they make me look frumpy, like I’m going golfing or something. And then I’d give those shorts the stink eye for wasting space in my drawer and eventually donate them. But the realization that shorter shorts work better for my body has been freeing. I no longer waste time or money buying longer shorts “just for variety” or to have “something different” because they don’t look as good on me – so duh, of course I won’t wear them as much and they’ll eventually end up in the donate pile!

Same thing with a certain cut of jeans or something. It’s easy to fall for the marketing that says “this bellbottom highwater pant that ends at your shin is the new cool thing!” but I gotta tell ya… it might not be something you actually like or feel good in. So I’m not saying blanketly that you should avoid all trends, but before you go to the store, just look through your clothes and see what you don’t wear – then figure out why. If you pull out one pair of jeans with a different cut that you bought “just to be different” but you never wear them because you don’t like how they look as much as ever other pair you have, it’s a whole lot easier to dodge the urge to do that very same thing in the dressing room the next time around.

So let’s say you get to this point and you’re like “uh, but all of your clothes are black. That is so boring. I would die.” Yes, my clothes are mostly black. But this works with all the colors of the rainbow (and all styles and all body types). If you pull out your very favorite outfits from your closet – just the things you actually wear and love – and lay them on the bed, I’m betting they might have some things in common. Even if there are a bunch of different colored items on the bed. I would bet there are still some colors that come up more because you love how you look and feel in them. And you might also notice some trends with cut/silhouette, because chances are if a certain cut of jeans makes you feel your best, it may also be your favorite cut of dress pants. And you might have a few blazers or jackets with similar shapes that hit your body at just the right spot or something. Things are your favorite for a reason, right!?

I’m also a big fan of layering. It’s how I made it work in NYC while working in an agency where I had to get dressed up without even having a dresser in my apartment. That’s right, I had one small and narrow closet and that was it. So I taught myself to layer things. Five shirts that can be layered under five different jackets or blazers = 25 different combinations!!! I mean, how awesome is that math?! And if you add a few different pairs of shoes and some fun jewelry to switch out too, it’s a whole lot of looks without having a whole lot of things. Did I just have five of each thing? No, that would probably feel a little tight – but I probably had under 10 tops that I layered with maybe 7 blazers/jackets/cardigans and then had maybe 5 options for bottoms (jeans if I didn’t have to present that day, and black pants if I did).

The funny thing is that my current “typical uniform” of a black top + denim bottom is that it replicates exactly what I did in NYC when I worked in an office – it’s just a little less dressy. So I can easily transition between summer and winter just by layering – which is exactly what I did back then. When it gets cold I just swap my denim shorts or skirt for skinny jeans, and I throw a jacket right over my black summer tank (maybe a black leather jacket or a crisp blazer or an olive green faux suede jacket). It can even go from casual to somewhat-dressy (like a date night) because I can toss on some cute heels and big earrings and I’m ready to go!

jeans / black tank / green faux suede jacket / leopard heels

How To Pare Down Your Closet

Now I’m not in a position to tell you what YOUR uniform should look like, but one super easy tip for figuring yours out is to do what I touched on a little earlier in this section. Just pull all of your very favorite outfits out – the ones you love and wear all the time – and lay them on your bed.  Then count them. You might literally have enough right there to take you from laundry day to laundry day. If so: congrats! That is your uniform! Right there on the bed! The rest is excess and it can be shoved into a big tupperware bin or two and stashed in the attic or garage. Just see if you even need those items at all. This is the training wheels method – if you need something you can take it back out – but if you don’t miss it and this helps to show you that it’s just dead weight in your closet or your drawers, it feels amazing to consign or donate that extra fluff and just have a wardrobe you LOVE and actually wear!

Ok, but say you only have like five outfits on the bed and you need more than that to get you from laundry day to laundry day. The next step would be to try to identify the common threads, because you need more clothes that make you feel this way. Is it a certain color or color family that you notice when you stare at the winning clothes on the bed? Maybe it’s four favorite colors and tones instead of just one like me? Is it a certain cut? Maybe a fitted silhouette in general or a more voluminous skirt if you feel your best in something fun and swingy? Do a bunch of your favorite outfits follow the same “formula” – maybe a wrap dress with a cardigan and a cute colorful flat? Try to boil things down as much as you can so you have as much direction as you can moving forward. Try not to just say “I like boho stuff” or “anything at Anne Taylor!” because that won’t help you as much as a more detailed set of parameters will.

Calculating Your Closet Needs

Again, this isn’t about hitting a certain fixed number or quota in my closet, but I do find that thinking about this in numbers is helpful – especially just in illustrating why a lot of us have too many pieces in our closets and drawers. The basic idea is to have enough items to get you from one laundry day to the next, with a few – but not too many – extras (you know, in case you spill OJ down your shirt or you run a bit behind on washing a load).

We do laundry about once per week in our household, so I have 10 “bottoms” in my wardrobe to cover those 7 days: 4 pairs of jeans, 4 pairs of shorts, 1 skirt, and 1 pair of yoga pants (I also have a few dresses for dressier occasions). And no, I’m not wearing shorts in the winter to get from laundry day to laundry day – I just don’t wash my denim after each wear because I’m a rule follower and it’s not recommended (don’t torture your jeans, guys!). So 4 pairs of jeans or 4 pairs of denim shorts easily last me 7 days if I wear a few of them twice before tossing them into the hamper. Nobody has ever told me that I smell, and children are VERY honest, so I feel good about this.

Ok, so now forget about me and think about all the different uniforms YOU might need for your lifestyle, whatever that may be – like for work or exercising – and actually add up in your head how many of those outfits you’ll need to get you through to your next laundry day. Keep that number in mind. Next, peek into your closet and drawers and just look at the actual number of things you have. If you count 25 t-shirts and tanks for summer, I’d guess that you probably wear your favorite 10-ish tops on repeat from laundry day to laundry day, and the other 15 items stay shoved wherever they always live, just taking up space because you have so many other items that you like more. If that is the case – just keep your 10 favorites and put the rest into the tupperware bin. You can do this. It’s not permanent. It’s just to see if you really do miss them or need them.

The same logic applies to any part of your uniform. Why own 6 bathing suits if you only rotate between the 2 that you look best in?! John recently realized he had 8 running shirts in his drawer but was only wearing 3 each week, washing them, and repeating that. This realization not only helped him get rid of those space-stealing extras (he still kept a couple back-ups) but it reminded him that he doesn’t need to buy any more when he’s standing there in the store staring at them. Win-win.

And for anyone who worries that just having a small number of favorite staples (aka: a uniform) might make you look like you’re wearing the exact same thing every day – it definitely doesn’t have to. Even with my very limited palette, I put together this little visual to show you how easy it is to layer things and change accessories to really switch things up. YAY PERMUTATIONS! I TOLD YOU THIS WAS MATH!

So those are some of the combinations I can make out of a few of my favorite items in my closet. Note that there are 10 different outfits in the image above – and they’re all made from just 4 different tops, 6 bottoms, and 2 dresses (the patterned skirt-looking-thing is a dress that feels too crazy for me, so I layer a tank over it to make it look like a skirt).

I love this demonstration because at first thought you might say… “Ok so if I want to have 10 work outfits and 7 causal outfits to get me from laundry day to laundry day comfortably with some wiggle room, that means I need 17 bottoms and 17 tops.” But wait! That’s bad math! Think about how you rewear your denim and maybe even a blazer if you don’t feel like it got too dirty – and then think about how many combo moves you can make by layering things in different ways! Remember that the 10 outfits above that are made from just 12 pieces – not the 20+ you might initially think would be needed if you just assumed you’d need different bottoms and tops every single day.

Am I rewearing those black tanks between washes? Nope! So it does bear mentioning that I love those so much, and I wear them so often, that I have three of them. They’re inexpensive and so versatile and they stay looking crisp and fresh that way. So occasionally purchasing multiples of something that you wear a ton can be an awesome way to keep it looking nice long-term and allow yourself to wear it in a few different ways throughout the week.

A Few Other Reasons We Buy Stuff We Don’t Wear

A big part of my method is just being honest with myself about what I actually wear day in and day out, and then being willing to let go of the rest of the stuff that’s taking up space. I know a lot of us hold onto clothes that we think that we’ll wear for some future hypothetical occasion or circumstance (“aspirational wardrobe” is what I call it – it’s when you buy some item for some imaginary very glamorous event but you never actually wear it because this is real life and not the Simms, so you don’t actually go to those types of events). So sometimes that’s what gets us into this overcrowded closet situation.

It also might be a good deal that tips the scales for you (“ooh these are so cheap, I can’t say no! I’ve gotta have them even though I have 15 shirts I like better BECAUSE THESE ARE TWO DOLLARS!”). Or it could be this idea that buying a certain thing will make you more stylish or pulled together (but then you never actually wear it because it turns out you wear/love super comfy clothes and that item that looks more pulled together is way less comfy than your soft and cozy favorites, so…).

What About That One Super Colorful Thing In Your Closet? 

See this colorful dress? I know, it’s kind of hilarious next to everything else in my closet. But it fills a need, and I wear it often enough to warrant it staying. Why do I have it? Well, it’s kind of like my one fake uniform. I like how I look and feel in black, but every few months or so we need to give someone a bio picture or get dressed up for a photoshoot (like for our furniture line for example) and this dress comes with me. All black in a picture can look like a big dark hole amongst an otherwise fun and colorful shot, so I literally bought this dress from J. Crew Outlet a few years ago just for photos. Life is weird, huh?!

But we might all have strange wardrobe guidelines. Mine might be weirder than yours, but I’m sharing this because the instinct might be to tell yourself “hey I have this weird part of my life and I need some outfits for that, so I should probably grab like 10” – but in reality, I don’t need 10 colorful “fake uniforms” – one does the trick. So I have one.

Shopping Tip: Protect Your Closet GPA

Here’s another way to think about paring down your closet: you want to maintain a high closet GPA (grade point average). This is how I’ve been thinking about my closet for YEARS, and it really helps me avoid impulse purchases. Imagine giving every item of clothing that you already own a grade that’s based on how much you like it AND actually wear it. The things you wear all the time and love are As. Wahoo – working towards that perfect 4.0 average.

But that random yellow sweater you picked up on a whim or because it was on sale, and have only worn once… well that stinker is closer to D or F territory. IT IS BRINGING DOWN YOUR ENTIRE CLOSET’S GPA. You want your closet to be filled with your very favorite and most wearable items – so when you’re out shopping, think to yourself “is this new shirt better than all the other shirts I already have, so it’ll bring up my average – or do I love everything I have more than this shirt? Because if the latter is the case, that bad boy is gonna bring down your GPA – and ain’t nobody got time for that.

I think in general we tend to overcomplicate our clothing needs – and stores are constantly telling us we need something new, different, and trendy in order to look better or live a happier life or whatever story they’re trying to tell you when you see those people dashing across the street and hailing a cab in the commercials. Once I got really really happy with my clothes (they make me feel good! I love everything in my closet!) that’s like armor against all of those temptations to buy the newest and trendiest clothing and accessories.

You Don’t Have To Be Minimal Everywhere

I’m not a minimalist in every stretch of the word, though! So here’s a caveat to help you embrace whatever items you might actually not want to pare down at all. This minimal wardrobe of mine is about making my life easier and making me happy – it’s not about deprivation! AT ALL! So take my earrings for example. I probably have over 20 pairs of big fun earrings along with some classic studs and other jewelry like a few bracelets, a watch, a few necklaces.

That might be a lot to you!! You might not even have one pair of big dangly earrings. But for me, they’re part of my uniform – just like blazers and black tanks. So I embrace the fact that I have this many. I’m totally cool with it, and I don’t beat myself up. Incidentally, I think my love of them grew in NYC when I had no space for lots of clothes but I could always fit a few more earrings in my tiny apartment! Ha!

Does Owning Less Cause More Wear?

I got a lot of questions about how my clothes hold up if I’m wearing and washing each item more often. I see how someone could jump to that conclusion, but… drumroll please… I’m just washing things once a week like everyone else. Everything you wear, you launder it every 7 days or so, on average, right? And you probably wear your favorite 10 or so outfits and then you launder them. Well same for me! I just don’t have that extra stuff hanging between each item or shoved into the back of the drawer.

Since I have fewer items, I’m encouraged to take better care of them. Things aren’t getting shoved or crammed onto a rod or into a drawer, and they’re not sitting crumpled somewhere because I don’t have space. I hesitate to say they’re “precious” (I do most of my shopping at places like Old Navy and Target) but when I have fewer backup items, I’m more inclined to take the time to get stains out, fix missing buttons, or follow the proper care instructions with the things I do own.

tank / jeans / fitbit 

In fact, I am SUPER NICE to my stuff because my uniforms work hard for me. I like to wash everything in cold water (helps to lock in colors/black), I wash denim and black things inside out (helps with fading), and I always do a gentle wash and a tumble dry low (nothing too harsh for my babies, I mean clothes). I also always try to put laundry away right after it’s done, so I’m not losing track of piles of clothes and then rewashing them because I’m not sure if they’re clean or dirty – which is definitely something that my friends with more clothes say happens to them.

I have blazers and jackets and tops and jeans that I’ve owned for three or even over five years… so it’s not like I’m rebuying this “minimal wardrobe” every season or even every year. Most of my staples work for at least a few years, although I do buy a few multiples of inexpensive items (like my black tanks) so they stay looking fresher for longer.

How I Combine My Outfits

This is pretty self-explanatory, so I’m not gonna linger on it too much (and your closet favorites might look completely different than mine do), but seeing how I switch out shoes and jewelry and purses or some other thing below might just help the whole “permutations” thing click into place in your head, so here we go…

These are examples of what I might wear on a date night or to a work meeting or something. You can see the “uniform” in total effect here. Both outfits are skinny pants + a fitted tank + a jacket (blazer on the right, leather jacket on the left). I like to play around with shoes and jewelry, so that helps to add a little something extra for me, and I’m good to go.

Left: jeans / heels / similar top / leather jacket

Right: jeans / shoes / striped tank / blazer / necklace / watch

This is another example of what I might wear if I want to be slightly dressier for a holiday gathering or some sort of dinner out or party or something. Once again it’s skinnies on the bottom, a fitted top, and some big earrings and fun shoes. I like a simple black clutch too (hi, have you met me? I like simple black accessories). One funny thing I didn’t even realize until I took these photos is that I also like nude and leopard in my shoes along with black.

Left: jeans / heels / top / black clutch / earrings

Right: jeans / leopard flats / top / green jacket / similar earrings / black clutch

This is an example of what I might wear in the summer to a super casual something (on the right) and a slightly less casual something else (on the left). Oh and to everyone who asked what I walk in (because I’ve been doing these awesome long walks over lunch or after bedtime) and the answer is: whatever outfit I wear that day + sneakers or even flip flops in the summer. I can’t stress how chill these walks are (there’s no sweatband and sprinting, these are delightful strolls) so as long as I have deodorant on, I’m good.

Left: skirt / similar shoes / striped tank / clutch / earrings

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / similar earrings /similar sunglasses

Here are some more summer casual “uniforms” I wear all the time. It may shock you to learn that my everyday purse is this tan crossbody bag (WHAT, IT’S NOT BLACK?!?!), but the reason I love it is because I’m almost always wearing black, so I like that it adds something interesting with another color and goes with everything.

Left: shorts / sandals / striped tank /similar sunglasses

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / earrings / similar purse /similar sunglasses

If I want to dress up a little for some reason (or no reason – I once wore the long black dress on the right to an ice cream parlor with the kids) these might be what I wear. I mentioned before that the left outfit looks like it’s made up of a patterned skirt and a tank but it’s actually a dress that feels way too crazy to me when it’s worn that way but I LOVE it with a black tank layered over it. Once again I add cute shoes and some big earrings and either of these outfits have me out the door in minutes. Isn’t it funny that they have the same silhouette too? Creature of habit right here ;)

Left: dress / tank / similar shoes / similar earrings

Right: dress / leopard flats / earrings / similar purse / similar sunglasses

Got Any Tips For Minimizing Kids Clothing?

There are lots of tricks for determining what you or your kids actually wear, versus what you think you wear. Like turning all of the hangers in one direction and then turning them around once an item is worn. The theory is that after a couple of weeks or months you can see exactly what didn’t get touched. You can also move everything to one side of your hanging rod and move it back once it has been worn. Any version of that works well for hanging clothes, but lots of us – especially kids – store big chunks of their wardrobe in drawers. BUT I HAVE A SOLUTION!

You just have to do one simple thing each week for a few weeks in a row. Ready for it? Just look in their drawers and at their hanging bar on laundry day. That means the things they love most and have already worn are all in the hamper, so they’ve sort of naturally selected their favorites for you – but instead of putting them on the bed they’re all nicely coralled in the hamper.

So with their favorites pulled out of the fray, go through their drawers and their hanging bar and take note of what’s left. If you do this for a few weeks in a row, you’ll start to notice a theme. Certain items never leave the drawer. A few things might always get shoved in the back of the closet or balled up on the floor. VOILA – there is your excess! Put that in a tupperware bin and see if you ever even need it again! And if you don’t, gleefully donate or consign it. And then remember what those “space wasters” were when you’re standing in the store about to buy another outfit for them – just to be sure you’re not repeating some pattern of thinking they’ll wear some item when in actuality they never do.

Whew. Ok, that’s 5,688 words and I’m feeling ready to call this turkey of a post done. I hope this was helpful in some way if you’re looking for ways to simplify the clothing situation in your house.

Psst – If you’re looking for more on this subject, here’s an old post I wrote about my clothing, here’s an awesome book called Simplicity Parenting that talks about decision fatigue and simplifying our homes in general (it totally changed my life and I’ve read it 3 times), and here’s a podcast we did with an amazing man named Matt who worked on the show Hoarders, and has some pretty enlightening and kind things to say about paring down. Also Katie Bower did a post about her one-rack wardrobe yesterday, which was a fun read too!

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My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money

Whenever I’m asked about my clothes, I joke that I wear basically the same thing every day. But it turns out that even after years of saying that (and sharing that I had just one bra for many years on the blog), a whole bunch of people freaked out when they saw the hanging bar in my closet on Instagram recently. I got FLOODED with DMs about my sparse mostly black wardrobe. One person even said that seeing my closet was, and I quote: “the wildest thing they’ve seen on the internet in 2018.” That’s quite the statement considering 2018 also gave us Gritty.

To clarify don’t actually wear the same items of clothing every day on repeat – I just have a fairly small number of clothes that I love and wear all the time – all of which are pretty similar in color/style/silhouette – which I lovingly call “my uniform.” Think Steve Jobs or Michael Kors… except with fewer turtlenecks and less of that billionaire vibe.

I’m not doing laundry any more frequently than anyone else (we do it once a week around here, which I think is pretty average), so it’s just about having enough outfits that you love to get you from laundry day to laundry day (whether they need to be warm, or dressy, or whatever works for your life) without having a ton of extra stuff that’s in the way of the things that you actually wear.

So if you’re tired of drawers and closets that are overflowing, or you love the idea of a more minimal wardrobe full of things you love – and less money spent on clothing excess – then this post is for you. There are definitely people with even fewer clothes, and folks who have other methods for paring down, but I’m just gonna lay out what works for me. And if you’re a wardrobe maximalist who loves having tons of clothes and a bunch of different looks and you ADORE your extensive wardrobe, then this post is not for you (do whatever works for you, boo! I’m ALL FOR THAT!).

Ok, so my plan is just to take you through my closet and all of my drawers, talk you through my process/formula for keeping my wardrobe minimal, and show you how I can create a bunch of outfits (from casual to dressy and from warm weather to cold weather) from a pretty pared down number of tops and bottoms that I lovingly refer to as: “my uniform.”

  And it bears mentioning that even if you have a completely different dress code for your profession, or if you hate the way I dress and the colors/styles/silhouettes that I wear, this is a formula. So you can plug in your favorite silhouettes and colors and everything else that YOU love to make this work for you!

Closet Video Tour

Let’s kick this puppy off with a video tour. I know you have questions (I vividly remember all those DMs I got on Instagram), but pictures are worth 1,000 words, and a video is worth 1,000 pictures. So I’m walking you through my closet and opening all of my drawers (and John’s – haha!) to show you exactly what I have and how I store it along with sharing a little bit more about why/how it works for me. Note: if you can’t see the video below and are reading this post in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the original post to see it. We also uploaded it here on YouTube.

Ok, so now that you’ve seen where everything is, and heard me talk a little bit about my uniform, let’s dive a little deeper. I’m just gonna answer things Q&A style for you below.

How Does A “Uniform” Work?

I’m not talking about a school uniform where your closet is filled with dozens of identical skirts and polos here, but it is almost like finding your own personal “dress code” – meaning the cuts, colors, and styles that you love the most and feel great in. Because if you find something that works, it makes sense that it’s going to be the thing that you’ll reach for and wear a whole lot more than everything else. So why not take a second to figure out why it works and why you love it so much so you can love every last item in your closet that much?! Sounds good, right?

That’s the core idea behind my “uniform” – just figuring out what you love and stopping the vicious cycle of buying other things to stay “on trend” or for the sake of “variety” or to “look different” and then realizing months later that you never wear them because they don’t make you feel as good or you don’t like the cut or the color nearly as much as your tried and true favorites. And the amazing thing is that once you truly understand why you like what you like, you can stand in a store or the dressing room and eliminate clothing that doesn’t fit within that criteria without much effort or thought! You can literally stop the cycle of buying yet another thing that you won’t really love AND you can keep your closet and drawers from filling up with unnecessary extras. Plus you get to keep a little more cash in your wallet.

I don’t think there’s just one magic wardrobe number that works for everyone (someone who goes to the gym every day or lives on a farm or does a team sport may have a need for more laundry/clothing than someone who doesn’t) but I’ll show you my “uniforms” in a second, just to serve as an example. Oh and I say “uniforms” with an S because there can be different ones for different seasons and occasions, like casual weekend uniforms, workout uniforms, work uniforms, etc. And the key is just to figure out how many of those you actually need and not have double or triple that amount all squeezed into your drawers and falling all over the floor of your closet. And did I mention you can save that money? I did? Ok, good. Just making sure.

So don’t tell yourself that just because you work in an office and have to dress up, or because you live in a colder climate that you can’t have a simpler closet. It’s not true!! I dressed myself with this method all the way back in NYC when I had an office job that necessitated me dressing up all the time. And this was in a colder climate where I walked city streets and stood on frigid subway platforms – so I definitely needed all the layering I could get. Why does it still work, even if you have to dress up or add a coat and a scarf and a hat? Because in the end, this is all math, GLORIOUS MATH!

What Exact Items Are In My “Uniform”?

If you’ve followed us for any amount of time, you probably already know my uniform. Black v-neck tops. Jeans. Black scoop neck tanks. Denim shorts. Blazers. Leather or suede jackets. More blazers. And a black dress or two to round things out. It has become kind of a joke, because you guys keep seeing me in a blazer at basically every speaking event or book signing. But here’s the thing: it’s not an accident. Because it’s the way I dress. It has become my uniform for those sorts of things – because I like the way they feel and look on me. And I actually reach for them in my closet and wear them (yesssssss) so I know they don’t sit around wasting space. And therefore I love these items. They work hard for me, make me feel good, and earn their space in my closet.

Six years of living in New York City instilled my love of black, and while I do branch out occasionally (I’ve been known to get wild and throw some navy or olive green in here and there) I’ve learned over the years that when I deviate and buy something in a brighter color, I rarely end up wearing it regularly because – well – I always have other options in my closet that I like better. And guess what? They’re black. It was something I had to realize over time, but ever since I embraced my love of black and stopped trying to make myself wear other colors that I ultimately didn’t wear because I didn’t like them as much (vicious cycle, much?!), two things have happened: 1) I feel GOOD in my clothes. Like all the time. There’s zero clothing drama for me when I get dressed. 2) I’ve stopped wasting money and time buying items I’ll probably just return or donate later. It’s freeing!

top: Old Navy but no longer sold / jeans / heels

I’ve also learned over the years that most of my favorite tops are a little more fitted than the average loose fitting cut, because it helps my 5’2″ body look a little less amorphous – like I’m wearing a potato sack. This realization makes it easy to pass over anything with a drapey look in the store – no matter how glamorous it looks on the mannequin or some long torsoed girl in the fitting room.

Same thing with shorts. I buy short shorts, because I’m petite and when I have tried buying longer shorts, they make me look frumpy, like I’m going golfing or something. And then I’d give those shorts the stink eye for wasting space in my drawer and eventually donate them. But the realization that shorter shorts work better for my body has been freeing. I no longer waste time or money buying longer shorts “just for variety” or to have “something different” because they don’t look as good on me – so duh, of course I won’t wear them as much and they’ll eventually end up in the donate pile!

Same thing with a certain cut of jeans or something. It’s easy to fall for the marketing that says “this bellbottom highwater pant that ends at your shin is the new cool thing!” but I gotta tell ya… it might not be something you actually like or feel good in. So I’m not saying blanketly that you should avoid all trends, but before you go to the store, just look through your clothes and see what you don’t wear – then figure out why. If you pull out one pair of jeans with a different cut that you bought “just to be different” but you never wear them because you don’t like how they look as much as ever other pair you have, it’s a whole lot easier to dodge the urge to do that very same thing in the dressing room the next time around.

So let’s say you get to this point and you’re like “uh, but all of your clothes are black. That is so boring. I would die.” Yes, my clothes are mostly black. But this works with all the colors of the rainbow (and all styles and all body types). If you pull out your very favorite outfits from your closet – just the things you actually wear and love – and lay them on the bed, I’m betting they might have some things in common. Even if there are a bunch of different colored items on the bed. I would bet there are still some colors that come up more because you love how you look and feel in them. And you might also notice some trends with cut/silhouette, because chances are if a certain cut of jeans makes you feel your best, it may also be your favorite cut of dress pants. And you might have a few blazers or jackets with similar shapes that hit your body at just the right spot or something. Things are your favorite for a reason, right!?

I’m also a big fan of layering. It’s how I made it work in NYC while working in an agency where I had to get dressed up without even having a dresser in my apartment. That’s right, I had one small and narrow closet and that was it. So I taught myself to layer things. Five shirts that can be layered under five different jackets or blazers = 25 different combinations!!! I mean, how awesome is that math?! And if you add a few different pairs of shoes and some fun jewelry to switch out too, it’s a whole lot of looks without having a whole lot of things. Did I just have five of each thing? No, that would probably feel a little tight – but I probably had under 10 tops that I layered with maybe 7 blazers/jackets/cardigans and then had maybe 5 options for bottoms (jeans if I didn’t have to present that day, and black pants if I did).

The funny thing is that my current “typical uniform” of a black top + denim bottom is that it replicates exactly what I did in NYC when I worked in an office – it’s just a little less dressy. So I can easily transition between summer and winter just by layering – which is exactly what I did back then. When it gets cold I just swap my denim shorts or skirt for skinny jeans, and I throw a jacket right over my black summer tank (maybe a black leather jacket or a crisp blazer or an olive green faux suede jacket). It can even go from casual to somewhat-dressy (like a date night) because I can toss on some cute heels and big earrings and I’m ready to go!

jeans / black tank / green faux suede jacket / leopard heels

How To Pare Down Your Closet

Now I’m not in a position to tell you what YOUR uniform should look like, but one super easy tip for figuring yours out is to do what I touched on a little earlier in this section. Just pull all of your very favorite outfits out – the ones you love and wear all the time – and lay them on your bed.  Then count them. You might literally have enough right there to take you from laundry day to laundry day. If so: congrats! That is your uniform! Right there on the bed! The rest is excess and it can be shoved into a big tupperware bin or two and stashed in the attic or garage. Just see if you even need those items at all. This is the training wheels method – if you need something you can take it back out – but if you don’t miss it and this helps to show you that it’s just dead weight in your closet or your drawers, it feels amazing to consign or donate that extra fluff and just have a wardrobe you LOVE and actually wear!

Ok, but say you only have like five outfits on the bed and you need more than that to get you from laundry day to laundry day. The next step would be to try to identify the common threads, because you need more clothes that make you feel this way. Is it a certain color or color family that you notice when you stare at the winning clothes on the bed? Maybe it’s four favorite colors and tones instead of just one like me? Is it a certain cut? Maybe a fitted silhouette in general or a more voluminous skirt if you feel your best in something fun and swingy? Do a bunch of your favorite outfits follow the same “formula” – maybe a wrap dress with a cardigan and a cute colorful flat? Try to boil things down as much as you can so you have as much direction as you can moving forward. Try not to just say “I like boho stuff” or “anything at Anne Taylor!” because that won’t help you as much as a more detailed set of parameters will.

Calculating Your Closet Needs

Again, this isn’t about hitting a certain fixed number or quota in my closet, but I do find that thinking about this in numbers is helpful – especially just in illustrating why a lot of us have too many pieces in our closets and drawers. The basic idea is to have enough items to get you from one laundry day to the next, with a few – but not too many – extras (you know, in case you spill OJ down your shirt or you run a bit behind on washing a load).

We do laundry about once per week in our household, so I have 10 “bottoms” in my wardrobe to cover those 7 days: 4 pairs of jeans, 4 pairs of shorts, 1 skirt, and 1 pair of yoga pants (I also have a few dresses for dressier occasions). And no, I’m not wearing shorts in the winter to get from laundry day to laundry day – I just don’t wash my denim after each wear because I’m a rule follower and it’s not recommended (don’t torture your jeans, guys!). So 4 pairs of jeans or 4 pairs of denim shorts easily last me 7 days if I wear a few of them twice before tossing them into the hamper. Nobody has ever told me that I smell, and children are VERY honest, so I feel good about this.

Ok, so now forget about me and think about all the different uniforms YOU might need for your lifestyle, whatever that may be – like for work or exercising – and actually add up in your head how many of those outfits you’ll need to get you through to your next laundry day. Keep that number in mind. Next, peek into your closet and drawers and just look at the actual number of things you have. If you count 25 t-shirts and tanks for summer, I’d guess that you probably wear your favorite 10-ish tops on repeat from laundry day to laundry day, and the other 15 items stay shoved wherever they always live, just taking up space because you have so many other items that you like more. If that is the case – just keep your 10 favorites and put the rest into the tupperware bin. You can do this. It’s not permanent. It’s just to see if you really do miss them or need them.

The same logic applies to any part of your uniform. Why own 6 bathing suits if you only rotate between the 2 that you look best in?! John recently realized he had 8 running shirts in his drawer but was only wearing 3 each week, washing them, and repeating that. This realization not only helped him get rid of those space-stealing extras (he still kept a couple back-ups) but it reminded him that he doesn’t need to buy any more when he’s standing there in the store staring at them. Win-win.

And for anyone who worries that just having a small number of favorite staples (aka: a uniform) might make you look like you’re wearing the exact same thing every day – it definitely doesn’t have to. Even with my very limited palette, I put together this little visual to show you how easy it is to layer things and change accessories to really switch things up. YAY PERMUTATIONS! I TOLD YOU THIS WAS MATH!

So those are some of the combinations I can make out of a few of my favorite items in my closet. Note that there are 10 different outfits in the image above – and they’re all made from just 4 different tops, 6 bottoms, and 2 dresses (the patterned skirt-looking-thing is a dress that feels too crazy for me, so I layer a tank over it to make it look like a skirt).

I love this demonstration because at first thought you might say… “Ok so if I want to have 10 work outfits and 7 causal outfits to get me from laundry day to laundry day comfortably with some wiggle room, that means I need 17 bottoms and 17 tops.” But wait! That’s bad math! Think about how you rewear your denim and maybe even a blazer if you don’t feel like it got too dirty – and then think about how many combo moves you can make by layering things in different ways! Remember that the 10 outfits above that are made from just 12 pieces – not the 20+ you might initially think would be needed if you just assumed you’d need different bottoms and tops every single day.

Am I rewearing those black tanks between washes? Nope! So it does bear mentioning that I love those so much, and I wear them so often, that I have three of them. They’re inexpensive and so versatile and they stay looking crisp and fresh that way. So occasionally purchasing multiples of something that you wear a ton can be an awesome way to keep it looking nice long-term and allow yourself to wear it in a few different ways throughout the week.

A Few Other Reasons We Buy Stuff We Don’t Wear

A big part of my method is just being honest with myself about what I actually wear day in and day out, and then being willing to let go of the rest of the stuff that’s taking up space. I know a lot of us hold onto clothes that we think that we’ll wear for some future hypothetical occasion or circumstance (“aspirational wardrobe” is what I call it – it’s when you buy some item for some imaginary very glamorous event but you never actually wear it because this is real life and not the Simms, so you don’t actually go to those types of events). So sometimes that’s what gets us into this overcrowded closet situation.

It also might be a good deal that tips the scales for you (“ooh these are so cheap, I can’t say no! I’ve gotta have them even though I have 15 shirts I like better BECAUSE THESE ARE TWO DOLLARS!”). Or it could be this idea that buying a certain thing will make you more stylish or pulled together (but then you never actually wear it because it turns out you wear/love super comfy clothes and that item that looks more pulled together is way less comfy than your soft and cozy favorites, so…).

What About That One Super Colorful Thing In Your Closet? 

See this colorful dress? I know, it’s kind of hilarious next to everything else in my closet. But it fills a need, and I wear it often enough to warrant it staying. Why do I have it? Well, it’s kind of like my one fake uniform. I like how I look and feel in black, but every few months or so we need to give someone a bio picture or get dressed up for a photoshoot (like for our furniture line for example) and this dress comes with me. All black in a picture can look like a big dark hole amongst an otherwise fun and colorful shot, so I literally bought this dress from J. Crew Outlet a few years ago just for photos. Life is weird, huh?!

But we might all have strange wardrobe guidelines. Mine might be weirder than yours, but I’m sharing this because the instinct might be to tell yourself “hey I have this weird part of my life and I need some outfits for that, so I should probably grab like 10” – but in reality, I don’t need 10 colorful “fake uniforms” – one does the trick. So I have one.

Shopping Tip: Protect Your Closet GPA

Here’s another way to think about paring down your closet: you want to maintain a high closet GPA (grade point average). This is how I’ve been thinking about my closet for YEARS, and it really helps me avoid impulse purchases. Imagine giving every item of clothing that you already own a grade that’s based on how much you like it AND actually wear it. The things you wear all the time and love are As. Wahoo – working towards that perfect 4.0 average.

But that random yellow sweater you picked up on a whim or because it was on sale, and have only worn once… well that stinker is closer to D or F territory. IT IS BRINGING DOWN YOUR ENTIRE CLOSET’S GPA. You want your closet to be filled with your very favorite and most wearable items – so when you’re out shopping, think to yourself “is this new shirt better than all the other shirts I already have, so it’ll bring up my average – or do I love everything I have more than this shirt? Because if the latter is the case, that bad boy is gonna bring down your GPA – and ain’t nobody got time for that.

I think in general we tend to overcomplicate our clothing needs – and stores are constantly telling us we need something new, different, and trendy in order to look better or live a happier life or whatever story they’re trying to tell you when you see those people dashing across the street and hailing a cab in the commercials. Once I got really really happy with my clothes (they make me feel good! I love everything in my closet!) that’s like armor against all of those temptations to buy the newest and trendiest clothing and accessories.

You Don’t Have To Be Minimal Everywhere

I’m not a minimalist in every stretch of the word, though! So here’s a caveat to help you embrace whatever items you might actually not want to pare down at all. This minimal wardrobe of mine is about making my life easier and making me happy – it’s not about deprivation! AT ALL! So take my earrings for example. I probably have over 20 pairs of big fun earrings along with some classic studs and other jewelry like a few bracelets, a watch, a few necklaces.

That might be a lot to you!! You might not even have one pair of big dangly earrings. But for me, they’re part of my uniform – just like blazers and black tanks. So I embrace the fact that I have this many. I’m totally cool with it, and I don’t beat myself up. Incidentally, I think my love of them grew in NYC when I had no space for lots of clothes but I could always fit a few more earrings in my tiny apartment! Ha!

Does Owning Less Cause More Wear?

I got a lot of questions about how my clothes hold up if I’m wearing and washing each item more often. I see how someone could jump to that conclusion, but… drumroll please… I’m just washing things once a week like everyone else. Everything you wear, you launder it every 7 days or so, on average, right? And you probably wear your favorite 10 or so outfits and then you launder them. Well same for me! I just don’t have that extra stuff hanging between each item or shoved into the back of the drawer.

Since I have fewer items, I’m encouraged to take better care of them. Things aren’t getting shoved or crammed onto a rod or into a drawer, and they’re not sitting crumpled somewhere because I don’t have space. I hesitate to say they’re “precious” (I do most of my shopping at places like Old Navy and Target) but when I have fewer backup items, I’m more inclined to take the time to get stains out, fix missing buttons, or follow the proper care instructions with the things I do own.

tank / jeans / fitbit 

In fact, I am SUPER NICE to my stuff because my uniforms work hard for me. I like to wash everything in cold water (helps to lock in colors/black), I wash denim and black things inside out (helps with fading), and I always do a gentle wash and a tumble dry low (nothing too harsh for my babies, I mean clothes). I also always try to put laundry away right after it’s done, so I’m not losing track of piles of clothes and then rewashing them because I’m not sure if they’re clean or dirty – which is definitely something that my friends with more clothes say happens to them.

I have blazers and jackets and tops and jeans that I’ve owned for three or even over five years… so it’s not like I’m rebuying this “minimal wardrobe” every season or even every year. Most of my staples work for at least a few years, although I do buy a few multiples of inexpensive items (like my black tanks) so they stay looking fresher for longer.

How I Combine My Outfits

This is pretty self-explanatory, so I’m not gonna linger on it too much (and your closet favorites might look completely different than mine do), but seeing how I switch out shoes and jewelry and purses or some other thing below might just help the whole “permutations” thing click into place in your head, so here we go…

These are examples of what I might wear on a date night or to a work meeting or something. You can see the “uniform” in total effect here. Both outfits are skinny pants + a fitted tank + a jacket (blazer on the right, leather jacket on the left). I like to play around with shoes and jewelry, so that helps to add a little something extra for me, and I’m good to go.

Left: jeans / heels / similar top / leather jacket

Right: jeans / shoes / striped tank / blazer / necklace / watch

This is another example of what I might wear if I want to be slightly dressier for a holiday gathering or some sort of dinner out or party or something. Once again it’s skinnies on the bottom, a fitted top, and some big earrings and fun shoes. I like a simple black clutch too (hi, have you met me? I like simple black accessories). One funny thing I didn’t even realize until I took these photos is that I also like nude and leopard in my shoes along with black.

Left: jeans / heels / top / black clutch / earrings

Right: jeans / leopard flats / top / green jacket / similar earrings / black clutch

This is an example of what I might wear in the summer to a super casual something (on the right) and a slightly less casual something else (on the left). Oh and to everyone who asked what I walk in (because I’ve been doing these awesome long walks over lunch or after bedtime) and the answer is: whatever outfit I wear that day + sneakers or even flip flops in the summer. I can’t stress how chill these walks are (there’s no sweatband and sprinting, these are delightful strolls) so as long as I have deodorant on, I’m good.

Left: skirt / similar shoes / striped tank / clutch / earrings

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / similar earrings /similar sunglasses

Here are some more summer casual “uniforms” I wear all the time. It may shock you to learn that my everyday purse is this tan crossbody bag (WHAT, IT’S NOT BLACK?!?!), but the reason I love it is because I’m almost always wearing black, so I like that it adds something interesting with another color and goes with everything.

Left: shorts / sandals / striped tank /similar sunglasses

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / earrings / similar purse /similar sunglasses

If I want to dress up a little for some reason (or no reason – I once wore the long black dress on the right to an ice cream parlor with the kids) these might be what I wear. I mentioned before that the left outfit looks like it’s made up of a patterned skirt and a tank but it’s actually a dress that feels way too crazy to me when it’s worn that way but I LOVE it with a black tank layered over it. Once again I add cute shoes and some big earrings and either of these outfits have me out the door in minutes. Isn’t it funny that they have the same silhouette too? Creature of habit right here ;)

Left: dress / tank / similar shoes / similar earrings

Right: dress / leopard flats / earrings / similar purse / similar sunglasses

Got Any Tips For Minimizing Kids Clothing?

There are lots of tricks for determining what you or your kids actually wear, versus what you think you wear. Like turning all of the hangers in one direction and then turning them around once an item is worn. The theory is that after a couple of weeks or months you can see exactly what didn’t get touched. You can also move everything to one side of your hanging rod and move it back once it has been worn. Any version of that works well for hanging clothes, but lots of us – especially kids – store big chunks of their wardrobe in drawers. BUT I HAVE A SOLUTION!

You just have to do one simple thing each week for a few weeks in a row. Ready for it? Just look in their drawers and at their hanging bar on laundry day. That means the things they love most and have already worn are all in the hamper, so they’ve sort of naturally selected their favorites for you – but instead of putting them on the bed they’re all nicely coralled in the hamper.

So with their favorites pulled out of the fray, go through their drawers and their hanging bar and take note of what’s left. If you do this for a few weeks in a row, you’ll start to notice a theme. Certain items never leave the drawer. A few things might always get shoved in the back of the closet or balled up on the floor. VOILA – there is your excess! Put that in a tupperware bin and see if you ever even need it again! And if you don’t, gleefully donate or consign it. And then remember what those “space wasters” were when you’re standing in the store about to buy another outfit for them – just to be sure you’re not repeating some pattern of thinking they’ll wear some item when in actuality they never do.

Whew. Ok, that’s 5,688 words and I’m feeling ready to call this turkey of a post done. I hope this was helpful in some way if you’re looking for ways to simplify the clothing situation in your house.

Psst – If you’re looking for more on this subject, here’s an old post I wrote about my clothing, here’s an awesome book called Simplicity Parenting that talks about decision fatigue and simplifying our homes in general (it totally changed my life and I’ve read it 3 times), and here’s a podcast we did with an amazing man named Matt who worked on the show Hoarders, and has some pretty enlightening and kind things to say about paring down. Also Katie Bower did a post about her one-rack wardrobe yesterday, which was a fun read too!

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The post My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money appeared first on Young House Love.

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My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money https://ift.tt/2PKr7xW

Whenever I’m asked about my clothes, I joke that I wear basically the same thing every day. But it turns out that even after years of saying that (and sharing that I had just one bra for many years on the blog), a whole bunch of people freaked out when they saw the hanging bar in my closet on Instagram recently. I got FLOODED with DMs about my sparse mostly black wardrobe. One person even said that seeing my closet was, and I quote: “the wildest thing they’ve seen on the internet in 2018.” That’s quite the statement considering 2018 also gave us Gritty.

To clarify don’t actually wear the same items of clothing every day on repeat – I just have a fairly small number of clothes that I love and wear all the time – all of which are pretty similar in color/style/silhouette – which I lovingly call “my uniform.” Think Steve Jobs or Michael Kors… except with fewer turtlenecks and less of that billionaire vibe.

I’m not doing laundry any more frequently than anyone else (we do it once a week around here, which I think is pretty average), so it’s just about having enough outfits that you love to get you from laundry day to laundry day (whether they need to be warm, or dressy, or whatever works for your life) without having a ton of extra stuff that’s in the way of the things that you actually wear.

So if you’re tired of drawers and closets that are overflowing, or you love the idea of a more minimal wardrobe full of things you love – and less money spent on clothing excess – then this post is for you. There are definitely people with even fewer clothes, and folks who have other methods for paring down, but I’m just gonna lay out what works for me. And if you’re a wardrobe maximalist who loves having tons of clothes and a bunch of different looks and you ADORE your extensive wardrobe, then this post is not for you (do whatever works for you, boo! I’m ALL FOR THAT!).

Ok, so my plan is just to take you through my closet and all of my drawers, talk you through my process/formula for keeping my wardrobe minimal, and show you how I can create a bunch of outfits (from casual to dressy and from warm weather to cold weather) from a pretty pared down number of tops and bottoms that I lovingly refer to as: “my uniform.”

  And it bears mentioning that even if you have a completely different dress code for your profession, or if you hate the way I dress and the colors/styles/silhouettes that I wear, this is a formula. So you can plug in your favorite silhouettes and colors and everything else that YOU love to make this work for you!

Closet Video Tour

Let’s kick this puppy off with a video tour. I know you have questions (I vividly remember all those DMs I got on Instagram), but pictures are worth 1,000 words, and a video is worth 1,000 pictures. So I’m walking you through my closet and opening all of my drawers (and John’s – haha!) to show you exactly what I have and how I store it along with sharing a little bit more about why/how it works for me. Note: if you can’t see the video below and are reading this post in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the original post to see it. We also uploaded it here on YouTube.

Ok, so now that you’ve seen where everything is, and heard me talk a little bit about my uniform, let’s dive a little deeper. I’m just gonna answer things Q&A style for you below.

How Does A “Uniform” Work?

I’m not talking about a school uniform where your closet is filled with dozens of identical skirts and polos here, but it is almost like finding your own personal “dress code” – meaning the cuts, colors, and styles that you love the most and feel great in. Because if you find something that works, it makes sense that it’s going to be the thing that you’ll reach for and wear a whole lot more than everything else. So why not take a second to figure out why it works and why you love it so much so you can love every last item in your closet that much?! Sounds good, right?

That’s the core idea behind my “uniform” – just figuring out what you love and stopping the vicious cycle of buying other things to stay “on trend” or for the sake of “variety” or to “look different” and then realizing months later that you never wear them because they don’t make you feel as good or you don’t like the cut or the color nearly as much as your tried and true favorites. And the amazing thing is that once you truly understand why you like what you like, you can stand in a store or the dressing room and eliminate clothing that doesn’t fit within that criteria without much effort or thought! You can literally stop the cycle of buying yet another thing that you won’t really love AND you can keep your closet and drawers from filling up with unnecessary extras. Plus you get to keep a little more cash in your wallet.

I don’t think there’s just one magic wardrobe number that works for everyone (someone who goes to the gym every day or lives on a farm or does a team sport may have a need for more laundry/clothing than someone who doesn’t) but I’ll show you my “uniforms” in a second, just to serve as an example. Oh and I say “uniforms” with an S because there can be different ones for different seasons and occasions, like casual weekend uniforms, workout uniforms, work uniforms, etc. And the key is just to figure out how many of those you actually need and not have double or triple that amount all squeezed into your drawers and falling all over the floor of your closet. And did I mention you can save that money? I did? Ok, good. Just making sure.

So don’t tell yourself that just because you work in an office and have to dress up, or because you live in a colder climate that you can’t have a simpler closet. It’s not true!! I dressed myself with this method all the way back in NYC when I had an office job that necessitated me dressing up all the time. And this was in a colder climate where I walked city streets and stood on frigid subway platforms – so I definitely needed all the layering I could get. Why does it still work, even if you have to dress up or add a coat and a scarf and a hat? Because in the end, this is all math, GLORIOUS MATH!

What Exact Items Are In My “Uniform”?

If you’ve followed us for any amount of time, you probably already know my uniform. Black v-neck tops. Jeans. Black scoop neck tanks. Denim shorts. Blazers. Leather or suede jackets. More blazers. And a black dress or two to round things out. It has become kind of a joke, because you guys keep seeing me in a blazer at basically every speaking event or book signing. But here’s the thing: it’s not an accident. Because it’s the way I dress. It has become my uniform for those sorts of things – because I like the way they feel and look on me. And I actually reach for them in my closet and wear them (yesssssss) so I know they don’t sit around wasting space. And therefore I love these items. They work hard for me, make me feel good, and earn their space in my closet.

Six years of living in New York City instilled my love of black, and while I do branch out occasionally (I’ve been known to get wild and throw some navy or olive green in here and there) I’ve learned over the years that when I deviate and buy something in a brighter color, I rarely end up wearing it regularly because – well – I always have other options in my closet that I like better. And guess what? They’re black. It was something I had to realize over time, but ever since I embraced my love of black and stopped trying to make myself wear other colors that I ultimately didn’t wear because I didn’t like them as much (vicious cycle, much?!), two things have happened: 1) I feel GOOD in my clothes. Like all the time. There’s zero clothing drama for me when I get dressed. 2) I’ve stopped wasting money and time buying items I’ll probably just return or donate later. It’s freeing!

top: Old Navy but no longer sold / jeans / heels

I’ve also learned over the years that most of my favorite tops are a little more fitted than the average loose fitting cut, because it helps my 5’2″ body look a little less amorphous – like I’m wearing a potato sack. This realization makes it easy to pass over anything with a drapey look in the store – no matter how glamorous it looks on the mannequin or some long torsoed girl in the fitting room.

Same thing with shorts. I buy short shorts, because I’m petite and when I have tried buying longer shorts, they make me look frumpy, like I’m going golfing or something. And then I’d give those shorts the stink eye for wasting space in my drawer and eventually donate them. But the realization that shorter shorts work better for my body has been freeing. I no longer waste time or money buying longer shorts “just for variety” or to have “something different” because they don’t look as good on me – so duh, of course I won’t wear them as much and they’ll eventually end up in the donate pile!

Same thing with a certain cut of jeans or something. It’s easy to fall for the marketing that says “this bellbottom highwater pant that ends at your shin is the new cool thing!” but I gotta tell ya… it might not be something you actually like or feel good in. So I’m not saying blanketly that you should avoid all trends, but before you go to the store, just look through your clothes and see what you don’t wear – then figure out why. If you pull out one pair of jeans with a different cut that you bought “just to be different” but you never wear them because you don’t like how they look as much as ever other pair you have, it’s a whole lot easier to dodge the urge to do that very same thing in the dressing room the next time around.

So let’s say you get to this point and you’re like “uh, but all of your clothes are black. That is so boring. I would die.” Yes, my clothes are mostly black. But this works with all the colors of the rainbow (and all styles and all body types). If you pull out your very favorite outfits from your closet – just the things you actually wear and love – and lay them on the bed, I’m betting they might have some things in common. Even if there are a bunch of different colored items on the bed. I would bet there are still some colors that come up more because you love how you look and feel in them. And you might also notice some trends with cut/silhouette, because chances are if a certain cut of jeans makes you feel your best, it may also be your favorite cut of dress pants. And you might have a few blazers or jackets with similar shapes that hit your body at just the right spot or something. Things are your favorite for a reason, right!?

I’m also a big fan of layering. It’s how I made it work in NYC while working in an agency where I had to get dressed up without even having a dresser in my apartment. That’s right, I had one small and narrow closet and that was it. So I taught myself to layer things. Five shirts that can be layered under five different jackets or blazers = 25 different combinations!!! I mean, how awesome is that math?! And if you add a few different pairs of shoes and some fun jewelry to switch out too, it’s a whole lot of looks without having a whole lot of things. Did I just have five of each thing? No, that would probably feel a little tight – but I probably had under 10 tops that I layered with maybe 7 blazers/jackets/cardigans and then had maybe 5 options for bottoms (jeans if I didn’t have to present that day, and black pants if I did).

The funny thing is that my current “typical uniform” of a black top + denim bottom is that it replicates exactly what I did in NYC when I worked in an office – it’s just a little less dressy. So I can easily transition between summer and winter just by layering – which is exactly what I did back then. When it gets cold I just swap my denim shorts or skirt for skinny jeans, and I throw a jacket right over my black summer tank (maybe a black leather jacket or a crisp blazer or an olive green faux suede jacket). It can even go from casual to somewhat-dressy (like a date night) because I can toss on some cute heels and big earrings and I’m ready to go!

jeans / black tank / green faux suede jacket / leopard heels

How To Pare Down Your Closet

Now I’m not in a position to tell you what YOUR uniform should look like, but one super easy tip for figuring yours out is to do what I touched on a little earlier in this section. Just pull all of your very favorite outfits out – the ones you love and wear all the time – and lay them on your bed.  Then count them. You might literally have enough right there to take you from laundry day to laundry day. If so: congrats! That is your uniform! Right there on the bed! The rest is excess and it can be shoved into a big tupperware bin or two and stashed in the attic or garage. Just see if you even need those items at all. This is the training wheels method – if you need something you can take it back out – but if you don’t miss it and this helps to show you that it’s just dead weight in your closet or your drawers, it feels amazing to consign or donate that extra fluff and just have a wardrobe you LOVE and actually wear!

Ok, but say you only have like five outfits on the bed and you need more than that to get you from laundry day to laundry day. The next step would be to try to identify the common threads, because you need more clothes that make you feel this way. Is it a certain color or color family that you notice when you stare at the winning clothes on the bed? Maybe it’s four favorite colors and tones instead of just one like me? Is it a certain cut? Maybe a fitted silhouette in general or a more voluminous skirt if you feel your best in something fun and swingy? Do a bunch of your favorite outfits follow the same “formula” – maybe a wrap dress with a cardigan and a cute colorful flat? Try to boil things down as much as you can so you have as much direction as you can moving forward. Try not to just say “I like boho stuff” or “anything at Anne Taylor!” because that won’t help you as much as a more detailed set of parameters will.

Calculating Your Closet Needs

Again, this isn’t about hitting a certain fixed number or quota in my closet, but I do find that thinking about this in numbers is helpful – especially just in illustrating why a lot of us have too many pieces in our closets and drawers. The basic idea is to have enough items to get you from one laundry day to the next, with a few – but not too many – extras (you know, in case you spill OJ down your shirt or you run a bit behind on washing a load).

We do laundry about once per week in our household, so I have 10 “bottoms” in my wardrobe to cover those 7 days: 4 pairs of jeans, 4 pairs of shorts, 1 skirt, and 1 pair of yoga pants (I also have a few dresses for dressier occasions). And no, I’m not wearing shorts in the winter to get from laundry day to laundry day – I just don’t wash my denim after each wear because I’m a rule follower and it’s not recommended (don’t torture your jeans, guys!). So 4 pairs of jeans or 4 pairs of denim shorts easily last me 7 days if I wear a few of them twice before tossing them into the hamper. Nobody has ever told me that I smell, and children are VERY honest, so I feel good about this.

Ok, so now forget about me and think about all the different uniforms YOU might need for your lifestyle, whatever that may be – like for work or exercising – and actually add up in your head how many of those outfits you’ll need to get you through to your next laundry day. Keep that number in mind. Next, peek into your closet and drawers and just look at the actual number of things you have. If you count 25 t-shirts and tanks for summer, I’d guess that you probably wear your favorite 10-ish tops on repeat from laundry day to laundry day, and the other 15 items stay shoved wherever they always live, just taking up space because you have so many other items that you like more. If that is the case – just keep your 10 favorites and put the rest into the tupperware bin. You can do this. It’s not permanent. It’s just to see if you really do miss them or need them.

The same logic applies to any part of your uniform. Why own 6 bathing suits if you only rotate between the 2 that you look best in?! John recently realized he had 8 running shirts in his drawer but was only wearing 3 each week, washing them, and repeating that. This realization not only helped him get rid of those space-stealing extras (he still kept a couple back-ups) but it reminded him that he doesn’t need to buy any more when he’s standing there in the store staring at them. Win-win.

And for anyone who worries that just having a small number of favorite staples (aka: a uniform) might make you look like you’re wearing the exact same thing every day – it definitely doesn’t have to. Even with my very limited palette, I put together this little visual to show you how easy it is to layer things and change accessories to really switch things up. YAY PERMUTATIONS! I TOLD YOU THIS WAS MATH!

So those are some of the combinations I can make out of a few of my favorite items in my closet. Note that there are 10 different outfits in the image above – and they’re all made from just 4 different tops, 6 bottoms, and 2 dresses (the patterned skirt-looking-thing is a dress that feels too crazy for me, so I layer a tank over it to make it look like a skirt).

I love this demonstration because at first thought you might say… “Ok so if I want to have 10 work outfits and 7 causal outfits to get me from laundry day to laundry day comfortably with some wiggle room, that means I need 17 bottoms and 17 tops.” But wait! That’s bad math! Think about how you rewear your denim and maybe even a blazer if you don’t feel like it got too dirty – and then think about how many combo moves you can make by layering things in different ways! Remember that the 10 outfits above that are made from just 12 pieces – not the 20+ you might initially think would be needed if you just assumed you’d need different bottoms and tops every single day.

Am I rewearing those black tanks between washes? Nope! So it does bear mentioning that I love those so much, and I wear them so often, that I have three of them. They’re inexpensive and so versatile and they stay looking crisp and fresh that way. So occasionally purchasing multiples of something that you wear a ton can be an awesome way to keep it looking nice long-term and allow yourself to wear it in a few different ways throughout the week.

A Few Other Reasons We Buy Stuff We Don’t Wear

A big part of my method is just being honest with myself about what I actually wear day in and day out, and then being willing to let go of the rest of the stuff that’s taking up space. I know a lot of us hold onto clothes that we think that we’ll wear for some future hypothetical occasion or circumstance (“aspirational wardrobe” is what I call it – it’s when you buy some item for some imaginary very glamorous event but you never actually wear it because this is real life and not the Simms, so you don’t actually go to those types of events). So sometimes that’s what gets us into this overcrowded closet situation.

It also might be a good deal that tips the scales for you (“ooh these are so cheap, I can’t say no! I’ve gotta have them even though I have 15 shirts I like better BECAUSE THESE ARE TWO DOLLARS!”). Or it could be this idea that buying a certain thing will make you more stylish or pulled together (but then you never actually wear it because it turns out you wear/love super comfy clothes and that item that looks more pulled together is way less comfy than your soft and cozy favorites, so…).

What About That One Super Colorful Thing In Your Closet? 

See this colorful dress? I know, it’s kind of hilarious next to everything else in my closet. But it fills a need, and I wear it often enough to warrant it staying. Why do I have it? Well, it’s kind of like my one fake uniform. I like how I look and feel in black, but every few months or so we need to give someone a bio picture or get dressed up for a photoshoot (like for our furniture line for example) and this dress comes with me. All black in a picture can look like a big dark hole amongst an otherwise fun and colorful shot, so I literally bought this dress from J. Crew Outlet a few years ago just for photos. Life is weird, huh?!

But we might all have strange wardrobe guidelines. Mine might be weirder than yours, but I’m sharing this because the instinct might be to tell yourself “hey I have this weird part of my life and I need some outfits for that, so I should probably grab like 10” – but in reality, I don’t need 10 colorful “fake uniforms” – one does the trick. So I have one.

Shopping Tip: Protect Your Closet GPA

Here’s another way to think about paring down your closet: you want to maintain a high closet GPA (grade point average). This is how I’ve been thinking about my closet for YEARS, and it really helps me avoid impulse purchases. Imagine giving every item of clothing that you already own a grade that’s based on how much you like it AND actually wear it. The things you wear all the time and love are As. Wahoo – working towards that perfect 4.0 average.

But that random yellow sweater you picked up on a whim or because it was on sale, and have only worn once… well that stinker is closer to D or F territory. IT IS BRINGING DOWN YOUR ENTIRE CLOSET’S GPA. You want your closet to be filled with your very favorite and most wearable items – so when you’re out shopping, think to yourself “is this new shirt better than all the other shirts I already have, so it’ll bring up my average – or do I love everything I have more than this shirt? Because if the latter is the case, that bad boy is gonna bring down your GPA – and ain’t nobody got time for that.

I think in general we tend to overcomplicate our clothing needs – and stores are constantly telling us we need something new, different, and trendy in order to look better or live a happier life or whatever story they’re trying to tell you when you see those people dashing across the street and hailing a cab in the commercials. Once I got really really happy with my clothes (they make me feel good! I love everything in my closet!) that’s like armor against all of those temptations to buy the newest and trendiest clothing and accessories.

You Don’t Have To Be Minimal Everywhere

I’m not a minimalist in every stretch of the word, though! So here’s a caveat to help you embrace whatever items you might actually not want to pare down at all. This minimal wardrobe of mine is about making my life easier and making me happy – it’s not about deprivation! AT ALL! So take my earrings for example. I probably have over 20 pairs of big fun earrings along with some classic studs and other jewelry like a few bracelets, a watch, a few necklaces.

That might be a lot to you!! You might not even have one pair of big dangly earrings. But for me, they’re part of my uniform – just like blazers and black tanks. So I embrace the fact that I have this many. I’m totally cool with it, and I don’t beat myself up. Incidentally, I think my love of them grew in NYC when I had no space for lots of clothes but I could always fit a few more earrings in my tiny apartment! Ha!

Does Owning Less Cause More Wear?

I got a lot of questions about how my clothes hold up if I’m wearing and washing each item more often. I see how someone could jump to that conclusion, but… drumroll please… I’m just washing things once a week like everyone else. Everything you wear, you launder it every 7 days or so, on average, right? And you probably wear your favorite 10 or so outfits and then you launder them. Well same for me! I just don’t have that extra stuff hanging between each item or shoved into the back of the drawer.

Since I have fewer items, I’m encouraged to take better care of them. Things aren’t getting shoved or crammed onto a rod or into a drawer, and they’re not sitting crumpled somewhere because I don’t have space. I hesitate to say they’re “precious” (I do most of my shopping at places like Old Navy and Target) but when I have fewer backup items, I’m more inclined to take the time to get stains out, fix missing buttons, or follow the proper care instructions with the things I do own.

tank / jeans / fitbit 

In fact, I am SUPER NICE to my stuff because my uniforms work hard for me. I like to wash everything in cold water (helps to lock in colors/black), I wash denim and black things inside out (helps with fading), and I always do a gentle wash and a tumble dry low (nothing too harsh for my babies, I mean clothes). I also always try to put laundry away right after it’s done, so I’m not losing track of piles of clothes and then rewashing them because I’m not sure if they’re clean or dirty – which is definitely something that my friends with more clothes say happens to them.

I have blazers and jackets and tops and jeans that I’ve owned for three or even over five years… so it’s not like I’m rebuying this “minimal wardrobe” every season or even every year. Most of my staples work for at least a few years, although I do buy a few multiples of inexpensive items (like my black tanks) so they stay looking fresher for longer.

How I Combine My Outfits

This is pretty self-explanatory, so I’m not gonna linger on it too much (and your closet favorites might look completely different than mine do), but seeing how I switch out shoes and jewelry and purses or some other thing below might just help the whole “permutations” thing click into place in your head, so here we go…

These are examples of what I might wear on a date night or to a work meeting or something. You can see the “uniform” in total effect here. Both outfits are skinny pants + a fitted tank + a jacket (blazer on the right, leather jacket on the left). I like to play around with shoes and jewelry, so that helps to add a little something extra for me, and I’m good to go.

Left: jeans / heels / similar top / leather jacket

Right: jeans / shoes / striped tank / blazer / necklace / watch

This is another example of what I might wear if I want to be slightly dressier for a holiday gathering or some sort of dinner out or party or something. Once again it’s skinnies on the bottom, a fitted top, and some big earrings and fun shoes. I like a simple black clutch too (hi, have you met me? I like simple black accessories). One funny thing I didn’t even realize until I took these photos is that I also like nude and leopard in my shoes along with black.

Left: jeans / heels / top / black clutch / earrings

Right: jeans / leopard flats / top / green jacket / similar earrings / black clutch

This is an example of what I might wear in the summer to a super casual something (on the right) and a slightly less casual something else (on the left). Oh and to everyone who asked what I walk in (because I’ve been doing these awesome long walks over lunch or after bedtime) and the answer is: whatever outfit I wear that day + sneakers or even flip flops in the summer. I can’t stress how chill these walks are (there’s no sweatband and sprinting, these are delightful strolls) so as long as I have deodorant on, I’m good.

Left: skirt / similar shoes / striped tank / clutch / earrings

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / similar earrings /similar sunglasses

Here are some more summer casual “uniforms” I wear all the time. It may shock you to learn that my everyday purse is this tan crossbody bag (WHAT, IT’S NOT BLACK?!?!), but the reason I love it is because I’m almost always wearing black, so I like that it adds something interesting with another color and goes with everything.

Left: shorts / sandals / striped tank /similar sunglasses

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / earrings / similar purse /similar sunglasses

If I want to dress up a little for some reason (or no reason – I once wore the long black dress on the right to an ice cream parlor with the kids) these might be what I wear. I mentioned before that the left outfit looks like it’s made up of a patterned skirt and a tank but it’s actually a dress that feels way too crazy to me when it’s worn that way but I LOVE it with a black tank layered over it. Once again I add cute shoes and some big earrings and either of these outfits have me out the door in minutes. Isn’t it funny that they have the same silhouette too? Creature of habit right here ;)

Left: dress / tank / similar shoes / similar earrings

Right: dress / leopard flats / earrings / similar purse / similar sunglasses

Got Any Tips For Minimizing Kids Clothing?

There are lots of tricks for determining what you or your kids actually wear, versus what you think you wear. Like turning all of the hangers in one direction and then turning them around once an item is worn. The theory is that after a couple of weeks or months you can see exactly what didn’t get touched. You can also move everything to one side of your hanging rod and move it back once it has been worn. Any version of that works well for hanging clothes, but lots of us – especially kids – store big chunks of their wardrobe in drawers. BUT I HAVE A SOLUTION!

You just have to do one simple thing each week for a few weeks in a row. Ready for it? Just look in their drawers and at their hanging bar on laundry day. That means the things they love most and have already worn are all in the hamper, so they’ve sort of naturally selected their favorites for you – but instead of putting them on the bed they’re all nicely coralled in the hamper.

So with their favorites pulled out of the fray, go through their drawers and their hanging bar and take note of what’s left. If you do this for a few weeks in a row, you’ll start to notice a theme. Certain items never leave the drawer. A few things might always get shoved in the back of the closet or balled up on the floor. VOILA – there is your excess! Put that in a tupperware bin and see if you ever even need it again! And if you don’t, gleefully donate or consign it. And then remember what those “space wasters” were when you’re standing in the store about to buy another outfit for them – just to be sure you’re not repeating some pattern of thinking they’ll wear some item when in actuality they never do.

Whew. Ok, that’s 5,688 words and I’m feeling ready to call this turkey of a post done. I hope this was helpful in some way if you’re looking for ways to simplify the clothing situation in your house.

Psst – If you’re looking for more on this subject, here’s an old post I wrote about my clothing, here’s an awesome book called Simplicity Parenting that talks about decision fatigue and simplifying our homes in general (it totally changed my life and I’ve read it 3 times), and here’s a podcast we did with an amazing man named Matt who worked on the show Hoarders, and has some pretty enlightening and kind things to say about paring down. Also Katie Bower did a post about her one-rack wardrobe yesterday, which was a fun read too!

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The post My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money appeared first on Young House Love.

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My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money

Whenever I’m asked about my clothes, I joke that I wear basically the same thing every day. But it turns out that even after years of saying that (and sharing that I had just one bra for many years on the blog), a whole bunch of people freaked out when they saw the hanging bar in my closet on Instagram recently. I got FLOODED with DMs about my sparse mostly black wardrobe. One person even said that seeing my closet was, and I quote: “the wildest thing they’ve seen on the internet in 2018.” That’s quite the statement considering 2018 also gave us Gritty.

To clarify don’t actually wear the same items of clothing every day on repeat – I just have a fairly small number of clothes that I love and wear all the time – all of which are pretty similar in color/style/silhouette – which I lovingly call “my uniform.” Think Steve Jobs or Michael Kors… except with fewer turtlenecks and less of that billionaire vibe.

I’m not doing laundry any more frequently than anyone else (we do it once a week around here, which I think is pretty average), so it’s just about having enough outfits that you love to get you from laundry day to laundry day (whether they need to be warm, or dressy, or whatever works for your life) without having a ton of extra stuff that’s in the way of the things that you actually wear.

So if you’re tired of drawers and closets that are overflowing, or you love the idea of a more minimal wardrobe full of things you love – and less money spent on clothing excess – then this post is for you. There are definitely people with even fewer clothes, and folks who have other methods for paring down, but I’m just gonna lay out what works for me. And if you’re a wardrobe maximalist who loves having tons of clothes and a bunch of different looks and you ADORE your extensive wardrobe, then this post is not for you (do whatever works for you, boo! I’m ALL FOR THAT!).

Ok, so my plan is just to take you through my closet and all of my drawers, talk you through my process/formula for keeping my wardrobe minimal, and show you how I can create a bunch of outfits (from casual to dressy and from warm weather to cold weather) from a pretty pared down number of tops and bottoms that I lovingly refer to as: “my uniform.”

  And it bears mentioning that even if you have a completely different dress code for your profession, or if you hate the way I dress and the colors/styles/silhouettes that I wear, this is a formula. So you can plug in your favorite silhouettes and colors and everything else that YOU love to make this work for you!

Closet Video Tour

Let’s kick this puppy off with a video tour. I know you have questions (I vividly remember all those DMs I got on Instagram), but pictures are worth 1,000 words, and a video is worth 1,000 pictures. So I’m walking you through my closet and opening all of my drawers (and John’s – haha!) to show you exactly what I have and how I store it along with sharing a little bit more about why/how it works for me. Note: if you can’t see the video below and are reading this post in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the original post to see it. We also uploaded it here on YouTube.

Ok, so now that you’ve seen where everything is, and heard me talk a little bit about my uniform, let’s dive a little deeper. I’m just gonna answer things Q&A style for you below.

How Does A “Uniform” Work?

I’m not talking about a school uniform where your closet is filled with dozens of identical skirts and polos here, but it is almost like finding your own personal “dress code” – meaning the cuts, colors, and styles that you love the most and feel great in. Because if you find something that works, it makes sense that it’s going to be the thing that you’ll reach for and wear a whole lot more than everything else. So why not take a second to figure out why it works and why you love it so much so you can love every last item in your closet that much?! Sounds good, right?

That’s the core idea behind my “uniform” – just figuring out what you love and stopping the vicious cycle of buying other things to stay “on trend” or for the sake of “variety” or to “look different” and then realizing months later that you never wear them because they don’t make you feel as good or you don’t like the cut or the color nearly as much as your tried and true favorites. And the amazing thing is that once you truly understand why you like what you like, you can stand in a store or the dressing room and eliminate clothing that doesn’t fit within that criteria without much effort or thought! You can literally stop the cycle of buying yet another thing that you won’t really love AND you can keep your closet and drawers from filling up with unnecessary extras. Plus you get to keep a little more cash in your wallet.

I don’t think there’s just one magic wardrobe number that works for everyone (someone who goes to the gym every day or lives on a farm or does a team sport may have a need for more laundry/clothing than someone who doesn’t) but I’ll show you my “uniforms” in a second, just to serve as an example. Oh and I say “uniforms” with an S because there can be different ones for different seasons and occasions, like casual weekend uniforms, workout uniforms, work uniforms, etc. And the key is just to figure out how many of those you actually need and not have double or triple that amount all squeezed into your drawers and falling all over the floor of your closet. And did I mention you can save that money? I did? Ok, good. Just making sure.

So don’t tell yourself that just because you work in an office and have to dress up, or because you live in a colder climate that you can’t have a simpler closet. It’s not true!! I dressed myself with this method all the way back in NYC when I had an office job that necessitated me dressing up all the time. And this was in a colder climate where I walked city streets and stood on frigid subway platforms – so I definitely needed all the layering I could get. Why does it still work, even if you have to dress up or add a coat and a scarf and a hat? Because in the end, this is all math, GLORIOUS MATH!

What Exact Items Are In My “Uniform”?

If you’ve followed us for any amount of time, you probably already know my uniform. Black v-neck tops. Jeans. Black scoop neck tanks. Denim shorts. Blazers. Leather or suede jackets. More blazers. And a black dress or two to round things out. It has become kind of a joke, because you guys keep seeing me in a blazer at basically every speaking event or book signing. But here’s the thing: it’s not an accident. Because it’s the way I dress. It has become my uniform for those sorts of things – because I like the way they feel and look on me. And I actually reach for them in my closet and wear them (yesssssss) so I know they don’t sit around wasting space. And therefore I love these items. They work hard for me, make me feel good, and earn their space in my closet.

Six years of living in New York City instilled my love of black, and while I do branch out occasionally (I’ve been known to get wild and throw some navy or olive green in here and there) I’ve learned over the years that when I deviate and buy something in a brighter color, I rarely end up wearing it regularly because – well – I always have other options in my closet that I like better. And guess what? They’re black. It was something I had to realize over time, but ever since I embraced my love of black and stopped trying to make myself wear other colors that I ultimately didn’t wear because I didn’t like them as much (vicious cycle, much?!), two things have happened: 1) I feel GOOD in my clothes. Like all the time. There’s zero clothing drama for me when I get dressed. 2) I’ve stopped wasting money and time buying items I’ll probably just return or donate later. It’s freeing!

top: Old Navy but no longer sold / jeans / heels

I’ve also learned over the years that most of my favorite tops are a little more fitted than the average loose fitting cut, because it helps my 5’2″ body look a little less amorphous – like I’m wearing a potato sack. This realization makes it easy to pass over anything with a drapey look in the store – no matter how glamorous it looks on the mannequin or some long torsoed girl in the fitting room.

Same thing with shorts. I buy short shorts, because I’m petite and when I have tried buying longer shorts, they make me look frumpy, like I’m going golfing or something. And then I’d give those shorts the stink eye for wasting space in my drawer and eventually donate them. But the realization that shorter shorts work better for my body has been freeing. I no longer waste time or money buying longer shorts “just for variety” or to have “something different” because they don’t look as good on me – so duh, of course I won’t wear them as much and they’ll eventually end up in the donate pile!

Same thing with a certain cut of jeans or something. It’s easy to fall for the marketing that says “this bellbottom highwater pant that ends at your shin is the new cool thing!” but I gotta tell ya… it might not be something you actually like or feel good in. So I’m not saying blanketly that you should avoid all trends, but before you go to the store, just look through your clothes and see what you don’t wear – then figure out why. If you pull out one pair of jeans with a different cut that you bought “just to be different” but you never wear them because you don’t like how they look as much as ever other pair you have, it’s a whole lot easier to dodge the urge to do that very same thing in the dressing room the next time around.

So let’s say you get to this point and you’re like “uh, but all of your clothes are black. That is so boring. I would die.” Yes, my clothes are mostly black. But this works with all the colors of the rainbow (and all styles and all body types). If you pull out your very favorite outfits from your closet – just the things you actually wear and love – and lay them on the bed, I’m betting they might have some things in common. Even if there are a bunch of different colored items on the bed. I would bet there are still some colors that come up more because you love how you look and feel in them. And you might also notice some trends with cut/silhouette, because chances are if a certain cut of jeans makes you feel your best, it may also be your favorite cut of dress pants. And you might have a few blazers or jackets with similar shapes that hit your body at just the right spot or something. Things are your favorite for a reason, right!?

I’m also a big fan of layering. It’s how I made it work in NYC while working in an agency where I had to get dressed up without even having a dresser in my apartment. That’s right, I had one small and narrow closet and that was it. So I taught myself to layer things. Five shirts that can be layered under five different jackets or blazers = 25 different combinations!!! I mean, how awesome is that math?! And if you add a few different pairs of shoes and some fun jewelry to switch out too, it’s a whole lot of looks without having a whole lot of things. Did I just have five of each thing? No, that would probably feel a little tight – but I probably had under 10 tops that I layered with maybe 7 blazers/jackets/cardigans and then had maybe 5 options for bottoms (jeans if I didn’t have to present that day, and black pants if I did).

The funny thing is that my current “typical uniform” of a black top + denim bottom is that it replicates exactly what I did in NYC when I worked in an office – it’s just a little less dressy. So I can easily transition between summer and winter just by layering – which is exactly what I did back then. When it gets cold I just swap my denim shorts or skirt for skinny jeans, and I throw a jacket right over my black summer tank (maybe a black leather jacket or a crisp blazer or an olive green faux suede jacket). It can even go from casual to somewhat-dressy (like a date night) because I can toss on some cute heels and big earrings and I’m ready to go!

jeans / black tank / green faux suede jacket / leopard heels

How To Pare Down Your Closet

Now I’m not in a position to tell you what YOUR uniform should look like, but one super easy tip for figuring yours out is to do what I touched on a little earlier in this section. Just pull all of your very favorite outfits out – the ones you love and wear all the time – and lay them on your bed.  Then count them. You might literally have enough right there to take you from laundry day to laundry day. If so: congrats! That is your uniform! Right there on the bed! The rest is excess and it can be shoved into a big tupperware bin or two and stashed in the attic or garage. Just see if you even need those items at all. This is the training wheels method – if you need something you can take it back out – but if you don’t miss it and this helps to show you that it’s just dead weight in your closet or your drawers, it feels amazing to consign or donate that extra fluff and just have a wardrobe you LOVE and actually wear!

Ok, but say you only have like five outfits on the bed and you need more than that to get you from laundry day to laundry day. The next step would be to try to identify the common threads, because you need more clothes that make you feel this way. Is it a certain color or color family that you notice when you stare at the winning clothes on the bed? Maybe it’s four favorite colors and tones instead of just one like me? Is it a certain cut? Maybe a fitted silhouette in general or a more voluminous skirt if you feel your best in something fun and swingy? Do a bunch of your favorite outfits follow the same “formula” – maybe a wrap dress with a cardigan and a cute colorful flat? Try to boil things down as much as you can so you have as much direction as you can moving forward. Try not to just say “I like boho stuff” or “anything at Anne Taylor!” because that won’t help you as much as a more detailed set of parameters will.

Calculating Your Closet Needs

Again, this isn’t about hitting a certain fixed number or quota in my closet, but I do find that thinking about this in numbers is helpful – especially just in illustrating why a lot of us have too many pieces in our closets and drawers. The basic idea is to have enough items to get you from one laundry day to the next, with a few – but not too many – extras (you know, in case you spill OJ down your shirt or you run a bit behind on washing a load).

We do laundry about once per week in our household, so I have 10 “bottoms” in my wardrobe to cover those 7 days: 4 pairs of jeans, 4 pairs of shorts, 1 skirt, and 1 pair of yoga pants (I also have a few dresses for dressier occasions). And no, I’m not wearing shorts in the winter to get from laundry day to laundry day – I just don’t wash my denim after each wear because I’m a rule follower and it’s not recommended (don’t torture your jeans, guys!). So 4 pairs of jeans or 4 pairs of denim shorts easily last me 7 days if I wear a few of them twice before tossing them into the hamper. Nobody has ever told me that I smell, and children are VERY honest, so I feel good about this.

Ok, so now forget about me and think about all the different uniforms YOU might need for your lifestyle, whatever that may be – like for work or exercising – and actually add up in your head how many of those outfits you’ll need to get you through to your next laundry day. Keep that number in mind. Next, peek into your closet and drawers and just look at the actual number of things you have. If you count 25 t-shirts and tanks for summer, I’d guess that you probably wear your favorite 10-ish tops on repeat from laundry day to laundry day, and the other 15 items stay shoved wherever they always live, just taking up space because you have so many other items that you like more. If that is the case – just keep your 10 favorites and put the rest into the tupperware bin. You can do this. It’s not permanent. It’s just to see if you really do miss them or need them.

The same logic applies to any part of your uniform. Why own 6 bathing suits if you only rotate between the 2 that you look best in?! John recently realized he had 8 running shirts in his drawer but was only wearing 3 each week, washing them, and repeating that. This realization not only helped him get rid of those space-stealing extras (he still kept a couple back-ups) but it reminded him that he doesn’t need to buy any more when he’s standing there in the store staring at them. Win-win.

And for anyone who worries that just having a small number of favorite staples (aka: a uniform) might make you look like you’re wearing the exact same thing every day – it definitely doesn’t have to. Even with my very limited palette, I put together this little visual to show you how easy it is to layer things and change accessories to really switch things up. YAY PERMUTATIONS! I TOLD YOU THIS WAS MATH!

So those are some of the combinations I can make out of a few of my favorite items in my closet. Note that there are 10 different outfits in the image above – and they’re all made from just 4 different tops, 6 bottoms, and 2 dresses (the patterned skirt-looking-thing is a dress that feels too crazy for me, so I layer a tank over it to make it look like a skirt).

I love this demonstration because at first thought you might say… “Ok so if I want to have 10 work outfits and 7 causal outfits to get me from laundry day to laundry day comfortably with some wiggle room, that means I need 17 bottoms and 17 tops.” But wait! That’s bad math! Think about how you rewear your denim and maybe even a blazer if you don’t feel like it got too dirty – and then think about how many combo moves you can make by layering things in different ways! Remember that the 10 outfits above that are made from just 12 pieces – not the 20+ you might initially think would be needed if you just assumed you’d need different bottoms and tops every single day.

Am I rewearing those black tanks between washes? Nope! So it does bear mentioning that I love those so much, and I wear them so often, that I have three of them. They’re inexpensive and so versatile and they stay looking crisp and fresh that way. So occasionally purchasing multiples of something that you wear a ton can be an awesome way to keep it looking nice long-term and allow yourself to wear it in a few different ways throughout the week.

A Few Other Reasons We Buy Stuff We Don’t Wear

A big part of my method is just being honest with myself about what I actually wear day in and day out, and then being willing to let go of the rest of the stuff that’s taking up space. I know a lot of us hold onto clothes that we think that we’ll wear for some future hypothetical occasion or circumstance (“aspirational wardrobe” is what I call it – it’s when you buy some item for some imaginary very glamorous event but you never actually wear it because this is real life and not the Simms, so you don’t actually go to those types of events). So sometimes that’s what gets us into this overcrowded closet situation.

It also might be a good deal that tips the scales for you (“ooh these are so cheap, I can’t say no! I’ve gotta have them even though I have 15 shirts I like better BECAUSE THESE ARE TWO DOLLARS!”). Or it could be this idea that buying a certain thing will make you more stylish or pulled together (but then you never actually wear it because it turns out you wear/love super comfy clothes and that item that looks more pulled together is way less comfy than your soft and cozy favorites, so…).

What About That One Super Colorful Thing In Your Closet? 

See this colorful dress? I know, it’s kind of hilarious next to everything else in my closet. But it fills a need, and I wear it often enough to warrant it staying. Why do I have it? Well, it’s kind of like my one fake uniform. I like how I look and feel in black, but every few months or so we need to give someone a bio picture or get dressed up for a photoshoot (like for our furniture line for example) and this dress comes with me. All black in a picture can look like a big dark hole amongst an otherwise fun and colorful shot, so I literally bought this dress from J. Crew Outlet a few years ago just for photos. Life is weird, huh?!

But we might all have strange wardrobe guidelines. Mine might be weirder than yours, but I’m sharing this because the instinct might be to tell yourself “hey I have this weird part of my life and I need some outfits for that, so I should probably grab like 10” – but in reality, I don’t need 10 colorful “fake uniforms” – one does the trick. So I have one.

Shopping Tip: Protect Your Closet GPA

Here’s another way to think about paring down your closet: you want to maintain a high closet GPA (grade point average). This is how I’ve been thinking about my closet for YEARS, and it really helps me avoid impulse purchases. Imagine giving every item of clothing that you already own a grade that’s based on how much you like it AND actually wear it. The things you wear all the time and love are As. Wahoo – working towards that perfect 4.0 average.

But that random yellow sweater you picked up on a whim or because it was on sale, and have only worn once… well that stinker is closer to D or F territory. IT IS BRINGING DOWN YOUR ENTIRE CLOSET’S GPA. You want your closet to be filled with your very favorite and most wearable items – so when you’re out shopping, think to yourself “is this new shirt better than all the other shirts I already have, so it’ll bring up my average – or do I love everything I have more than this shirt? Because if the latter is the case, that bad boy is gonna bring down your GPA – and ain’t nobody got time for that.

I think in general we tend to overcomplicate our clothing needs – and stores are constantly telling us we need something new, different, and trendy in order to look better or live a happier life or whatever story they’re trying to tell you when you see those people dashing across the street and hailing a cab in the commercials. Once I got really really happy with my clothes (they make me feel good! I love everything in my closet!) that’s like armor against all of those temptations to buy the newest and trendiest clothing and accessories.

You Don’t Have To Be Minimal Everywhere

I’m not a minimalist in every stretch of the word, though! So here’s a caveat to help you embrace whatever items you might actually not want to pare down at all. This minimal wardrobe of mine is about making my life easier and making me happy – it’s not about deprivation! AT ALL! So take my earrings for example. I probably have over 20 pairs of big fun earrings along with some classic studs and other jewelry like a few bracelets, a watch, a few necklaces.

That might be a lot to you!! You might not even have one pair of big dangly earrings. But for me, they’re part of my uniform – just like blazers and black tanks. So I embrace the fact that I have this many. I’m totally cool with it, and I don’t beat myself up. Incidentally, I think my love of them grew in NYC when I had no space for lots of clothes but I could always fit a few more earrings in my tiny apartment! Ha!

Does Owning Less Cause More Wear?

I got a lot of questions about how my clothes hold up if I’m wearing and washing each item more often. I see how someone could jump to that conclusion, but… drumroll please… I’m just washing things once a week like everyone else. Everything you wear, you launder it every 7 days or so, on average, right? And you probably wear your favorite 10 or so outfits and then you launder them. Well same for me! I just don’t have that extra stuff hanging between each item or shoved into the back of the drawer.

Since I have fewer items, I’m encouraged to take better care of them. Things aren’t getting shoved or crammed onto a rod or into a drawer, and they’re not sitting crumpled somewhere because I don’t have space. I hesitate to say they’re “precious” (I do most of my shopping at places like Old Navy and Target) but when I have fewer backup items, I’m more inclined to take the time to get stains out, fix missing buttons, or follow the proper care instructions with the things I do own.

tank / jeans / fitbit 

In fact, I am SUPER NICE to my stuff because my uniforms work hard for me. I like to wash everything in cold water (helps to lock in colors/black), I wash denim and black things inside out (helps with fading), and I always do a gentle wash and a tumble dry low (nothing too harsh for my babies, I mean clothes). I also always try to put laundry away right after it’s done, so I’m not losing track of piles of clothes and then rewashing them because I’m not sure if they’re clean or dirty – which is definitely something that my friends with more clothes say happens to them.

I have blazers and jackets and tops and jeans that I’ve owned for three or even over five years… so it’s not like I’m rebuying this “minimal wardrobe” every season or even every year. Most of my staples work for at least a few years, although I do buy a few multiples of inexpensive items (like my black tanks) so they stay looking fresher for longer.

How I Combine My Outfits

This is pretty self-explanatory, so I’m not gonna linger on it too much (and your closet favorites might look completely different than mine do), but seeing how I switch out shoes and jewelry and purses or some other thing below might just help the whole “permutations” thing click into place in your head, so here we go…

These are examples of what I might wear on a date night or to a work meeting or something. You can see the “uniform” in total effect here. Both outfits are skinny pants + a fitted tank + a jacket (blazer on the right, leather jacket on the left). I like to play around with shoes and jewelry, so that helps to add a little something extra for me, and I’m good to go.

Left: jeans / heels / similar top / leather jacket

Right: jeans / shoes / striped tank / blazer / necklace / watch

This is another example of what I might wear if I want to be slightly dressier for a holiday gathering or some sort of dinner out or party or something. Once again it’s skinnies on the bottom, a fitted top, and some big earrings and fun shoes. I like a simple black clutch too (hi, have you met me? I like simple black accessories). One funny thing I didn’t even realize until I took these photos is that I also like nude and leopard in my shoes along with black.

Left: jeans / heels / top / black clutch / earrings

Right: jeans / leopard flats / top / green jacket / similar earrings / black clutch

This is an example of what I might wear in the summer to a super casual something (on the right) and a slightly less casual something else (on the left). Oh and to everyone who asked what I walk in (because I’ve been doing these awesome long walks over lunch or after bedtime) and the answer is: whatever outfit I wear that day + sneakers or even flip flops in the summer. I can’t stress how chill these walks are (there’s no sweatband and sprinting, these are delightful strolls) so as long as I have deodorant on, I’m good.

Left: skirt / similar shoes / striped tank / clutch / earrings

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / similar earrings /similar sunglasses

Here are some more summer casual “uniforms” I wear all the time. It may shock you to learn that my everyday purse is this tan crossbody bag (WHAT, IT’S NOT BLACK?!?!), but the reason I love it is because I’m almost always wearing black, so I like that it adds something interesting with another color and goes with everything.

Left: shorts / sandals / striped tank /similar sunglasses

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / earrings / similar purse /similar sunglasses

If I want to dress up a little for some reason (or no reason – I once wore the long black dress on the right to an ice cream parlor with the kids) these might be what I wear. I mentioned before that the left outfit looks like it’s made up of a patterned skirt and a tank but it’s actually a dress that feels way too crazy to me when it’s worn that way but I LOVE it with a black tank layered over it. Once again I add cute shoes and some big earrings and either of these outfits have me out the door in minutes. Isn’t it funny that they have the same silhouette too? Creature of habit right here ;)

Left: dress / tank / similar shoes / similar earrings

Right: dress / leopard flats / earrings / similar purse / similar sunglasses

Got Any Tips For Minimizing Kids Clothing?

There are lots of tricks for determining what you or your kids actually wear, versus what you think you wear. Like turning all of the hangers in one direction and then turning them around once an item is worn. The theory is that after a couple of weeks or months you can see exactly what didn’t get touched. You can also move everything to one side of your hanging rod and move it back once it has been worn. Any version of that works well for hanging clothes, but lots of us – especially kids – store big chunks of their wardrobe in drawers. BUT I HAVE A SOLUTION!

You just have to do one simple thing each week for a few weeks in a row. Ready for it? Just look in their drawers and at their hanging bar on laundry day. That means the things they love most and have already worn are all in the hamper, so they’ve sort of naturally selected their favorites for you – but instead of putting them on the bed they’re all nicely coralled in the hamper.

So with their favorites pulled out of the fray, go through their drawers and their hanging bar and take note of what’s left. If you do this for a few weeks in a row, you’ll start to notice a theme. Certain items never leave the drawer. A few things might always get shoved in the back of the closet or balled up on the floor. VOILA – there is your excess! Put that in a tupperware bin and see if you ever even need it again! And if you don’t, gleefully donate or consign it. And then remember what those “space wasters” were when you’re standing in the store about to buy another outfit for them – just to be sure you’re not repeating some pattern of thinking they’ll wear some item when in actuality they never do.

Whew. Ok, that’s 5,688 words and I’m feeling ready to call this turkey of a post done. I hope this was helpful in some way if you’re looking for ways to simplify the clothing situation in your house.

Psst – If you’re looking for more on this subject, here’s an old post I wrote about my clothing, here’s an awesome book called Simplicity Parenting that talks about decision fatigue and simplifying our homes in general (it totally changed my life and I’ve read it 3 times), and here’s a podcast we did with an amazing man named Matt who worked on the show Hoarders, and has some pretty enlightening and kind things to say about paring down. Also Katie Bower did a post about her one-rack wardrobe yesterday, which was a fun read too!

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My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money

Whenever I’m asked about my clothes, I joke that I wear basically the same thing every day. But it turns out that even after years of saying that (and sharing that I had just one bra for many years on the blog), a whole bunch of people freaked out when they saw the hanging bar in my closet on Instagram recently. I got FLOODED with DMs about my sparse mostly black wardrobe. One person even said that seeing my closet was, and I quote: “the wildest thing they’ve seen on the internet in 2018.” That’s quite the statement considering 2018 also gave us Gritty.

To clarify don’t actually wear the same items of clothing every day on repeat – I just have a fairly small number of clothes that I love and wear all the time – all of which are pretty similar in color/style/silhouette – which I lovingly call “my uniform.” Think Steve Jobs or Michael Kors… except with fewer turtlenecks and less of that billionaire vibe.

I’m not doing laundry any more frequently than anyone else (we do it once a week around here, which I think is pretty average), so it’s just about having enough outfits that you love to get you from laundry day to laundry day (whether they need to be warm, or dressy, or whatever works for your life) without having a ton of extra stuff that’s in the way of the things that you actually wear.

So if you’re tired of drawers and closets that are overflowing, or you love the idea of a more minimal wardrobe full of things you love – and less money spent on clothing excess – then this post is for you. There are definitely people with even fewer clothes, and folks who have other methods for paring down, but I’m just gonna lay out what works for me. And if you’re a wardrobe maximalist who loves having tons of clothes and a bunch of different looks and you ADORE your extensive wardrobe, then this post is not for you (do whatever works for you, boo! I’m ALL FOR THAT!).

Ok, so my plan is just to take you through my closet and all of my drawers, talk you through my process/formula for keeping my wardrobe minimal, and show you how I can create a bunch of outfits (from casual to dressy and from warm weather to cold weather) from a pretty pared down number of tops and bottoms that I lovingly refer to as: “my uniform.”

And it bears mentioning that even if you have a completely different dress code for your profession, or if you hate the way I dress and the colors/styles/silhouettes that I wear, this is a formula. So you can plug in your favorite silhouettes and colors and everything else that YOU love to make this work for you!

Closet Video Tour

Let’s kick this puppy off with a video tour. I know you have questions (I vividly remember all those DMs I got on Instagram), but pictures are worth 1,000 words, and a video is worth 1,000 pictures. So I’m walking you through my closet and opening all of my drawers (and John’s – haha!) to show you exactly what I have and how I store it along with sharing a little bit more about why/how it works for me. Note: if you can’t see the video below and are reading this post in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the original post to see it. We also uploaded it here on YouTube.

Ok, so now that you’ve seen where everything is, and heard me talk a little bit about my uniform, let’s dive a little deeper. I’m just gonna answer things Q&A style for you below.

How Does A “Uniform” Work?

I’m not talking about a school uniform where your closet is filled with dozens of identical skirts and polos here, but it is almost like finding your own personal “dress code” – meaning the cuts, colors, and styles that you love the most and feel great in. Because if you find something that works, it makes sense that it’s going to be the thing that you’ll reach for and wear a whole lot more than everything else. So why not take a second to figure out why it works and why you love it so much so you can love every last item in your closet that much?! Sounds good, right?

That’s the core idea behind my “uniform” – just figuring out what you love and stopping the vicious cycle of buying other things to stay “on trend” or for the sake of “variety” or to “look different” and then realizing months later that you never wear them because they don’t make you feel as good or you don’t like the cut or the color nearly as much as your tried and true favorites. And the amazing thing is that once you truly understand why you like what you like, you can stand in a store or the dressing room and eliminate clothing that doesn’t fit within that criteria without much effort or thought! You can literally stop the cycle of buying yet another thing that you won’t really love AND you can keep your closet and drawers from filling up with unnecessary extras. Plus you get to keep a little more cash in your wallet.

I don’t think there’s just one magic wardrobe number that works for everyone (someone who goes to the gym every day or lives on a farm or does a team sport may have a need for more laundry/clothing than someone who doesn’t) but I’ll show you my “uniforms” in a second, just to serve as an example. Oh and I say “uniforms” with an S because there can be different ones for different seasons and occasions, like casual weekend uniforms, workout uniforms, work uniforms, etc. And the key is just to figure out how many of those you actually need and not have double or triple that amount all squeezed into your drawers and falling all over the floor of your closet. And did I mention you can save that money? I did? Ok, good. Just making sure.

So don’t tell yourself that just because you work in an office and have to dress up, or because you live in a colder climate that you can’t have a simpler closet. It’s not true!! I dressed myself with this method all the way back in NYC when I had an office job that necessitated me dressing up all the time. And this was in a colder climate where I walked city streets and stood on frigid subway platforms – so I definitely needed all the layering I could get. Why does it still work, even if you have to dress up or add a coat and a scarf and a hat? Because in the end, this is all math, GLORIOUS MATH!

What Exact Items Are In My “Uniform”?

If you’ve followed us for any amount of time, you probably already know my uniform. Black v-neck tops. Jeans. Black scoop neck tanks. Denim shorts. Blazers. Leather or suede jackets. More blazers. And a black dress or two to round things out. It has become kind of a joke, because you guys keep seeing me in a blazer at basically every speaking event or book signing. But here’s the thing: it’s not an accident. Because it’s the way I dress. It has become my uniform for those sorts of things – because I like the way they feel and look on me. And I actually reach for them in my closet and wear them (yesssssss) so I know they don’t sit around wasting space. And therefore I love these items. They work hard for me, make me feel good, and earn their space in my closet.

Six years of living in New York City instilled my love of black, and while I do branch out occasionally (I’ve been known to get wild and throw some navy or olive green in here and there) I’ve learned over the years that when I deviate and buy something in a brighter color, I rarely end up wearing it regularly because – well – I always have other options in my closet that I like better. And guess what? They’re black. It was something I had to realize over time, but ever since I embraced my love of black and stopped trying to make myself wear other colors that I ultimately didn’t wear because I didn’t like them as much (vicious cycle, much?!), two things have happened: 1) I feel GOOD in my clothes. Like all the time. There’s zero clothing drama for me when I get dressed. 2) I’ve stopped wasting money and time buying items I’ll probably just return or donate later. It’s freeing!

top: Old Navy but no longer sold / jeans / heels

I’ve also learned over the years that most of my favorite tops are a little more fitted than the average loose fitting cut, because it helps my 5’2″ body look a little less amorphous – like I’m wearing a potato sack. This realization makes it easy to pass over anything with a drapey look in the store – no matter how glamorous it looks on the mannequin or some long torsoed girl in the fitting room.

Same thing with shorts. I buy short shorts, because I’m petite and when I have tried buying longer shorts, they make me look frumpy, like I’m going golfing or something. And then I’d give those shorts the stink eye for wasting space in my drawer and eventually donate them. But the realization that shorter shorts work better for my body has been freeing. I no longer waste time or money buying longer shorts “just for variety” or to have “something different” because they don’t look as good on me – so duh, of course I won’t wear them as much and they’ll eventually end up in the donate pile!

Same thing with a certain cut of jeans or something. It’s easy to fall for the marketing that says “this bellbottom highwater pant that ends at your shin is the new cool thing!” but I gotta tell ya… it might not be something you actually like or feel good in. So I’m not saying blanketly that you should avoid all trends, but before you go to the store, just look through your clothes and see what you don’t wear – then figure out why. If you pull out one pair of jeans with a different cut that you bought “just to be different” but you never wear them because you don’t like how they look as much as ever other pair you have, it’s a whole lot easier to dodge the urge to do that very same thing in the dressing room the next time around.

So let’s say you get to this point and you’re like “uh, but all of your clothes are black. That is so boring. I would die.” Yes, my clothes are mostly black. But this works with all the colors of the rainbow (and all styles and all body types). If you pull out your very favorite outfits from your closet – just the things you actually wear and love – and lay them on the bed, I’m betting they might have some things in common. Even if there are a bunch of different colored items on the bed. I would bet there are still some colors that come up more because you love how you look and feel in them. And you might also notice some trends with cut/silhouette, because chances are if a certain cut of jeans makes you feel your best, it may also be your favorite cut of dress pants. And you might have a few blazers or jackets with similar shapes that hit your body at just the right spot or something. Things are your favorite for a reason, right!?

I’m also a big fan of layering. It’s how I made it work in NYC while working in an agency where I had to get dressed up without even having a dresser in my apartment. That’s right, I had one small and narrow closet and that was it. So I taught myself to layer things. Five shirts that can be layered under five different jackets or blazers = 25 different combinations!!! I mean, how awesome is that math?! And if you add a few different pairs of shoes and some fun jewelry to switch out too, it’s a whole lot of looks without having a whole lot of things. Did I just have five of each thing? No, that would probably feel a little tight – but I probably had under 10 tops that I layered with maybe 7 blazers/jackets/cardigans and then had maybe 5 options for bottoms (jeans if I didn’t have to present that day, and black pants if I did).

The funny thing is that my current “typical uniform” of a black top + denim bottom is that it replicates exactly what I did in NYC when I worked in an office – it’s just a little less dressy. So I can easily transition between summer and winter just by layering – which is exactly what I did back then. When it gets cold I just swap my denim shorts or skirt for skinny jeans, and I throw a jacket right over my black summer tank (maybe a black leather jacket or a crisp blazer or an olive green faux suede jacket). It can even go from casual to somewhat-dressy (like a date night) because I can toss on some cute heels and big earrings and I’m ready to go!

jeans / black tank / green faux suede jacket / leopard heels

How To Pare Down Your Closet

Now I’m not in a position to tell you what YOUR uniform should look like, but one super easy tip for figuring yours out is to do what I touched on a little earlier in this section. Just pull all of your very favorite outfits out – the ones you love and wear all the time – and lay them on your bed.  Then count them. You might literally have enough right there to take you from laundry day to laundry day. If so: congrats! That is your uniform! Right there on the bed! The rest is excess and it can be shoved into a big tupperware bin or two and stashed in the attic or garage. Just see if you even need those items at all. This is the training wheels method – if you need something you can take it back out – but if you don’t miss it and this helps to show you that it’s just dead weight in your closet or your drawers, it feels amazing to consign or donate that extra fluff and just have a wardrobe you LOVE and actually wear!

Ok, but say you only have like five outfits on the bed and you need more than that to get you from laundry day to laundry day. The next step would be to try to identify the common threads, because you need more clothes that make you feel this way. Is it a certain color or color family that you notice when you stare at the winning clothes on the bed? Maybe it’s four favorite colors and tones instead of just one like me? Is it a certain cut? Maybe a fitted silhouette in general or a more voluminous skirt if you feel your best in something fun and swingy? Do a bunch of your favorite outfits follow the same “formula” – maybe a wrap dress with a cardigan and a cute colorful flat? Try to boil things down as much as you can so you have as much direction as you can moving forward. Try not to just say “I like boho stuff” or “anything at Anne Taylor!” because that won’t help you as much as a more detailed set of parameters will.

Calculating Your Closet Needs

Again, this isn’t about hitting a certain fixed number or quota in my closet, but I do find that thinking about this in numbers is helpful – especially just in illustrating why a lot of us have too many pieces in our closets and drawers. The basic idea is to have enough items to get you from one laundry day to the next, with a few – but not too many – extras (you know, in case you spill OJ down your shirt or you run a bit behind on washing a load).

We do laundry about once per week in our household, so I have 10 “bottoms” in my wardrobe to cover those 7 days: 4 pairs of jeans, 4 pairs of shorts, 1 skirt, and 1 pair of yoga pants (I also have a few dresses for dressier occasions). And no, I’m not wearing shorts in the winter to get from laundry day to laundry day – I just don’t wash my denim after each wear because I’m a rule follower and it’s not recommended (don’t torture your jeans, guys!). So 4 pairs of jeans or 4 pairs of denim shorts easily last me 7 days if I wear a few of them twice before tossing them into the hamper. Nobody has ever told me that I smell, and children are VERY honest, so I feel good about this.

Ok, so now forget about me and think about all the different uniforms YOU might need for your lifestyle, whatever that may be – like for work or exercising – and actually add up in your head how many of those outfits you’ll need to get you through to your next laundry day. Keep that number in mind. Next, peek into your closet and drawers and just look at the actual number of things you have. If you count 25 t-shirts and tanks for summer, I’d guess that you probably wear your favorite 10-ish tops on repeat from laundry day to laundry day, and the other 15 items stay shoved wherever they always live, just taking up space because you have so many other items that you like more. If that is the case – just keep your 10 favorites and put the rest into the tupperware bin. You can do this. It’s not permanent. It’s just to see if you really do miss them or need them.

The same logic applies to any part of your uniform. Why own 6 bathing suits if you only rotate between the 2 that you look best in?! John recently realized he had 8 running shirts in his drawer but was only wearing 3 each week, washing them, and repeating that. This realization not only helped him get rid of those space-stealing extras (he still kept a couple back-ups) but it reminded him that he doesn’t need to buy any more when he’s standing there in the store staring at them. Win-win.

And for anyone who worries that just having a small number of favorite staples (aka: a uniform) might make you look like you’re wearing the exact same thing every day – it definitely doesn’t have to. Even with my very limited palette, I put together this little visual to show you how easy it is to layer things and change accessories to really switch things up. YAY PERMUTATIONS! I TOLD YOU THIS WAS MATH!

So those are some of the combinations I can make out of a few of my favorite items in my closet. Note that there are 10 different outfits in the image above – and they’re all made from just 4 different tops, 6 bottoms, and 2 dresses (the patterned skirt-looking-thing is a dress that feels too crazy for me, so I layer a tank over it to make it look like a skirt).

I love this demonstration because at first thought you might say… “Ok so if I want to have 10 work outfits and 7 causal outfits to get me from laundry day to laundry day comfortably with some wiggle room, that means I need 17 bottoms and 17 tops.” But wait! That’s bad math! Think about how you rewear your denim and maybe even a blazer if you don’t feel like it got too dirty – and then think about how many combo moves you can make by layering things in different ways! Remember that the 10 outfits above that are made from just 12 pieces – not the 20+ you might initially think would be needed if you just assumed you’d need different bottoms and tops every single day.

Am I rewearing those black tanks between washes? Nope! So it does bear mentioning that I love those so much, and I wear them so often, that I have three of them. They’re inexpensive and so versatile and they stay looking crisp and fresh that way. So occasionally purchasing multiples of something that you wear a ton can be an awesome way to keep it looking nice long-term and allow yourself to wear it in a few different ways throughout the week.

A Few Other Reasons We Buy Stuff We Don’t Wear

A big part of my method is just being honest with myself about what I actually wear day in and day out, and then being willing to let go of the rest of the stuff that’s taking up space. I know a lot of us hold onto clothes that we think that we’ll wear for some future hypothetical occasion or circumstance (“aspirational wardrobe” is what I call it – it’s when you buy some item for some imaginary very glamorous event but you never actually wear it because this is real life and not the Simms, so you don’t actually go to those types of events). So sometimes that’s what gets us into this overcrowded closet situation.

It also might be a good deal that tips the scales for you (“ooh these are so cheap, I can’t say no! I’ve gotta have them even though I have 15 shirts I like better BECAUSE THESE ARE TWO DOLLARS!”). Or it could be this idea that buying a certain thing will make you more stylish or pulled together (but then you never actually wear it because it turns out you wear/love super comfy clothes and that item that looks more pulled together is way less comfy than your soft and cozy favorites, so…).

What About That One Super Colorful Thing In Your Closet? 

See this colorful dress? I know, it’s kind of hilarious next to everything else in my closet. But it fills a need, and I wear it often enough to warrant it staying. Why do I have it? Well, it’s kind of like my one fake uniform. I like how I look and feel in black, but every few months or so we need to give someone a bio picture or get dressed up for a photoshoot (like for our furniture line for example) and this dress comes with me. All black in a picture can look like a big dark hole amongst an otherwise fun and colorful shot, so I literally bought this dress from J. Crew Outlet a few years ago just for photos. Life is weird, huh?!

But we might all have strange wardrobe guidelines. Mine might be weirder than yours, but I’m sharing this because the instinct might be to tell yourself “hey I have this weird part of my life and I need some outfits for that, so I should probably grab like 10” – but in reality, I don’t need 10 colorful “fake uniforms” – one does the trick. So I have one.

Shopping Tip: Protect Your Closet GPA

Here’s another way to think about paring down your closet: you want to maintain a high closet GPA (grade point average). This is how I’ve been thinking about my closet for YEARS, and it really helps me avoid impulse purchases. Imagine giving every item of clothing that you already own a grade that’s based on how much you like it AND actually wear it. The things you wear all the time and love are As. Wahoo – working towards that perfect 4.0 average.

But that random yellow sweater you picked up on a whim or because it was on sale, and have only worn once… well that stinker is closer to D or F territory. IT IS BRINGING DOWN YOUR ENTIRE CLOSET’S GPA. You want your closet to be filled with your very favorite and most wearable items – so when you’re out shopping, think to yourself “is this new shirt better than all the other shirts I already have, so it’ll bring up my average – or do I love everything I have more than this shirt? Because if the latter is the case, that bad boy is gonna bring down your GPA – and ain’t nobody got time for that.

I think in general we tend to overcomplicate our clothing needs – and stores are constantly telling us we need something new, different, and trendy in order to look better or live a happier life or whatever story they’re trying to tell you when you see those people dashing across the street and hailing a cab in the commercials. Once I got really really happy with my clothes (they make me feel good! I love everything in my closet!) that’s like armor against all of those temptations to buy the newest and trendiest clothing and accessories.

You Don’t Have To Be Minimal Everywhere

I’m not a minimalist in every stretch of the word, though! So here’s a caveat to help you embrace whatever items you might actually not want to pare down at all. This minimal wardrobe of mine is about making my life easier and making me happy – it’s not about deprivation! AT ALL! So take my earrings for example. I probably have over 20 pairs of big fun earrings along with some classic studs and other jewelry like a few bracelets, a watch, a few necklaces.

That might be a lot to you!! You might not even have one pair of big dangly earrings. But for me, they’re part of my uniform – just like blazers and black tanks. So I embrace the fact that I have this many. I’m totally cool with it, and I don’t beat myself up. Incidentally, I think my love of them grew in NYC when I had no space for lots of clothes but I could always fit a few more earrings in my tiny apartment! Ha!

Does Owning Less Cause More Wear?

I got a lot of questions about how my clothes hold up if I’m wearing and washing each item more often. I see how someone could jump to that conclusion, but… drumroll please… I’m just washing things once a week like everyone else. Everything you wear, you launder it every 7 days or so, on average, right? And you probably wear your favorite 10 or so outfits and then you launder them. Well same for me! I just don’t have that extra stuff hanging between each item or shoved into the back of the drawer.

Since I have fewer items, I’m encouraged to take better care of them. Things aren’t getting shoved or crammed onto a rod or into a drawer, and they’re not sitting crumpled somewhere because I don’t have space. I hesitate to say they’re “precious” (I do most of my shopping at places like Old Navy and Target) but when I have fewer backup items, I’m more inclined to take the time to get stains out, fix missing buttons, or follow the proper care instructions with the things I do own.

tank / jeans / fitbit 

In fact, I am SUPER NICE to my stuff because my uniforms work hard for me. I like to wash everything in cold water (helps to lock in colors/black), I wash denim and black things inside out (helps with fading), and I always do a gentle wash and a tumble dry low (nothing too harsh for my babies, I mean clothes). I also always try to put laundry away right after it’s done, so I’m not losing track of piles of clothes and then rewashing them because I’m not sure if they’re clean or dirty – which is definitely something that my friends with more clothes say happens to them.

I have blazers and jackets and tops and jeans that I’ve owned for three or even over five years… so it’s not like I’m rebuying this “minimal wardrobe” every season or even every year. Most of my staples work for at least a few years, although I do buy a few multiples of inexpensive items (like my black tanks) so they stay looking fresher for longer.

How I Combine My Outfits

This is pretty self-explanatory, so I’m not gonna linger on it too much (and your closet favorites might look completely different than mine do), but seeing how I switch out shoes and jewelry and purses or some other thing below might just help the whole “permutations” thing click into place in your head, so here we go…

These are examples of what I might wear on a date night or to a work meeting or something. You can see the “uniform” in total effect here. Both outfits are skinny pants + a fitted tank + a jacket (blazer on the right, leather jacket on the left). I like to play around with shoes and jewelry, so that helps to add a little something extra for me, and I’m good to go.

Left: jeans / heels / similar top / leather jacket

Right: jeans / shoes / striped tank / blazer / necklace / watch

This is another example of what I might wear if I want to be slightly dressier for a holiday gathering or some sort of dinner out or party or something. Once again it’s skinnies on the bottom, a fitted top, and some big earrings and fun shoes. I like a simple black clutch too (hi, have you met me? I like simple black accessories). One funny thing I didn’t even realize until I took these photos is that I also like nude and leopard in my shoes along with black.

Left: jeans / heels / top / black clutch / earrings

Right: jeans / leopard flats / top / green jacket / similar earrings / black clutch

This is an example of what I might wear in the summer to a super casual something (on the right) and a slightly less casual something else (on the left). Oh and to everyone who asked what I walk in (because I’ve been doing these awesome long walks over lunch or after bedtime) and the answer is: whatever outfit I wear that day + sneakers or even flip flops in the summer. I can’t stress how chill these walks are (there’s no sweatband and sprinting, these are delightful strolls) so as long as I have deodorant on, I’m good.

Left: skirt / similar shoes / striped tank / clutch / earrings

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / similar earrings /similar sunglasses

Here are some more summer casual “uniforms” I wear all the time. It may shock you to learn that my everyday purse is this tan crossbody bag (WHAT, IT’S NOT BLACK?!?!), but the reason I love it is because I’m almost always wearing black, so I like that it adds something interesting with another color and goes with everything.

Left: shorts / sandals / striped tank /similar sunglasses

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / earrings / similar purse /similar sunglasses

If I want to dress up a little for some reason (or no reason – I once wore the long black dress on the right to an ice cream parlor with the kids) these might be what I wear. I mentioned before that the left outfit looks like it’s made up of a patterned skirt and a tank but it’s actually a dress that feels way too crazy to me when it’s worn that way but I LOVE it with a black tank layered over it. Once again I add cute shoes and some big earrings and either of these outfits have me out the door in minutes. Isn’t it funny that they have the same silhouette too? Creature of habit right here ;)

Left: dress / tank / similar shoes / similar earrings

Right: dress / leopard flats / earrings / similar purse / similar sunglasses

Got Any Tips For Minimizing Kids Clothing?

There are lots of tricks for determining what you or your kids actually wear, versus what you think you wear. Like turning all of the hangers in one direction and then turning them around once an item is worn. The theory is that after a couple of weeks or months you can see exactly what didn’t get touched. You can also move everything to one side of your hanging rod and move it back once it has been worn. Any version of that works well for hanging clothes, but lots of us – especially kids – store big chunks of their wardrobe in drawers. BUT I HAVE A SOLUTION!

You just have to do one simple thing each week for a few weeks in a row. Ready for it? Just look in their drawers and at their hanging bar on laundry day. That means the things they love most and have already worn are all in the hamper, so they’ve sort of naturally selected their favorites for you – but instead of putting them on the bed they’re all nicely coralled in the hamper.

So with their favorites pulled out of the fray, go through their drawers and their hanging bar and take note of what’s left. If you do this for a few weeks in a row, you’ll start to notice a theme. Certain items never leave the drawer. A few things might always get shoved in the back of the closet or balled up on the floor. VOILA – there is your excess! Put that in a tupperware bin and see if you ever even need it again! And if you don’t, gleefully donate or consign it. And then remember what those “space wasters” were when you’re standing in the store about to buy another outfit for them – just to be sure you’re not repeating some pattern of thinking they’ll wear some item when in actuality they never do.

Whew. Ok, that’s 5,688 words and I’m feeling ready to call this turkey of a post done. I hope this was helpful in some way if you’re looking for ways to simplify the clothing situation in your house.

Psst – If you’re looking for more on this subject, here’s an old post I wrote about my clothing, here’s an awesome book called Simplicity Parenting that talks about decision fatigue and simplifying our homes in general (it totally changed my life and I’ve read it 3 times), and here’s a podcast we did with an amazing man named Matt who worked on the show Hoarders, and has some pretty enlightening and kind things to say about paring down. Also Katie Bower did a post about her one-rack wardrobe yesterday, which was a fun read too!

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The post My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money appeared first on Young House Love.

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My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money

Whenever I’m asked about my clothes, I joke that I wear basically the same thing every day. But it turns out that even after years of saying that (and sharing that I had just one bra for many years on the blog), a whole bunch of people freaked out when they saw the hanging bar in my closet on Instagram recently. I got FLOODED with DMs about my sparse mostly black wardrobe. One person even said that seeing my closet was, and I quote: “the wildest thing they’ve seen on the internet in 2018.” That’s quite the statement considering 2018 also gave us Gritty.

To clarify I don’t actually wear the same items of clothing every day on repeat – I just have a fairly small number of clothes that I love and wear all the time – all of which are pretty similar in color/style/silhouette – which I lovingly call “my uniform.” Think Steve Jobs or Michael Kors… except with fewer turtlenecks and less of that billionaire vibe.

I’m not doing laundry any more frequently than anyone else (we do it once a week around here, which I think is pretty average), so it’s just about having enough outfits that you love to get you from laundry day to laundry day (whether they need to be warm, or dressy, or whatever works for your life) without having a ton of extra stuff that’s in the way of the things that you actually wear.

So if you’re tired of drawers and closets that are overflowing, or you love the idea of a more minimal wardrobe full of things you love – and less money spent on clothing excess – then this post is for you. There are definitely people with even fewer clothes, and folks who have other methods for paring down, but I’m just gonna lay out what works for me. And if you’re a wardrobe maximalist who loves having tons of clothes and a bunch of different looks and you ADORE your extensive wardrobe, then this post is not for you (do whatever works for you, boo! I’m ALL FOR THAT!).

Ok, so my plan is just to take you through my closet and all of my drawers, talk you through my process/formula for keeping my wardrobe minimal, and show you how I can create a bunch of outfits (from casual to dressy and from warm weather to cold weather) from a pretty pared down number of tops and bottoms that I lovingly refer to as: “my uniform.”

  And it bears mentioning that even if you have a completely different dress code for your profession, or if you hate the way I dress and the colors/styles/silhouettes that I wear, this is a formula. So you can plug in your favorite silhouettes and colors and everything else that YOU love to make this work for you!

Closet Video Tour

Let’s kick this puppy off with a video tour. I know you have questions (I vividly remember all those DMs I got on Instagram), but pictures are worth 1,000 words, and a video is worth 1,000 pictures. So I’m walking you through my closet and opening all of my drawers (and John’s – haha!) to show you exactly what I have and how I store it along with sharing a little bit more about why/how it works for me. Note: if you can’t see the video below and are reading this post in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the original post to see it. We also uploaded it here on YouTube.

Update: Got a few questions about where my painting clothes are since you saw John’s in the video, but I have a very *strange* method that we’ve actually shared in the archives. I paint with my PJs on inside out. You can see my tags sticking out in all their glory in this old post from 2011. Never said I was normal, guys!

Ok, so now that you’ve seen where everything is, and heard me talk a little bit about my uniform, let’s dive a little deeper. I’m just gonna answer things Q&A style for you below.

How Does A “Uniform” Work?

I’m not talking about a school uniform where your closet is filled with dozens of identical skirts and polos here, but it is almost like finding your own personal “dress code” – meaning the cuts, colors, and styles that you love the most and feel great in. Because if you find something that works, it makes sense that it’s going to be the thing that you’ll reach for and wear a whole lot more than everything else. So why not take a second to figure out why it works and why you love it so much so you can love every last item in your closet that much?! Sounds good, right?

That’s the core idea behind my “uniform” – just figuring out what you love and stopping the vicious cycle of buying other things to stay “on trend” or for the sake of “variety” or to “look different” and then realizing months later that you never wear them because they don’t make you feel as good or you don’t like the cut or the color nearly as much as your tried and true favorites. And the amazing thing is that once you truly understand why you like what you like, you can stand in a store or the dressing room and eliminate clothing that doesn’t fit within that criteria without much effort or thought! You can literally stop the cycle of buying yet another thing that you won’t really love AND you can keep your closet and drawers from filling up with unnecessary extras. Plus you get to keep a little more cash in your wallet.

I don’t think there’s just one magic wardrobe number that works for everyone (someone who goes to the gym every day or lives on a farm or does a team sport may have a need for more laundry/clothing than someone who doesn’t) but I’ll show you my “uniforms” in a second, just to serve as an example. Oh and I say “uniforms” with an S because there can be different ones for different seasons and occasions, like casual weekend uniforms, workout uniforms, work uniforms, etc. And the key is just to figure out how many of those you actually need and not have double or triple that amount all squeezed into your drawers and falling all over the floor of your closet. And did I mention you can save that money? I did? Ok, good. Just making sure.

So don’t tell yourself that just because you work in an office and have to dress up, or because you live in a colder climate that you can’t have a simpler closet. It’s not true!! I dressed myself with this method all the way back in NYC when I had an office job that necessitated me dressing up all the time. And this was in a colder climate where I walked city streets and stood on frigid subway platforms – so I definitely needed all the layering I could get. Why does it still work, even if you have to dress up or add a coat and a scarf and a hat? Because in the end, this is all math, GLORIOUS MATH!

What Exact Items Are In My “Uniform”?

If you’ve followed us for any amount of time, you probably already know my uniform. Black v-neck tops. Jeans. Black scoop neck tanks. Denim shorts. Blazers. Leather or suede jackets. More blazers. And a black dress or two to round things out. It has become kind of a joke, because you guys keep seeing me in a blazer at basically every speaking event or book signing. But here’s the thing: it’s not an accident. Because it’s the way I dress. It has become my uniform for those sorts of things – because I like the way they feel and look on me. And I actually reach for them in my closet and wear them (yesssssss) so I know they don’t sit around wasting space. And therefore I love these items. They work hard for me, make me feel good, and earn their space in my closet.

Six years of living in New York City instilled my love of black, and while I do branch out occasionally (I’ve been known to get wild and throw some navy or olive green in here and there) I’ve learned over the years that when I deviate and buy something in a brighter color, I rarely end up wearing it regularly because – well – I always have other options in my closet that I like better. And guess what? They’re black. It was something I had to realize over time, but ever since I embraced my love of black and stopped trying to make myself wear other colors that I ultimately didn’t wear because I didn’t like them as much (vicious cycle, much?!), two things have happened: 1) I feel GOOD in my clothes. Like all the time. There’s zero clothing drama for me when I get dressed. 2) I’ve stopped wasting money and time buying items I’ll probably just return or donate later. It’s freeing!

top: Old Navy but no longer sold / jeans / heels

I’ve also learned over the years that most of my favorite tops are a little more fitted than the average loose fitting cut, because it helps my 5’2″ body look a little less amorphous – like I’m wearing a potato sack. This realization makes it easy to pass over anything with a drapey look in the store – no matter how glamorous it looks on the mannequin or some long torsoed girl in the fitting room.

Same thing with shorts. I buy short shorts, because I’m petite and when I have tried buying longer shorts, they make me look frumpy, like I’m going golfing or something. And then I’d give those shorts the stink eye for wasting space in my drawer and eventually donate them. But the realization that shorter shorts work better for my body has been freeing. I no longer waste time or money buying longer shorts “just for variety” or to have “something different” because they don’t look as good on me – so duh, of course I won’t wear them as much and they’ll eventually end up in the donate pile!

Same thing with a certain cut of jeans or something. It’s easy to fall for the marketing that says “this bellbottom highwater pant that ends at your shin is the new cool thing!” but I gotta tell ya… it might not be something you actually like or feel good in. So I’m not saying blanketly that you should avoid all trends, but before you go to the store, just look through your clothes and see what you don’t wear – then figure out why. If you pull out one pair of jeans with a different cut that you bought “just to be different” but you never wear them because you don’t like how they look as much as every other pair you have, it’s a whole lot easier to dodge the urge to do that very same thing in the dressing room the next time around.

So let’s say you get to this point and you’re like “uh, but all of your clothes are black. That is so boring. I would die.” Yes, my clothes are mostly black. But this works with all the colors of the rainbow (and all styles and all body types). If you pull out your very favorite outfits from your closet – just the things you actually wear and love – and lay them on the bed, I’m betting they might have some things in common. Even if there are a bunch of different colored items on the bed. I would bet there are still some colors that come up more because you love how you look and feel in them. And you might also notice some trends with cut/silhouette, because chances are if a certain cut of jeans makes you feel your best, it may also be your favorite cut of dress pants. And you might have a few blazers or jackets with similar shapes that hit your body at just the right spot or something. Things are your favorite for a reason, right!?

I’m also a big fan of layering. It’s how I made it work in NYC while working in an agency where I had to get dressed up without even having a dresser in my apartment. That’s right, I had one small and narrow closet and that was it. So I taught myself to layer things. Five shirts that can be layered under five different jackets or blazers = 25 different combinations!!! I mean, how awesome is that math?! And if you add a few different pairs of shoes and some fun jewelry to switch out too, it’s a whole lot of looks without having a whole lot of things. Did I just have five of each thing? No, that would probably feel a little tight – but I probably had under 10 tops that I layered with maybe 7 blazers/jackets/cardigans and then had maybe 5 options for bottoms (jeans if I didn’t have to present that day, and black pants if I did).

The funny thing is that my current “typical uniform” of a black top + denim bottom is that it replicates exactly what I did in NYC when I worked in an office – it’s just a little less dressy. So I can easily transition between summer and winter just by layering – which is exactly what I did back then. When it gets cold I just swap my denim shorts or skirt for skinny jeans, and I throw a jacket right over my black summer tank (maybe a black leather jacket or a crisp blazer or an olive green faux suede jacket). It can even go from casual to somewhat-dressy (like a date night) because I can toss on some cute heels and big earrings and I’m ready to go!

jeans / black tank / green faux suede jacket / leopard heels

How To Pare Down Your Closet

Now I’m not in a position to tell you what YOUR uniform should look like, but one super easy tip for figuring yours out is to do what I touched on a little earlier in this section. Just pull all of your very favorite outfits out – the ones you love and wear all the time – and lay them on your bed.  Then count them. You might literally have enough right there to take you from laundry day to laundry day. If so: congrats! That is your uniform! Right there on the bed! The rest is excess and it can be shoved into a big tupperware bin or two and stashed in the attic or garage. Just see if you even need those items at all. This is the training wheels method – if you need something you can take it back out – but if you don’t miss it and this helps to show you that it’s just dead weight in your closet or your drawers, it feels amazing to consign or donate that extra fluff and just have a wardrobe you LOVE and actually wear!

Ok, but say you only have like five outfits on the bed and you need more than that to get you from laundry day to laundry day. The next step would be to try to identify the common threads, because you need more clothes that make you feel this way. Is it a certain color or color family that you notice when you stare at the winning clothes on the bed? Maybe it’s four favorite colors and tones instead of just one like me? Is it a certain cut? Maybe a fitted silhouette in general or a more voluminous skirt if you feel your best in something fun and swingy? Do a bunch of your favorite outfits follow the same “formula” – maybe a wrap dress with a cardigan and a cute colorful flat? Try to boil things down as much as you can so you have as much direction as you can moving forward. Try not to just say “I like boho stuff” or “anything at Anne Taylor!” because that won’t help you as much as a more detailed set of parameters will.

Calculating Your Closet Needs

Again, this isn’t about hitting a certain fixed number or quota in my closet, but I do find that thinking about this in numbers is helpful – especially just in illustrating why a lot of us have too many pieces in our closets and drawers. The basic idea is to have enough items to get you from one laundry day to the next, with a few – but not too many – extras (you know, in case you spill OJ down your shirt or you run a bit behind on washing a load).

We do laundry about once per week in our household, so I have 10 “bottoms” in my wardrobe to cover those 7 days: 4 pairs of jeans, 4 pairs of shorts, 1 skirt, and 1 pair of yoga pants (I also have a few dresses for dressier occasions). And no, I’m not wearing shorts in the winter to get from laundry day to laundry day – I just don’t wash my denim after each wear because I’m a rule follower and it’s not recommended (don’t torture your jeans, guys!). So 4 pairs of jeans or 4 pairs of denim shorts easily last me 7 days if I wear a few of them twice before tossing them into the hamper. Nobody has ever told me that I smell, and children are VERY honest, so I feel good about this.

Ok, so now forget about me and think about all the different uniforms YOU might need for your lifestyle, whatever that may be – like for work or exercising – and actually add up in your head how many of those outfits you’ll need to get you through to your next laundry day. Keep that number in mind. Next, peek into your closet and drawers and just look at the actual number of things you have. If you count 25 t-shirts and tanks for summer, I’d guess that you probably wear your favorite 10-ish tops on repeat from laundry day to laundry day, and the other 15 items stay shoved wherever they always live, just taking up space because you have so many other items that you like more. If that is the case – just keep your 10 favorites and put the rest into the tupperware bin. You can do this. It’s not permanent. It’s just to see if you really do miss them or need them.

The same logic applies to any part of your uniform. Why own 6 bathing suits if you only rotate between the 2 that you like best?! John recently realized he had 8 running shirts in his drawer but was only wearing 3 each week, washing them, and repeating that. This realization not only helped him get rid of those space-stealing extras (he still kept a couple back-ups) but it reminded him that he doesn’t need to buy any more when he’s standing there in the store staring at them. Win-win.

And for anyone who worries that just having a small number of favorite staples (aka: a uniform) might make you look like you’re wearing the exact same thing every day – it definitely doesn’t have to. Even with my very limited palette, I put together this little visual to show you how easy it is to layer things and change accessories to really switch things up. YAY PERMUTATIONS! I TOLD YOU THIS WAS MATH!

So those are some of the combinations I can make out of a few of my favorite items in my closet. Note that there are 10 different outfits in the image above – and they’re all made from just 4 different tops, 6 bottoms, and 2 dresses (the patterned skirt-looking-thing is a dress that feels too crazy for me, so I layer a tank over it to make it look like a skirt).

I love this demonstration because at first thought you might say… “Ok so if I want to have 10 work outfits and 7 causal outfits to get me from laundry day to laundry day comfortably with some wiggle room, that means I need 17 bottoms and 17 tops.” But wait! That’s bad math! Think about how you rewear your denim and maybe even a blazer if you don’t feel like it got too dirty – and then think about how many combo moves you can make by layering things in different ways! Remember that the 10 outfits above are made from just 12 pieces – not the 20+ you might initially think would be needed if you just assumed you’d need different bottoms and tops every single day.

Am I rewearing those black tanks between washes? Nope! So it does bear mentioning that I love those so much, and I wear them so often, that I have three of them. They’re inexpensive and so versatile and they stay looking crisp and fresh that way. So occasionally purchasing multiples of something that you wear a ton can be an awesome way to keep it looking nice long-term and allow yourself to wear it in a few different ways throughout the week.

A Few Other Reasons We Buy Stuff We Don’t Wear

A big part of my method is just being honest with myself about what I actually wear day in and day out, and then being willing to let go of the rest of the stuff that’s taking up space. I know a lot of us hold onto clothes that we think that we’ll wear for some future hypothetical occasion or circumstance (“aspirational wardrobe” is what I call it – it’s when you buy some item for some imaginary very glamorous event but you never actually wear it because this is real life and not the Simms, so you don’t actually go to those types of events). So sometimes that’s what gets us into this overcrowded closet situation.

It also might be a good deal that tips the scales for you (“ooh these are so cheap, I can’t say no! I’ve gotta have them even though I have 15 shirts I like better BECAUSE THESE ARE TWO DOLLARS!”). Or it could be this idea that buying a certain thing will make you more stylish or pulled together (but then you never actually wear it because it turns out you wear/love super comfy clothes and that item that looks more pulled together is way less comfy than your soft and cozy favorites, so…).

What About That One Super Colorful Thing In Your Closet?

See this colorful dress? I know, it’s kind of hilarious next to everything else in my closet. But it fills a need, and I wear it often enough to warrant it staying. Why do I have it? Well, it’s kind of like my one fake uniform. I like how I look and feel in black, but every few months or so we need to give someone a bio picture or get dressed up for a photoshoot (like for our furniture line for example) and this dress comes with me. All black in a picture can look like a big dark hole amongst an otherwise fun and colorful shot, so I literally bought this dress from J. Crew Outlet a few years ago just for photos. Life is weird, huh?!

But we might all have strange wardrobe guidelines. Mine might be weirder than yours, but I’m sharing this because the instinct might be to tell yourself “hey I have this weird part of my life and I need some outfits for that, so I should probably grab like 10” – but in reality, I don’t need 10 colorful “fake uniforms” – one does the trick. So I have one.

Shopping Tip: Protect Your Closet GPA

Here’s another way to think about paring down your closet: you want to maintain a high closet GPA (grade point average). This is how I’ve been thinking about my closet for YEARS, and it really helps me avoid impulse purchases. Imagine giving every item of clothing that you already own a grade that’s based on how much you like it AND actually wear it. The things you wear all the time and love are As. Wahoo – working towards that perfect 4.0 average.

But that random yellow sweater you picked up on a whim or because it was on sale, and have only worn once… well that stinker is closer to D or F territory. IT IS BRINGING DOWN YOUR ENTIRE CLOSET’S GPA. You want your closet to be filled with your very favorite and most wearable items – so when you’re out shopping, think to yourself “is this new shirt better than all the other shirts I already have, so it’ll bring up my average – or do I love everything I have more than this shirt? Because if the latter is the case, that bad boy is gonna bring down your GPA – and ain’t nobody got time for that.

I think in general we tend to overcomplicate our clothing needs – and stores are constantly telling us we need something new, different, and trendy in order to look better or live a happier life or whatever story they’re trying to tell you when you see those people dashing across the street and hailing a cab in the commercials. Once I got really really happy with my clothes (they make me feel good! I love everything in my closet!) that’s like armor against all of those temptations to buy the newest and trendiest clothing and accessories.

You Don’t Have To Be Minimal Everywhere

I’m not a minimalist in every stretch of the word, though! So here’s a caveat to help you embrace whatever items you might actually not want to pare down at all. This minimal wardrobe of mine is about making my life easier and making me happy – it’s not about deprivation! AT ALL! So take my earrings for example. I probably have over 20 pairs of big fun earrings along with some classic studs and other jewelry like a few bracelets, a watch, a few necklaces.

That might be a lot to you!! You might not even have one pair of big dangly earrings. But for me, they’re part of my uniform – just like blazers and black tanks. So I embrace the fact that I have this many. I’m totally cool with it, and I don’t beat myself up. Incidentally, I think my love of them grew in NYC when I had no space for lots of clothes but I could always fit a few more earrings in my tiny apartment! Ha!

Does Owning Less Cause More Wear?

I got a lot of questions about how my clothes hold up if I’m wearing and washing each item more often. I see how someone could jump to that conclusion, but… drumroll please… I’m just washing things once a week like everyone else. Everything you wear, you launder it every 7 days or so, on average, right? And you probably wear your favorite 10 or so outfits and then you launder them. Well same for me! I just don’t have that extra stuff hanging between each item or shoved into the back of the drawer.

Since I have fewer items, I’m encouraged to take better care of them. Things aren’t getting shoved or crammed onto a rod or into a drawer, and they’re not sitting crumpled somewhere because I don’t have space. I hesitate to say they’re “precious” (I do most of my shopping at places like Old Navy and Target) but when I have fewer backup items, I’m more inclined to take the time to get stains out, fix missing buttons, or follow the proper care instructions with the things I do own.

tank / jeans / fitbit 

In fact, I am SUPER NICE to my stuff because my uniforms work hard for me. I like to wash everything in cold water (helps to lock in colors/black), I wash denim and black things inside out (helps with fading), and I always do a gentle wash and a tumble dry low (nothing too harsh for my babies, I mean clothes). I also always try to put laundry away right after it’s done, so I’m not losing track of piles of clothes and then rewashing them because I’m not sure if they’re clean or dirty – which is definitely something that my friends with more clothes say happens to them.

I have blazers and jackets and tops and jeans that I’ve owned for three or even over five years… so it’s not like I’m rebuying this “minimal wardrobe” every season or even every year. Most of my staples work for at least a few years, although I do buy a few multiples of inexpensive items (like my black tanks) so they stay looking fresher for longer.

How I Combine My Outfits

This is pretty self-explanatory, so I’m not gonna linger on it too much (and your closet favorites might look completely different than mine do), but seeing how I switch out shoes and jewelry and purses or some other thing below might just help the whole “permutations” thing click into place in your head, so here we go…

These are examples of what I might wear on a date night or to a work meeting or something. You can see the “uniform” in total effect here. Both outfits are skinny pants + a fitted tank + a jacket (blazer on the right, leather jacket on the left). I like to play around with shoes and jewelry, so that helps to add a little something extra for me, and I’m good to go.

Left: jeans / heels / similar top / leather jacket

Right: jeans / shoes / striped tank / blazer / necklace / watch

This is another example of what I might wear if I want to be slightly dressier for a holiday gathering or some sort of dinner out or party or something. Once again it’s skinnies on the bottom, a fitted top, and some big earrings and fun shoes. I like a simple black clutch too (hi, have you met me? I like simple black accessories). One funny thing I didn’t even realize until I took these photos is that I also like nude and leopard in my shoes along with black.

Left: jeans / heels / top / black clutch / earrings

Right: jeans / leopard flats / top / green jacket / similar earrings / black clutch

This is an example of what I might wear in the summer to a super casual something (on the right) and a slightly less casual something else (on the left). Oh and to everyone who asked what I walk in (because I’ve been doing these awesome long walks over lunch or after bedtime) and the answer is: whatever outfit I wear that day + sneakers or even flip flops in the summer. I can’t stress how chill these walks are (there’s no sweatband and sprinting, these are delightful strolls) so as long as I have deodorant on, I’m good.

Left: skirt / similar shoes / striped tank / clutch / earrings

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / similar earrings /similar sunglasses

Here are some more summer casual “uniforms” I wear all the time. It may shock you to learn that my everyday purse is this tan crossbody bag (WHAT, IT’S NOT BLACK?!?!), but the reason I love it is because I’m almost always wearing black, so I like that it adds something interesting with another color and goes with everything.

Left: shorts / sandals / striped tank /similar sunglasses

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / earrings / similar purse /similar sunglasses

If I want to dress up a little for some reason (or no reason – I once wore the long black dress on the right to an ice cream parlor with the kids) these might be what I wear. I mentioned before that the left outfit looks like it’s made up of a patterned skirt and a tank but it’s actually a dress that feels way too crazy to me when it’s worn that way but I LOVE it with a black tank layered over it. Once again I add cute shoes and some big earrings and either of these outfits have me out the door in minutes. Isn’t it funny that they have the same silhouette too? Creature of habit right here ;)

Left: dress / tank / similar shoes / similar earrings

Right: dress / leopard flats / earrings / similar purse / similar sunglasses

Got Any Tips For Minimizing Kids Clothing?

There are lots of tricks for determining what you or your kids actually wear, versus what you think you wear. Like turning all of the hangers in one direction and then turning them around once an item is worn. The theory is that after a couple of weeks or months you can see exactly what didn’t get touched. You can also move everything to one side of your hanging rod and move it back once it has been worn. Any version of that works well for hanging clothes, but lots of us – especially kids – store big chunks of their wardrobe in drawers. BUT I HAVE A SOLUTION!

You just have to do one simple thing each week for a few weeks in a row. Ready for it? Just look in their drawers and at their hanging bar on laundry day. That means the things they love most and have already worn are all in the hamper, so they’ve sort of naturally selected their favorites for you – but instead of putting them on the bed they’re all nicely coralled in the hamper.

So with their favorites pulled out of the fray, go through their drawers and their hanging bar and take note of what’s left. If you do this for a few weeks in a row, you’ll start to notice a theme. Certain items never leave the drawer. A few things might always get shoved in the back of the closet or balled up on the floor. VOILA – there is your excess! Put that in a tupperware bin and see if you ever even need it again! And if you don’t, gleefully donate or consign it. And then remember what those “space wasters” were when you’re standing in the store about to buy another outfit for them – just to be sure you’re not repeating some pattern of thinking they’ll wear some item when in actuality they never do.

Whew. Ok, that’s 5,688 words and I’m feeling ready to call this turkey of a post done. I hope this was helpful in some way if you’re looking for ways to simplify the clothing situation in your house.

Psst – If you’re looking for more on this subject, here’s an old post I wrote about my clothing, here’s an awesome book called Simplicity Parenting that talks about decision fatigue and simplifying our homes in general (it totally changed my life and I’ve read it 3 times), and here’s a podcast we did with an amazing man named Matt who worked on the show Hoarders, and has some pretty enlightening and kind things to say about paring down. Also Katie Bower did a post about her one-rack wardrobe yesterday, which was a fun read too!

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My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money

Whenever I’m asked about my clothes, I joke that I wear basically the same thing every day. But it turns out that even after years of saying that (and sharing that I had just one bra for many years on the blog), a whole bunch of people freaked out when they saw the hanging bar in my closet on Instagram recently. I got FLOODED with DMs about my sparse mostly black wardrobe. One person even said that seeing my closet was, and I quote: “the wildest thing they’ve seen on the internet in 2018.” That’s quite the statement considering 2018 also gave us Gritty.

To clarify don’t actually wear the same items of clothing every day on repeat – I just have a fairly small number of clothes that I love and wear all the time – all of which are pretty similar in color/style/silhouette – which I lovingly call “my uniform.” Think Steve Jobs or Michael Kors… except with fewer turtlenecks and less of that billionaire vibe.

I’m not doing laundry any more frequently than anyone else (we do it once a week around here, which I think is pretty average), so it’s just about having enough outfits that you love to get you from laundry day to laundry day (whether they need to be warm, or dressy, or whatever works for your life) without having a ton of extra stuff that’s in the way of the things that you actually wear.

So if you’re tired of drawers and closets that are overflowing, or you love the idea of a more minimal wardrobe full of things you love – and less money spent on clothing excess – then this post is for you. There are definitely people with even fewer clothes, and folks who have other methods for paring down, but I’m just gonna lay out what works for me. And if you’re a wardrobe maximalist who loves having tons of clothes and a bunch of different looks and you ADORE your extensive wardrobe, then this post is not for you (do whatever works for you, boo! I’m ALL FOR THAT!).

Ok, so my plan is just to take you through my closet and all of my drawers, talk you through my process/formula for keeping my wardrobe minimal, and show you how I can create a bunch of outfits (from casual to dressy and from warm weather to cold weather) from a pretty pared down number of tops and bottoms that I lovingly refer to as: “my uniform.”

  And it bears mentioning that even if you have a completely different dress code for your profession, or if you hate the way I dress and the colors/styles/silhouettes that I wear, this is a formula. So you can plug in your favorite silhouettes and colors and everything else that YOU love to make this work for you!

Closet Video Tour

Let’s kick this puppy off with a video tour. I know you have questions (I vividly remember all those DMs I got on Instagram), but pictures are worth 1,000 words, and a video is worth 1,000 pictures. So I’m walking you through my closet and opening all of my drawers (and John’s – haha!) to show you exactly what I have and how I store it along with sharing a little bit more about why/how it works for me. Note: if you can’t see the video below and are reading this post in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the original post to see it. We also uploaded it here on YouTube.

Ok, so now that you’ve seen where everything is, and heard me talk a little bit about my uniform, let’s dive a little deeper. I’m just gonna answer things Q&A style for you below.

How Does A “Uniform” Work?

I’m not talking about a school uniform where your closet is filled with dozens of identical skirts and polos here, but it is almost like finding your own personal “dress code” – meaning the cuts, colors, and styles that you love the most and feel great in. Because if you find something that works, it makes sense that it’s going to be the thing that you’ll reach for and wear a whole lot more than everything else. So why not take a second to figure out why it works and why you love it so much so you can love every last item in your closet that much?! Sounds good, right?

That’s the core idea behind my “uniform” – just figuring out what you love and stopping the vicious cycle of buying other things to stay “on trend” or for the sake of “variety” or to “look different” and then realizing months later that you never wear them because they don’t make you feel as good or you don’t like the cut or the color nearly as much as your tried and true favorites. And the amazing thing is that once you truly understand why you like what you like, you can stand in a store or the dressing room and eliminate clothing that doesn’t fit within that criteria without much effort or thought! You can literally stop the cycle of buying yet another thing that you won’t really love AND you can keep your closet and drawers from filling up with unnecessary extras. Plus you get to keep a little more cash in your wallet.

I don’t think there’s just one magic wardrobe number that works for everyone (someone who goes to the gym every day or lives on a farm or does a team sport may have a need for more laundry/clothing than someone who doesn’t) but I’ll show you my “uniforms” in a second, just to serve as an example. Oh and I say “uniforms” with an S because there can be different ones for different seasons and occasions, like casual weekend uniforms, workout uniforms, work uniforms, etc. And the key is just to figure out how many of those you actually need and not have double or triple that amount all squeezed into your drawers and falling all over the floor of your closet. And did I mention you can save that money? I did? Ok, good. Just making sure.

So don’t tell yourself that just because you work in an office and have to dress up, or because you live in a colder climate that you can’t have a simpler closet. It’s not true!! I dressed myself with this method all the way back in NYC when I had an office job that necessitated me dressing up all the time. And this was in a colder climate where I walked city streets and stood on frigid subway platforms – so I definitely needed all the layering I could get. Why does it still work, even if you have to dress up or add a coat and a scarf and a hat? Because in the end, this is all math, GLORIOUS MATH!

What Exact Items Are In My “Uniform”?

If you’ve followed us for any amount of time, you probably already know my uniform. Black v-neck tops. Jeans. Black scoop neck tanks. Denim shorts. Blazers. Leather or suede jackets. More blazers. And a black dress or two to round things out. It has become kind of a joke, because you guys keep seeing me in a blazer at basically every speaking event or book signing. But here’s the thing: it’s not an accident. Because it’s the way I dress. It has become my uniform for those sorts of things – because I like the way they feel and look on me. And I actually reach for them in my closet and wear them (yesssssss) so I know they don’t sit around wasting space. And therefore I love these items. They work hard for me, make me feel good, and earn their space in my closet.

Six years of living in New York City instilled my love of black, and while I do branch out occasionally (I’ve been known to get wild and throw some navy or olive green in here and there) I’ve learned over the years that when I deviate and buy something in a brighter color, I rarely end up wearing it regularly because – well – I always have other options in my closet that I like better. And guess what? They’re black. It was something I had to realize over time, but ever since I embraced my love of black and stopped trying to make myself wear other colors that I ultimately didn’t wear because I didn’t like them as much (vicious cycle, much?!), two things have happened: 1) I feel GOOD in my clothes. Like all the time. There’s zero clothing drama for me when I get dressed. 2) I’ve stopped wasting money and time buying items I’ll probably just return or donate later. It’s freeing!

top: Old Navy but no longer sold / jeans / heels

I’ve also learned over the years that most of my favorite tops are a little more fitted than the average loose fitting cut, because it helps my 5’2″ body look a little less amorphous – like I’m wearing a potato sack. This realization makes it easy to pass over anything with a drapey look in the store – no matter how glamorous it looks on the mannequin or some long torsoed girl in the fitting room.

Same thing with shorts. I buy short shorts, because I’m petite and when I have tried buying longer shorts, they make me look frumpy, like I’m going golfing or something. And then I’d give those shorts the stink eye for wasting space in my drawer and eventually donate them. But the realization that shorter shorts work better for my body has been freeing. I no longer waste time or money buying longer shorts “just for variety” or to have “something different” because they don’t look as good on me – so duh, of course I won’t wear them as much and they’ll eventually end up in the donate pile!

Same thing with a certain cut of jeans or something. It’s easy to fall for the marketing that says “this bellbottom highwater pant that ends at your shin is the new cool thing!” but I gotta tell ya… it might not be something you actually like or feel good in. So I’m not saying blanketly that you should avoid all trends, but before you go to the store, just look through your clothes and see what you don’t wear – then figure out why. If you pull out one pair of jeans with a different cut that you bought “just to be different” but you never wear them because you don’t like how they look as much as ever other pair you have, it’s a whole lot easier to dodge the urge to do that very same thing in the dressing room the next time around.

So let’s say you get to this point and you’re like “uh, but all of your clothes are black. That is so boring. I would die.” Yes, my clothes are mostly black. But this works with all the colors of the rainbow (and all styles and all body types). If you pull out your very favorite outfits from your closet – just the things you actually wear and love – and lay them on the bed, I’m betting they might have some things in common. Even if there are a bunch of different colored items on the bed. I would bet there are still some colors that come up more because you love how you look and feel in them. And you might also notice some trends with cut/silhouette, because chances are if a certain cut of jeans makes you feel your best, it may also be your favorite cut of dress pants. And you might have a few blazers or jackets with similar shapes that hit your body at just the right spot or something. Things are your favorite for a reason, right!?

I’m also a big fan of layering. It’s how I made it work in NYC while working in an agency where I had to get dressed up without even having a dresser in my apartment. That’s right, I had one small and narrow closet and that was it. So I taught myself to layer things. Five shirts that can be layered under five different jackets or blazers = 25 different combinations!!! I mean, how awesome is that math?! And if you add a few different pairs of shoes and some fun jewelry to switch out too, it’s a whole lot of looks without having a whole lot of things. Did I just have five of each thing? No, that would probably feel a little tight – but I probably had under 10 tops that I layered with maybe 7 blazers/jackets/cardigans and then had maybe 5 options for bottoms (jeans if I didn’t have to present that day, and black pants if I did).

The funny thing is that my current “typical uniform” of a black top + denim bottom is that it replicates exactly what I did in NYC when I worked in an office – it’s just a little less dressy. So I can easily transition between summer and winter just by layering – which is exactly what I did back then. When it gets cold I just swap my denim shorts or skirt for skinny jeans, and I throw a jacket right over my black summer tank (maybe a black leather jacket or a crisp blazer or an olive green faux suede jacket). It can even go from casual to somewhat-dressy (like a date night) because I can toss on some cute heels and big earrings and I’m ready to go!

jeans / black tank / green faux suede jacket / leopard heels

How To Pare Down Your Closet

Now I’m not in a position to tell you what YOUR uniform should look like, but one super easy tip for figuring yours out is to do what I touched on a little earlier in this section. Just pull all of your very favorite outfits out – the ones you love and wear all the time – and lay them on your bed.  Then count them. You might literally have enough right there to take you from laundry day to laundry day. If so: congrats! That is your uniform! Right there on the bed! The rest is excess and it can be shoved into a big tupperware bin or two and stashed in the attic or garage. Just see if you even need those items at all. This is the training wheels method – if you need something you can take it back out – but if you don’t miss it and this helps to show you that it’s just dead weight in your closet or your drawers, it feels amazing to consign or donate that extra fluff and just have a wardrobe you LOVE and actually wear!

Ok, but say you only have like five outfits on the bed and you need more than that to get you from laundry day to laundry day. The next step would be to try to identify the common threads, because you need more clothes that make you feel this way. Is it a certain color or color family that you notice when you stare at the winning clothes on the bed? Maybe it’s four favorite colors and tones instead of just one like me? Is it a certain cut? Maybe a fitted silhouette in general or a more voluminous skirt if you feel your best in something fun and swingy? Do a bunch of your favorite outfits follow the same “formula” – maybe a wrap dress with a cardigan and a cute colorful flat? Try to boil things down as much as you can so you have as much direction as you can moving forward. Try not to just say “I like boho stuff” or “anything at Anne Taylor!” because that won’t help you as much as a more detailed set of parameters will.

Calculating Your Closet Needs

Again, this isn’t about hitting a certain fixed number or quota in my closet, but I do find that thinking about this in numbers is helpful – especially just in illustrating why a lot of us have too many pieces in our closets and drawers. The basic idea is to have enough items to get you from one laundry day to the next, with a few – but not too many – extras (you know, in case you spill OJ down your shirt or you run a bit behind on washing a load).

We do laundry about once per week in our household, so I have 10 “bottoms” in my wardrobe to cover those 7 days: 4 pairs of jeans, 4 pairs of shorts, 1 skirt, and 1 pair of yoga pants (I also have a few dresses for dressier occasions). And no, I’m not wearing shorts in the winter to get from laundry day to laundry day – I just don’t wash my denim after each wear because I’m a rule follower and it’s not recommended (don’t torture your jeans, guys!). So 4 pairs of jeans or 4 pairs of denim shorts easily last me 7 days if I wear a few of them twice before tossing them into the hamper. Nobody has ever told me that I smell, and children are VERY honest, so I feel good about this.

Ok, so now forget about me and think about all the different uniforms YOU might need for your lifestyle, whatever that may be – like for work or exercising – and actually add up in your head how many of those outfits you’ll need to get you through to your next laundry day. Keep that number in mind. Next, peek into your closet and drawers and just look at the actual number of things you have. If you count 25 t-shirts and tanks for summer, I’d guess that you probably wear your favorite 10-ish tops on repeat from laundry day to laundry day, and the other 15 items stay shoved wherever they always live, just taking up space because you have so many other items that you like more. If that is the case – just keep your 10 favorites and put the rest into the tupperware bin. You can do this. It’s not permanent. It’s just to see if you really do miss them or need them.

The same logic applies to any part of your uniform. Why own 6 bathing suits if you only rotate between the 2 that you look best in?! John recently realized he had 8 running shirts in his drawer but was only wearing 3 each week, washing them, and repeating that. This realization not only helped him get rid of those space-stealing extras (he still kept a couple back-ups) but it reminded him that he doesn’t need to buy any more when he’s standing there in the store staring at them. Win-win.

And for anyone who worries that just having a small number of favorite staples (aka: a uniform) might make you look like you’re wearing the exact same thing every day – it definitely doesn’t have to. Even with my very limited palette, I put together this little visual to show you how easy it is to layer things and change accessories to really switch things up. YAY PERMUTATIONS! I TOLD YOU THIS WAS MATH!

So those are some of the combinations I can make out of a few of my favorite items in my closet. Note that there are 10 different outfits in the image above – and they’re all made from just 4 different tops, 6 bottoms, and 2 dresses (the patterned skirt-looking-thing is a dress that feels too crazy for me, so I layer a tank over it to make it look like a skirt).

I love this demonstration because at first thought you might say… “Ok so if I want to have 10 work outfits and 7 causal outfits to get me from laundry day to laundry day comfortably with some wiggle room, that means I need 17 bottoms and 17 tops.” But wait! That’s bad math! Think about how you rewear your denim and maybe even a blazer if you don’t feel like it got too dirty – and then think about how many combo moves you can make by layering things in different ways! Remember that the 10 outfits above that are made from just 12 pieces – not the 20+ you might initially think would be needed if you just assumed you’d need different bottoms and tops every single day.

Am I rewearing those black tanks between washes? Nope! So it does bear mentioning that I love those so much, and I wear them so often, that I have three of them. They’re inexpensive and so versatile and they stay looking crisp and fresh that way. So occasionally purchasing multiples of something that you wear a ton can be an awesome way to keep it looking nice long-term and allow yourself to wear it in a few different ways throughout the week.

A Few Other Reasons We Buy Stuff We Don’t Wear

A big part of my method is just being honest with myself about what I actually wear day in and day out, and then being willing to let go of the rest of the stuff that’s taking up space. I know a lot of us hold onto clothes that we think that we’ll wear for some future hypothetical occasion or circumstance (“aspirational wardrobe” is what I call it – it’s when you buy some item for some imaginary very glamorous event but you never actually wear it because this is real life and not the Simms, so you don’t actually go to those types of events). So sometimes that’s what gets us into this overcrowded closet situation.

It also might be a good deal that tips the scales for you (“ooh these are so cheap, I can’t say no! I’ve gotta have them even though I have 15 shirts I like better BECAUSE THESE ARE TWO DOLLARS!”). Or it could be this idea that buying a certain thing will make you more stylish or pulled together (but then you never actually wear it because it turns out you wear/love super comfy clothes and that item that looks more pulled together is way less comfy than your soft and cozy favorites, so…).

What About That One Super Colorful Thing In Your Closet? 

See this colorful dress? I know, it’s kind of hilarious next to everything else in my closet. But it fills a need, and I wear it often enough to warrant it staying. Why do I have it? Well, it’s kind of like my one fake uniform. I like how I look and feel in black, but every few months or so we need to give someone a bio picture or get dressed up for a photoshoot (like for our furniture line for example) and this dress comes with me. All black in a picture can look like a big dark hole amongst an otherwise fun and colorful shot, so I literally bought this dress from J. Crew Outlet a few years ago just for photos. Life is weird, huh?!

But we might all have strange wardrobe guidelines. Mine might be weirder than yours, but I’m sharing this because the instinct might be to tell yourself “hey I have this weird part of my life and I need some outfits for that, so I should probably grab like 10” – but in reality, I don’t need 10 colorful “fake uniforms” – one does the trick. So I have one.

Shopping Tip: Protect Your Closet GPA

Here’s another way to think about paring down your closet: you want to maintain a high closet GPA (grade point average). This is how I’ve been thinking about my closet for YEARS, and it really helps me avoid impulse purchases. Imagine giving every item of clothing that you already own a grade that’s based on how much you like it AND actually wear it. The things you wear all the time and love are As. Wahoo – working towards that perfect 4.0 average.

But that random yellow sweater you picked up on a whim or because it was on sale, and have only worn once… well that stinker is closer to D or F territory. IT IS BRINGING DOWN YOUR ENTIRE CLOSET’S GPA. You want your closet to be filled with your very favorite and most wearable items – so when you’re out shopping, think to yourself “is this new shirt better than all the other shirts I already have, so it’ll bring up my average – or do I love everything I have more than this shirt? Because if the latter is the case, that bad boy is gonna bring down your GPA – and ain’t nobody got time for that.

I think in general we tend to overcomplicate our clothing needs – and stores are constantly telling us we need something new, different, and trendy in order to look better or live a happier life or whatever story they’re trying to tell you when you see those people dashing across the street and hailing a cab in the commercials. Once I got really really happy with my clothes (they make me feel good! I love everything in my closet!) that’s like armor against all of those temptations to buy the newest and trendiest clothing and accessories.

You Don’t Have To Be Minimal Everywhere

I’m not a minimalist in every stretch of the word, though! So here’s a caveat to help you embrace whatever items you might actually not want to pare down at all. This minimal wardrobe of mine is about making my life easier and making me happy – it’s not about deprivation! AT ALL! So take my earrings for example. I probably have over 20 pairs of big fun earrings along with some classic studs and other jewelry like a few bracelets, a watch, a few necklaces.

That might be a lot to you!! You might not even have one pair of big dangly earrings. But for me, they’re part of my uniform – just like blazers and black tanks. So I embrace the fact that I have this many. I’m totally cool with it, and I don’t beat myself up. Incidentally, I think my love of them grew in NYC when I had no space for lots of clothes but I could always fit a few more earrings in my tiny apartment! Ha!

Does Owning Less Cause More Wear?

I got a lot of questions about how my clothes hold up if I’m wearing and washing each item more often. I see how someone could jump to that conclusion, but… drumroll please… I’m just washing things once a week like everyone else. Everything you wear, you launder it every 7 days or so, on average, right? And you probably wear your favorite 10 or so outfits and then you launder them. Well same for me! I just don’t have that extra stuff hanging between each item or shoved into the back of the drawer.

Since I have fewer items, I’m encouraged to take better care of them. Things aren’t getting shoved or crammed onto a rod or into a drawer, and they’re not sitting crumpled somewhere because I don’t have space. I hesitate to say they’re “precious” (I do most of my shopping at places like Old Navy and Target) but when I have fewer backup items, I’m more inclined to take the time to get stains out, fix missing buttons, or follow the proper care instructions with the things I do own.

tank / jeans / fitbit 

In fact, I am SUPER NICE to my stuff because my uniforms work hard for me. I like to wash everything in cold water (helps to lock in colors/black), I wash denim and black things inside out (helps with fading), and I always do a gentle wash and a tumble dry low (nothing too harsh for my babies, I mean clothes). I also always try to put laundry away right after it’s done, so I’m not losing track of piles of clothes and then rewashing them because I’m not sure if they’re clean or dirty – which is definitely something that my friends with more clothes say happens to them.

I have blazers and jackets and tops and jeans that I’ve owned for three or even over five years… so it’s not like I’m rebuying this “minimal wardrobe” every season or even every year. Most of my staples work for at least a few years, although I do buy a few multiples of inexpensive items (like my black tanks) so they stay looking fresher for longer.

How I Combine My Outfits

This is pretty self-explanatory, so I’m not gonna linger on it too much (and your closet favorites might look completely different than mine do), but seeing how I switch out shoes and jewelry and purses or some other thing below might just help the whole “permutations” thing click into place in your head, so here we go…

These are examples of what I might wear on a date night or to a work meeting or something. You can see the “uniform” in total effect here. Both outfits are skinny pants + a fitted tank + a jacket (blazer on the right, leather jacket on the left). I like to play around with shoes and jewelry, so that helps to add a little something extra for me, and I’m good to go.

Left: jeans / heels / similar top / leather jacket

Right: jeans / shoes / striped tank / blazer / necklace / watch

This is another example of what I might wear if I want to be slightly dressier for a holiday gathering or some sort of dinner out or party or something. Once again it’s skinnies on the bottom, a fitted top, and some big earrings and fun shoes. I like a simple black clutch too (hi, have you met me? I like simple black accessories). One funny thing I didn’t even realize until I took these photos is that I also like nude and leopard in my shoes along with black.

Left: jeans / heels / top / black clutch / earrings

Right: jeans / leopard flats / top / green jacket / similar earrings / black clutch

This is an example of what I might wear in the summer to a super casual something (on the right) and a slightly less casual something else (on the left). Oh and to everyone who asked what I walk in (because I’ve been doing these awesome long walks over lunch or after bedtime) and the answer is: whatever outfit I wear that day + sneakers or even flip flops in the summer. I can’t stress how chill these walks are (there’s no sweatband and sprinting, these are delightful strolls) so as long as I have deodorant on, I’m good.

Left: skirt / similar shoes / striped tank / clutch / earrings

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / similar earrings /similar sunglasses

Here are some more summer casual “uniforms” I wear all the time. It may shock you to learn that my everyday purse is this tan crossbody bag (WHAT, IT’S NOT BLACK?!?!), but the reason I love it is because I’m almost always wearing black, so I like that it adds something interesting with another color and goes with everything.

Left: shorts / sandals / striped tank /similar sunglasses

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / earrings / similar purse /similar sunglasses

If I want to dress up a little for some reason (or no reason – I once wore the long black dress on the right to an ice cream parlor with the kids) these might be what I wear. I mentioned before that the left outfit looks like it’s made up of a patterned skirt and a tank but it’s actually a dress that feels way too crazy to me when it’s worn that way but I LOVE it with a black tank layered over it. Once again I add cute shoes and some big earrings and either of these outfits have me out the door in minutes. Isn’t it funny that they have the same silhouette too? Creature of habit right here ;)

Left: dress / tank / similar shoes / similar earrings

Right: dress / leopard flats / earrings / similar purse / similar sunglasses

Got Any Tips For Minimizing Kids Clothing?

There are lots of tricks for determining what you or your kids actually wear, versus what you think you wear. Like turning all of the hangers in one direction and then turning them around once an item is worn. The theory is that after a couple of weeks or months you can see exactly what didn’t get touched. You can also move everything to one side of your hanging rod and move it back once it has been worn. Any version of that works well for hanging clothes, but lots of us – especially kids – store big chunks of their wardrobe in drawers. BUT I HAVE A SOLUTION!

You just have to do one simple thing each week for a few weeks in a row. Ready for it? Just look in their drawers and at their hanging bar on laundry day. That means the things they love most and have already worn are all in the hamper, so they’ve sort of naturally selected their favorites for you – but instead of putting them on the bed they’re all nicely coralled in the hamper.

So with their favorites pulled out of the fray, go through their drawers and their hanging bar and take note of what’s left. If you do this for a few weeks in a row, you’ll start to notice a theme. Certain items never leave the drawer. A few things might always get shoved in the back of the closet or balled up on the floor. VOILA – there is your excess! Put that in a tupperware bin and see if you ever even need it again! And if you don’t, gleefully donate or consign it. And then remember what those “space wasters” were when you’re standing in the store about to buy another outfit for them – just to be sure you’re not repeating some pattern of thinking they’ll wear some item when in actuality they never do.

Whew. Ok, that’s 5,688 words and I’m feeling ready to call this turkey of a post done. I hope this was helpful in some way if you’re looking for ways to simplify the clothing situation in your house.

Psst – If you’re looking for more on this subject, here’s an old post I wrote about my clothing, here’s an awesome book called Simplicity Parenting that talks about decision fatigue and simplifying our homes in general (it totally changed my life and I’ve read it 3 times), and here’s a podcast we did with an amazing man named Matt who worked on the show Hoarders, and has some pretty enlightening and kind things to say about paring down. Also Katie Bower did a post about her one-rack wardrobe yesterday, which was a fun read too!

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My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money

Whenever I’m asked about my clothes, I joke that I wear basically the same thing every day. But it turns out that even after years of saying that (and sharing that I had just one bra for many years on the blog), a whole bunch of people freaked out when they saw the hanging bar in my closet on Instagram recently. I got FLOODED with DMs about my sparse mostly black wardrobe. One person even said that seeing my closet was, and I quote: “the wildest thing they’ve seen on the internet in 2018.” That’s quite the statement considering 2018 also gave us Gritty.

To clarify don’t actually wear the same items of clothing every day on repeat – I just have a fairly small number of clothes that I love and wear all the time – all of which are pretty similar in color/style/silhouette – which I lovingly call “my uniform.” Think Steve Jobs or Michael Kors… except with fewer turtlenecks and less of that billionaire vibe.

I’m not doing laundry any more frequently than anyone else (we do it once a week around here, which I think is pretty average), so it’s just about having enough outfits that you love to get you from laundry day to laundry day (whether they need to be warm, or dressy, or whatever works for your life) without having a ton of extra stuff that’s in the way of the things that you actually wear.

So if you’re tired of drawers and closets that are overflowing, or you love the idea of a more minimal wardrobe full of things you love – and less money spent on clothing excess – then this post is for you. There are definitely people with even fewer clothes, and folks who have other methods for paring down, but I’m just gonna lay out what works for me. And if you’re a wardrobe maximalist who loves having tons of clothes and a bunch of different looks and you ADORE your extensive wardrobe, then this post is not for you (do whatever works for you, boo! I’m ALL FOR THAT!).

Ok, so my plan is just to take you through my closet and all of my drawers, talk you through my process/formula for keeping my wardrobe minimal, and show you how I can create a bunch of outfits (from casual to dressy and from warm weather to cold weather) from a pretty pared down number of tops and bottoms that I lovingly refer to as: “my uniform.”

  And it bears mentioning that even if you have a completely different dress code for your profession, or if you hate the way I dress and the colors/styles/silhouettes that I wear, this is a formula. So you can plug in your favorite silhouettes and colors and everything else that YOU love to make this work for you!

Closet Video Tour

Let’s kick this puppy off with a video tour. I know you have questions (I vividly remember all those DMs I got on Instagram), but pictures are worth 1,000 words, and a video is worth 1,000 pictures. So I’m walking you through my closet and opening all of my drawers (and John’s – haha!) to show you exactly what I have and how I store it along with sharing a little bit more about why/how it works for me. Note: if you can’t see the video below and are reading this post in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the original post to see it. We also uploaded it here on YouTube.

Ok, so now that you’ve seen where everything is, and heard me talk a little bit about my uniform, let’s dive a little deeper. I’m just gonna answer things Q&A style for you below.

How Does A “Uniform” Work?

I’m not talking about a school uniform where your closet is filled with dozens of identical skirts and polos here, but it is almost like finding your own personal “dress code” – meaning the cuts, colors, and styles that you love the most and feel great in. Because if you find something that works, it makes sense that it’s going to be the thing that you’ll reach for and wear a whole lot more than everything else. So why not take a second to figure out why it works and why you love it so much so you can love every last item in your closet that much?! Sounds good, right?

That’s the core idea behind my “uniform” – just figuring out what you love and stopping the vicious cycle of buying other things to stay “on trend” or for the sake of “variety” or to “look different” and then realizing months later that you never wear them because they don’t make you feel as good or you don’t like the cut or the color nearly as much as your tried and true favorites. And the amazing thing is that once you truly understand why you like what you like, you can stand in a store or the dressing room and eliminate clothing that doesn’t fit within that criteria without much effort or thought! You can literally stop the cycle of buying yet another thing that you won’t really love AND you can keep your closet and drawers from filling up with unnecessary extras. Plus you get to keep a little more cash in your wallet.

I don’t think there’s just one magic wardrobe number that works for everyone (someone who goes to the gym every day or lives on a farm or does a team sport may have a need for more laundry/clothing than someone who doesn’t) but I’ll show you my “uniforms” in a second, just to serve as an example. Oh and I say “uniforms” with an S because there can be different ones for different seasons and occasions, like casual weekend uniforms, workout uniforms, work uniforms, etc. And the key is just to figure out how many of those you actually need and not have double or triple that amount all squeezed into your drawers and falling all over the floor of your closet. And did I mention you can save that money? I did? Ok, good. Just making sure.

So don’t tell yourself that just because you work in an office and have to dress up, or because you live in a colder climate that you can’t have a simpler closet. It’s not true!! I dressed myself with this method all the way back in NYC when I had an office job that necessitated me dressing up all the time. And this was in a colder climate where I walked city streets and stood on frigid subway platforms – so I definitely needed all the layering I could get. Why does it still work, even if you have to dress up or add a coat and a scarf and a hat? Because in the end, this is all math, GLORIOUS MATH!

What Exact Items Are In My “Uniform”?

If you’ve followed us for any amount of time, you probably already know my uniform. Black v-neck tops. Jeans. Black scoop neck tanks. Denim shorts. Blazers. Leather or suede jackets. More blazers. And a black dress or two to round things out. It has become kind of a joke, because you guys keep seeing me in a blazer at basically every speaking event or book signing. But here’s the thing: it’s not an accident. Because it’s the way I dress. It has become my uniform for those sorts of things – because I like the way they feel and look on me. And I actually reach for them in my closet and wear them (yesssssss) so I know they don’t sit around wasting space. And therefore I love these items. They work hard for me, make me feel good, and earn their space in my closet.

Six years of living in New York City instilled my love of black, and while I do branch out occasionally (I’ve been known to get wild and throw some navy or olive green in here and there) I’ve learned over the years that when I deviate and buy something in a brighter color, I rarely end up wearing it regularly because – well – I always have other options in my closet that I like better. And guess what? They’re black. It was something I had to realize over time, but ever since I embraced my love of black and stopped trying to make myself wear other colors that I ultimately didn’t wear because I didn’t like them as much (vicious cycle, much?!), two things have happened: 1) I feel GOOD in my clothes. Like all the time. There’s zero clothing drama for me when I get dressed. 2) I’ve stopped wasting money and time buying items I’ll probably just return or donate later. It’s freeing!

top: Old Navy but no longer sold / jeans / heels

I’ve also learned over the years that most of my favorite tops are a little more fitted than the average loose fitting cut, because it helps my 5’2″ body look a little less amorphous – like I’m wearing a potato sack. This realization makes it easy to pass over anything with a drapey look in the store – no matter how glamorous it looks on the mannequin or some long torsoed girl in the fitting room.

Same thing with shorts. I buy short shorts, because I’m petite and when I have tried buying longer shorts, they make me look frumpy, like I’m going golfing or something. And then I’d give those shorts the stink eye for wasting space in my drawer and eventually donate them. But the realization that shorter shorts work better for my body has been freeing. I no longer waste time or money buying longer shorts “just for variety” or to have “something different” because they don’t look as good on me – so duh, of course I won’t wear them as much and they’ll eventually end up in the donate pile!

Same thing with a certain cut of jeans or something. It’s easy to fall for the marketing that says “this bellbottom highwater pant that ends at your shin is the new cool thing!” but I gotta tell ya… it might not be something you actually like or feel good in. So I’m not saying blanketly that you should avoid all trends, but before you go to the store, just look through your clothes and see what you don’t wear – then figure out why. If you pull out one pair of jeans with a different cut that you bought “just to be different” but you never wear them because you don’t like how they look as much as ever other pair you have, it’s a whole lot easier to dodge the urge to do that very same thing in the dressing room the next time around.

So let’s say you get to this point and you’re like “uh, but all of your clothes are black. That is so boring. I would die.” Yes, my clothes are mostly black. But this works with all the colors of the rainbow (and all styles and all body types). If you pull out your very favorite outfits from your closet – just the things you actually wear and love – and lay them on the bed, I’m betting they might have some things in common. Even if there are a bunch of different colored items on the bed. I would bet there are still some colors that come up more because you love how you look and feel in them. And you might also notice some trends with cut/silhouette, because chances are if a certain cut of jeans makes you feel your best, it may also be your favorite cut of dress pants. And you might have a few blazers or jackets with similar shapes that hit your body at just the right spot or something. Things are your favorite for a reason, right!?

I’m also a big fan of layering. It’s how I made it work in NYC while working in an agency where I had to get dressed up without even having a dresser in my apartment. That’s right, I had one small and narrow closet and that was it. So I taught myself to layer things. Five shirts that can be layered under five different jackets or blazers = 25 different combinations!!! I mean, how awesome is that math?! And if you add a few different pairs of shoes and some fun jewelry to switch out too, it’s a whole lot of looks without having a whole lot of things. Did I just have five of each thing? No, that would probably feel a little tight – but I probably had under 10 tops that I layered with maybe 7 blazers/jackets/cardigans and then had maybe 5 options for bottoms (jeans if I didn’t have to present that day, and black pants if I did).

The funny thing is that my current “typical uniform” of a black top + denim bottom is that it replicates exactly what I did in NYC when I worked in an office – it’s just a little less dressy. So I can easily transition between summer and winter just by layering – which is exactly what I did back then. When it gets cold I just swap my denim shorts or skirt for skinny jeans, and I throw a jacket right over my black summer tank (maybe a black leather jacket or a crisp blazer or an olive green faux suede jacket). It can even go from casual to somewhat-dressy (like a date night) because I can toss on some cute heels and big earrings and I’m ready to go!

jeans / black tank / green faux suede jacket / leopard heels

How To Pare Down Your Closet

Now I’m not in a position to tell you what YOUR uniform should look like, but one super easy tip for figuring yours out is to do what I touched on a little earlier in this section. Just pull all of your very favorite outfits out – the ones you love and wear all the time – and lay them on your bed.  Then count them. You might literally have enough right there to take you from laundry day to laundry day. If so: congrats! That is your uniform! Right there on the bed! The rest is excess and it can be shoved into a big tupperware bin or two and stashed in the attic or garage. Just see if you even need those items at all. This is the training wheels method – if you need something you can take it back out – but if you don’t miss it and this helps to show you that it’s just dead weight in your closet or your drawers, it feels amazing to consign or donate that extra fluff and just have a wardrobe you LOVE and actually wear!

Ok, but say you only have like five outfits on the bed and you need more than that to get you from laundry day to laundry day. The next step would be to try to identify the common threads, because you need more clothes that make you feel this way. Is it a certain color or color family that you notice when you stare at the winning clothes on the bed? Maybe it’s four favorite colors and tones instead of just one like me? Is it a certain cut? Maybe a fitted silhouette in general or a more voluminous skirt if you feel your best in something fun and swingy? Do a bunch of your favorite outfits follow the same “formula” – maybe a wrap dress with a cardigan and a cute colorful flat? Try to boil things down as much as you can so you have as much direction as you can moving forward. Try not to just say “I like boho stuff” or “anything at Anne Taylor!” because that won’t help you as much as a more detailed set of parameters will.

Calculating Your Closet Needs

Again, this isn’t about hitting a certain fixed number or quota in my closet, but I do find that thinking about this in numbers is helpful – especially just in illustrating why a lot of us have too many pieces in our closets and drawers. The basic idea is to have enough items to get you from one laundry day to the next, with a few – but not too many – extras (you know, in case you spill OJ down your shirt or you run a bit behind on washing a load).

We do laundry about once per week in our household, so I have 10 “bottoms” in my wardrobe to cover those 7 days: 4 pairs of jeans, 4 pairs of shorts, 1 skirt, and 1 pair of yoga pants (I also have a few dresses for dressier occasions). And no, I’m not wearing shorts in the winter to get from laundry day to laundry day – I just don’t wash my denim after each wear because I’m a rule follower and it’s not recommended (don’t torture your jeans, guys!). So 4 pairs of jeans or 4 pairs of denim shorts easily last me 7 days if I wear a few of them twice before tossing them into the hamper. Nobody has ever told me that I smell, and children are VERY honest, so I feel good about this.

Ok, so now forget about me and think about all the different uniforms YOU might need for your lifestyle, whatever that may be – like for work or exercising – and actually add up in your head how many of those outfits you’ll need to get you through to your next laundry day. Keep that number in mind. Next, peek into your closet and drawers and just look at the actual number of things you have. If you count 25 t-shirts and tanks for summer, I’d guess that you probably wear your favorite 10-ish tops on repeat from laundry day to laundry day, and the other 15 items stay shoved wherever they always live, just taking up space because you have so many other items that you like more. If that is the case – just keep your 10 favorites and put the rest into the tupperware bin. You can do this. It’s not permanent. It’s just to see if you really do miss them or need them.

The same logic applies to any part of your uniform. Why own 6 bathing suits if you only rotate between the 2 that you look best in?! John recently realized he had 8 running shirts in his drawer but was only wearing 3 each week, washing them, and repeating that. This realization not only helped him get rid of those space-stealing extras (he still kept a couple back-ups) but it reminded him that he doesn’t need to buy any more when he’s standing there in the store staring at them. Win-win.

And for anyone who worries that just having a small number of favorite staples (aka: a uniform) might make you look like you’re wearing the exact same thing every day – it definitely doesn’t have to. Even with my very limited palette, I put together this little visual to show you how easy it is to layer things and change accessories to really switch things up. YAY PERMUTATIONS! I TOLD YOU THIS WAS MATH!

So those are some of the combinations I can make out of a few of my favorite items in my closet. Note that there are 10 different outfits in the image above – and they’re all made from just 4 different tops, 6 bottoms, and 2 dresses (the patterned skirt-looking-thing is a dress that feels too crazy for me, so I layer a tank over it to make it look like a skirt).

I love this demonstration because at first thought you might say… “Ok so if I want to have 10 work outfits and 7 causal outfits to get me from laundry day to laundry day comfortably with some wiggle room, that means I need 17 bottoms and 17 tops.” But wait! That’s bad math! Think about how you rewear your denim and maybe even a blazer if you don’t feel like it got too dirty – and then think about how many combo moves you can make by layering things in different ways! Remember that the 10 outfits above that are made from just 12 pieces – not the 20+ you might initially think would be needed if you just assumed you’d need different bottoms and tops every single day.

Am I rewearing those black tanks between washes? Nope! So it does bear mentioning that I love those so much, and I wear them so often, that I have three of them. They’re inexpensive and so versatile and they stay looking crisp and fresh that way. So occasionally purchasing multiples of something that you wear a ton can be an awesome way to keep it looking nice long-term and allow yourself to wear it in a few different ways throughout the week.

A Few Other Reasons We Buy Stuff We Don’t Wear

A big part of my method is just being honest with myself about what I actually wear day in and day out, and then being willing to let go of the rest of the stuff that’s taking up space. I know a lot of us hold onto clothes that we think that we’ll wear for some future hypothetical occasion or circumstance (“aspirational wardrobe” is what I call it – it’s when you buy some item for some imaginary very glamorous event but you never actually wear it because this is real life and not the Simms, so you don’t actually go to those types of events). So sometimes that’s what gets us into this overcrowded closet situation.

It also might be a good deal that tips the scales for you (“ooh these are so cheap, I can’t say no! I’ve gotta have them even though I have 15 shirts I like better BECAUSE THESE ARE TWO DOLLARS!”). Or it could be this idea that buying a certain thing will make you more stylish or pulled together (but then you never actually wear it because it turns out you wear/love super comfy clothes and that item that looks more pulled together is way less comfy than your soft and cozy favorites, so…).

What About That One Super Colorful Thing In Your Closet? 

See this colorful dress? I know, it’s kind of hilarious next to everything else in my closet. But it fills a need, and I wear it often enough to warrant it staying. Why do I have it? Well, it’s kind of like my one fake uniform. I like how I look and feel in black, but every few months or so we need to give someone a bio picture or get dressed up for a photoshoot (like for our furniture line for example) and this dress comes with me. All black in a picture can look like a big dark hole amongst an otherwise fun and colorful shot, so I literally bought this dress from J. Crew Outlet a few years ago just for photos. Life is weird, huh?!

But we might all have strange wardrobe guidelines. Mine might be weirder than yours, but I’m sharing this because the instinct might be to tell yourself “hey I have this weird part of my life and I need some outfits for that, so I should probably grab like 10” – but in reality, I don’t need 10 colorful “fake uniforms” – one does the trick. So I have one.

Shopping Tip: Protect Your Closet GPA

Here’s another way to think about paring down your closet: you want to maintain a high closet GPA (grade point average). This is how I’ve been thinking about my closet for YEARS, and it really helps me avoid impulse purchases. Imagine giving every item of clothing that you already own a grade that’s based on how much you like it AND actually wear it. The things you wear all the time and love are As. Wahoo – working towards that perfect 4.0 average.

But that random yellow sweater you picked up on a whim or because it was on sale, and have only worn once… well that stinker is closer to D or F territory. IT IS BRINGING DOWN YOUR ENTIRE CLOSET’S GPA. You want your closet to be filled with your very favorite and most wearable items – so when you’re out shopping, think to yourself “is this new shirt better than all the other shirts I already have, so it’ll bring up my average – or do I love everything I have more than this shirt? Because if the latter is the case, that bad boy is gonna bring down your GPA – and ain’t nobody got time for that.

I think in general we tend to overcomplicate our clothing needs – and stores are constantly telling us we need something new, different, and trendy in order to look better or live a happier life or whatever story they’re trying to tell you when you see those people dashing across the street and hailing a cab in the commercials. Once I got really really happy with my clothes (they make me feel good! I love everything in my closet!) that’s like armor against all of those temptations to buy the newest and trendiest clothing and accessories.

You Don’t Have To Be Minimal Everywhere

I’m not a minimalist in every stretch of the word, though! So here’s a caveat to help you embrace whatever items you might actually not want to pare down at all. This minimal wardrobe of mine is about making my life easier and making me happy – it’s not about deprivation! AT ALL! So take my earrings for example. I probably have over 20 pairs of big fun earrings along with some classic studs and other jewelry like a few bracelets, a watch, a few necklaces.

That might be a lot to you!! You might not even have one pair of big dangly earrings. But for me, they’re part of my uniform – just like blazers and black tanks. So I embrace the fact that I have this many. I’m totally cool with it, and I don’t beat myself up. Incidentally, I think my love of them grew in NYC when I had no space for lots of clothes but I could always fit a few more earrings in my tiny apartment! Ha!

Does Owning Less Cause More Wear?

I got a lot of questions about how my clothes hold up if I’m wearing and washing each item more often. I see how someone could jump to that conclusion, but… drumroll please… I’m just washing things once a week like everyone else. Everything you wear, you launder it every 7 days or so, on average, right? And you probably wear your favorite 10 or so outfits and then you launder them. Well same for me! I just don’t have that extra stuff hanging between each item or shoved into the back of the drawer.

Since I have fewer items, I’m encouraged to take better care of them. Things aren’t getting shoved or crammed onto a rod or into a drawer, and they’re not sitting crumpled somewhere because I don’t have space. I hesitate to say they’re “precious” (I do most of my shopping at places like Old Navy and Target) but when I have fewer backup items, I’m more inclined to take the time to get stains out, fix missing buttons, or follow the proper care instructions with the things I do own.

tank / jeans / fitbit 

In fact, I am SUPER NICE to my stuff because my uniforms work hard for me. I like to wash everything in cold water (helps to lock in colors/black), I wash denim and black things inside out (helps with fading), and I always do a gentle wash and a tumble dry low (nothing too harsh for my babies, I mean clothes). I also always try to put laundry away right after it’s done, so I’m not losing track of piles of clothes and then rewashing them because I’m not sure if they’re clean or dirty – which is definitely something that my friends with more clothes say happens to them.

I have blazers and jackets and tops and jeans that I’ve owned for three or even over five years… so it’s not like I’m rebuying this “minimal wardrobe” every season or even every year. Most of my staples work for at least a few years, although I do buy a few multiples of inexpensive items (like my black tanks) so they stay looking fresher for longer.

How I Combine My Outfits

This is pretty self-explanatory, so I’m not gonna linger on it too much (and your closet favorites might look completely different than mine do), but seeing how I switch out shoes and jewelry and purses or some other thing below might just help the whole “permutations” thing click into place in your head, so here we go…

These are examples of what I might wear on a date night or to a work meeting or something. You can see the “uniform” in total effect here. Both outfits are skinny pants + a fitted tank + a jacket (blazer on the right, leather jacket on the left). I like to play around with shoes and jewelry, so that helps to add a little something extra for me, and I’m good to go.

Left: jeans / heels / similar top / leather jacket

Right: jeans / shoes / striped tank / blazer / necklace / watch

This is another example of what I might wear if I want to be slightly dressier for a holiday gathering or some sort of dinner out or party or something. Once again it’s skinnies on the bottom, a fitted top, and some big earrings and fun shoes. I like a simple black clutch too (hi, have you met me? I like simple black accessories). One funny thing I didn’t even realize until I took these photos is that I also like nude and leopard in my shoes along with black.

Left: jeans / heels / top / black clutch / earrings

Right: jeans / leopard flats / top / green jacket / similar earrings / black clutch

This is an example of what I might wear in the summer to a super casual something (on the right) and a slightly less casual something else (on the left). Oh and to everyone who asked what I walk in (because I’ve been doing these awesome long walks over lunch or after bedtime) and the answer is: whatever outfit I wear that day + sneakers or even flip flops in the summer. I can’t stress how chill these walks are (there’s no sweatband and sprinting, these are delightful strolls) so as long as I have deodorant on, I’m good.

Left: skirt / similar shoes / striped tank / clutch / earrings

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / similar earrings /similar sunglasses

Here are some more summer casual “uniforms” I wear all the time. It may shock you to learn that my everyday purse is this tan crossbody bag (WHAT, IT’S NOT BLACK?!?!), but the reason I love it is because I’m almost always wearing black, so I like that it adds something interesting with another color and goes with everything.

Left: shorts / sandals / striped tank /similar sunglasses

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / earrings / similar purse /similar sunglasses

If I want to dress up a little for some reason (or no reason – I once wore the long black dress on the right to an ice cream parlor with the kids) these might be what I wear. I mentioned before that the left outfit looks like it’s made up of a patterned skirt and a tank but it’s actually a dress that feels way too crazy to me when it’s worn that way but I LOVE it with a black tank layered over it. Once again I add cute shoes and some big earrings and either of these outfits have me out the door in minutes. Isn’t it funny that they have the same silhouette too? Creature of habit right here ;)

Left: dress / tank / similar shoes / similar earrings

Right: dress / leopard flats / earrings / similar purse / similar sunglasses

Got Any Tips For Minimizing Kids Clothing?

There are lots of tricks for determining what you or your kids actually wear, versus what you think you wear. Like turning all of the hangers in one direction and then turning them around once an item is worn. The theory is that after a couple of weeks or months you can see exactly what didn’t get touched. You can also move everything to one side of your hanging rod and move it back once it has been worn. Any version of that works well for hanging clothes, but lots of us – especially kids – store big chunks of their wardrobe in drawers. BUT I HAVE A SOLUTION!

You just have to do one simple thing each week for a few weeks in a row. Ready for it? Just look in their drawers and at their hanging bar on laundry day. That means the things they love most and have already worn are all in the hamper, so they’ve sort of naturally selected their favorites for you – but instead of putting them on the bed they’re all nicely coralled in the hamper.

So with their favorites pulled out of the fray, go through their drawers and their hanging bar and take note of what’s left. If you do this for a few weeks in a row, you’ll start to notice a theme. Certain items never leave the drawer. A few things might always get shoved in the back of the closet or balled up on the floor. VOILA – there is your excess! Put that in a tupperware bin and see if you ever even need it again! And if you don’t, gleefully donate or consign it. And then remember what those “space wasters” were when you’re standing in the store about to buy another outfit for them – just to be sure you’re not repeating some pattern of thinking they’ll wear some item when in actuality they never do.

Whew. Ok, that’s 5,688 words and I’m feeling ready to call this turkey of a post done. I hope this was helpful in some way if you’re looking for ways to simplify the clothing situation in your house.

Psst – If you’re looking for more on this subject, here’s an old post I wrote about my clothing, here’s an awesome book called Simplicity Parenting that talks about decision fatigue and simplifying our homes in general (it totally changed my life and I’ve read it 3 times), and here’s a podcast we did with an amazing man named Matt who worked on the show Hoarders, and has some pretty enlightening and kind things to say about paring down. Also Katie Bower did a post about her one-rack wardrobe yesterday, which was a fun read too!

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My Minimal Wardrobe – How Having A “Uniform” Simplifies My Closet & Saves Me Money

Whenever I’m asked about my clothes, I joke that I wear basically the same thing every day. But it turns out that even after years of saying that (and sharing that I had just one bra for many years on the blog), a whole bunch of people freaked out when they saw the hanging bar in my closet on Instagram recently. I got FLOODED with DMs about my sparse mostly black wardrobe. One person even said that seeing my closet was, and I quote: “the wildest thing they’ve seen on the internet in 2018.” That’s quite the statement considering 2018 also gave us Gritty.

To clarify don’t actually wear the same items of clothing every day on repeat – I just have a fairly small number of clothes that I love and wear all the time – all of which are pretty similar in color/style/silhouette – which I lovingly call “my uniform.” Think Steve Jobs or Michael Kors… except with fewer turtlenecks and less of that billionaire vibe.

I’m not doing laundry any more frequently than anyone else (we do it once a week around here, which I think is pretty average), so it’s just about having enough outfits that you love to get you from laundry day to laundry day (whether they need to be warm, or dressy, or whatever works for your life) without having a ton of extra stuff that’s in the way of the things that you actually wear.

So if you’re tired of drawers and closets that are overflowing, or you love the idea of a more minimal wardrobe full of things you love – and less money spent on clothing excess – then this post is for you. There are definitely people with even fewer clothes, and folks who have other methods for paring down, but I’m just gonna lay out what works for me. And if you’re a wardrobe maximalist who loves having tons of clothes and a bunch of different looks and you ADORE your extensive wardrobe, then this post is not for you (do whatever works for you, boo! I’m ALL FOR THAT!).

Ok, so my plan is just to take you through my closet and all of my drawers, talk you through my process/formula for keeping my wardrobe minimal, and show you how I can create a bunch of outfits (from casual to dressy and from warm weather to cold weather) from a pretty pared down number of tops and bottoms that I lovingly refer to as: “my uniform.”

  And it bears mentioning that even if you have a completely different dress code for your profession, or if you hate the way I dress and the colors/styles/silhouettes that I wear, this is a formula. So you can plug in your favorite silhouettes and colors and everything else that YOU love to make this work for you!

Closet Video Tour

Let’s kick this puppy off with a video tour. I know you have questions (I vividly remember all those DMs I got on Instagram), but pictures are worth 1,000 words, and a video is worth 1,000 pictures. So I’m walking you through my closet and opening all of my drawers (and John’s – haha!) to show you exactly what I have and how I store it along with sharing a little bit more about why/how it works for me. Note: if you can’t see the video below and are reading this post in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the original post to see it. We also uploaded it here on YouTube.

Ok, so now that you’ve seen where everything is, and heard me talk a little bit about my uniform, let’s dive a little deeper. I’m just gonna answer things Q&A style for you below.

How Does A “Uniform” Work?

I’m not talking about a school uniform where your closet is filled with dozens of identical skirts and polos here, but it is almost like finding your own personal “dress code” – meaning the cuts, colors, and styles that you love the most and feel great in. Because if you find something that works, it makes sense that it’s going to be the thing that you’ll reach for and wear a whole lot more than everything else. So why not take a second to figure out why it works and why you love it so much so you can love every last item in your closet that much?! Sounds good, right?

That’s the core idea behind my “uniform” – just figuring out what you love and stopping the vicious cycle of buying other things to stay “on trend” or for the sake of “variety” or to “look different” and then realizing months later that you never wear them because they don’t make you feel as good or you don’t like the cut or the color nearly as much as your tried and true favorites. And the amazing thing is that once you truly understand why you like what you like, you can stand in a store or the dressing room and eliminate clothing that doesn’t fit within that criteria without much effort or thought! You can literally stop the cycle of buying yet another thing that you won’t really love AND you can keep your closet and drawers from filling up with unnecessary extras. Plus you get to keep a little more cash in your wallet.

I don’t think there’s just one magic wardrobe number that works for everyone (someone who goes to the gym every day or lives on a farm or does a team sport may have a need for more laundry/clothing than someone who doesn’t) but I’ll show you my “uniforms” in a second, just to serve as an example. Oh and I say “uniforms” with an S because there can be different ones for different seasons and occasions, like casual weekend uniforms, workout uniforms, work uniforms, etc. And the key is just to figure out how many of those you actually need and not have double or triple that amount all squeezed into your drawers and falling all over the floor of your closet. And did I mention you can save that money? I did? Ok, good. Just making sure.

So don’t tell yourself that just because you work in an office and have to dress up, or because you live in a colder climate that you can’t have a simpler closet. It’s not true!! I dressed myself with this method all the way back in NYC when I had an office job that necessitated me dressing up all the time. And this was in a colder climate where I walked city streets and stood on frigid subway platforms – so I definitely needed all the layering I could get. Why does it still work, even if you have to dress up or add a coat and a scarf and a hat? Because in the end, this is all math, GLORIOUS MATH!

What Exact Items Are In My “Uniform”?

If you’ve followed us for any amount of time, you probably already know my uniform. Black v-neck tops. Jeans. Black scoop neck tanks. Denim shorts. Blazers. Leather or suede jackets. More blazers. And a black dress or two to round things out. It has become kind of a joke, because you guys keep seeing me in a blazer at basically every speaking event or book signing. But here’s the thing: it’s not an accident. Because it’s the way I dress. It has become my uniform for those sorts of things – because I like the way they feel and look on me. And I actually reach for them in my closet and wear them (yesssssss) so I know they don’t sit around wasting space. And therefore I love these items. They work hard for me, make me feel good, and earn their space in my closet.

Six years of living in New York City instilled my love of black, and while I do branch out occasionally (I’ve been known to get wild and throw some navy or olive green in here and there) I’ve learned over the years that when I deviate and buy something in a brighter color, I rarely end up wearing it regularly because – well – I always have other options in my closet that I like better. And guess what? They’re black. It was something I had to realize over time, but ever since I embraced my love of black and stopped trying to make myself wear other colors that I ultimately didn’t wear because I didn’t like them as much (vicious cycle, much?!), two things have happened: 1) I feel GOOD in my clothes. Like all the time. There’s zero clothing drama for me when I get dressed. 2) I’ve stopped wasting money and time buying items I’ll probably just return or donate later. It’s freeing!

top: Old Navy but no longer sold / jeans / heels

I’ve also learned over the years that most of my favorite tops are a little more fitted than the average loose fitting cut, because it helps my 5’2″ body look a little less amorphous – like I’m wearing a potato sack. This realization makes it easy to pass over anything with a drapey look in the store – no matter how glamorous it looks on the mannequin or some long torsoed girl in the fitting room.

Same thing with shorts. I buy short shorts, because I’m petite and when I have tried buying longer shorts, they make me look frumpy, like I’m going golfing or something. And then I’d give those shorts the stink eye for wasting space in my drawer and eventually donate them. But the realization that shorter shorts work better for my body has been freeing. I no longer waste time or money buying longer shorts “just for variety” or to have “something different” because they don’t look as good on me – so duh, of course I won’t wear them as much and they’ll eventually end up in the donate pile!

Same thing with a certain cut of jeans or something. It’s easy to fall for the marketing that says “this bellbottom highwater pant that ends at your shin is the new cool thing!” but I gotta tell ya… it might not be something you actually like or feel good in. So I’m not saying blanketly that you should avoid all trends, but before you go to the store, just look through your clothes and see what you don’t wear – then figure out why. If you pull out one pair of jeans with a different cut that you bought “just to be different” but you never wear them because you don’t like how they look as much as ever other pair you have, it’s a whole lot easier to dodge the urge to do that very same thing in the dressing room the next time around.

So let’s say you get to this point and you’re like “uh, but all of your clothes are black. That is so boring. I would die.” Yes, my clothes are mostly black. But this works with all the colors of the rainbow (and all styles and all body types). If you pull out your very favorite outfits from your closet – just the things you actually wear and love – and lay them on the bed, I’m betting they might have some things in common. Even if there are a bunch of different colored items on the bed. I would bet there are still some colors that come up more because you love how you look and feel in them. And you might also notice some trends with cut/silhouette, because chances are if a certain cut of jeans makes you feel your best, it may also be your favorite cut of dress pants. And you might have a few blazers or jackets with similar shapes that hit your body at just the right spot or something. Things are your favorite for a reason, right!?

I’m also a big fan of layering. It’s how I made it work in NYC while working in an agency where I had to get dressed up without even having a dresser in my apartment. That’s right, I had one small and narrow closet and that was it. So I taught myself to layer things. Five shirts that can be layered under five different jackets or blazers = 25 different combinations!!! I mean, how awesome is that math?! And if you add a few different pairs of shoes and some fun jewelry to switch out too, it’s a whole lot of looks without having a whole lot of things. Did I just have five of each thing? No, that would probably feel a little tight – but I probably had under 10 tops that I layered with maybe 7 blazers/jackets/cardigans and then had maybe 5 options for bottoms (jeans if I didn’t have to present that day, and black pants if I did).

The funny thing is that my current “typical uniform” of a black top + denim bottom is that it replicates exactly what I did in NYC when I worked in an office – it’s just a little less dressy. So I can easily transition between summer and winter just by layering – which is exactly what I did back then. When it gets cold I just swap my denim shorts or skirt for skinny jeans, and I throw a jacket right over my black summer tank (maybe a black leather jacket or a crisp blazer or an olive green faux suede jacket). It can even go from casual to somewhat-dressy (like a date night) because I can toss on some cute heels and big earrings and I’m ready to go!

jeans / black tank / green faux suede jacket / leopard heels

How To Pare Down Your Closet

Now I’m not in a position to tell you what YOUR uniform should look like, but one super easy tip for figuring yours out is to do what I touched on a little earlier in this section. Just pull all of your very favorite outfits out – the ones you love and wear all the time – and lay them on your bed.  Then count them. You might literally have enough right there to take you from laundry day to laundry day. If so: congrats! That is your uniform! Right there on the bed! The rest is excess and it can be shoved into a big tupperware bin or two and stashed in the attic or garage. Just see if you even need those items at all. This is the training wheels method – if you need something you can take it back out – but if you don’t miss it and this helps to show you that it’s just dead weight in your closet or your drawers, it feels amazing to consign or donate that extra fluff and just have a wardrobe you LOVE and actually wear!

Ok, but say you only have like five outfits on the bed and you need more than that to get you from laundry day to laundry day. The next step would be to try to identify the common threads, because you need more clothes that make you feel this way. Is it a certain color or color family that you notice when you stare at the winning clothes on the bed? Maybe it’s four favorite colors and tones instead of just one like me? Is it a certain cut? Maybe a fitted silhouette in general or a more voluminous skirt if you feel your best in something fun and swingy? Do a bunch of your favorite outfits follow the same “formula” – maybe a wrap dress with a cardigan and a cute colorful flat? Try to boil things down as much as you can so you have as much direction as you can moving forward. Try not to just say “I like boho stuff” or “anything at Anne Taylor!” because that won’t help you as much as a more detailed set of parameters will.

Calculating Your Closet Needs

Again, this isn’t about hitting a certain fixed number or quota in my closet, but I do find that thinking about this in numbers is helpful – especially just in illustrating why a lot of us have too many pieces in our closets and drawers. The basic idea is to have enough items to get you from one laundry day to the next, with a few – but not too many – extras (you know, in case you spill OJ down your shirt or you run a bit behind on washing a load).

We do laundry about once per week in our household, so I have 10 “bottoms” in my wardrobe to cover those 7 days: 4 pairs of jeans, 4 pairs of shorts, 1 skirt, and 1 pair of yoga pants (I also have a few dresses for dressier occasions). And no, I’m not wearing shorts in the winter to get from laundry day to laundry day – I just don’t wash my denim after each wear because I’m a rule follower and it’s not recommended (don’t torture your jeans, guys!). So 4 pairs of jeans or 4 pairs of denim shorts easily last me 7 days if I wear a few of them twice before tossing them into the hamper. Nobody has ever told me that I smell, and children are VERY honest, so I feel good about this.

Ok, so now forget about me and think about all the different uniforms YOU might need for your lifestyle, whatever that may be – like for work or exercising – and actually add up in your head how many of those outfits you’ll need to get you through to your next laundry day. Keep that number in mind. Next, peek into your closet and drawers and just look at the actual number of things you have. If you count 25 t-shirts and tanks for summer, I’d guess that you probably wear your favorite 10-ish tops on repeat from laundry day to laundry day, and the other 15 items stay shoved wherever they always live, just taking up space because you have so many other items that you like more. If that is the case – just keep your 10 favorites and put the rest into the tupperware bin. You can do this. It’s not permanent. It’s just to see if you really do miss them or need them.

The same logic applies to any part of your uniform. Why own 6 bathing suits if you only rotate between the 2 that you look best in?! John recently realized he had 8 running shirts in his drawer but was only wearing 3 each week, washing them, and repeating that. This realization not only helped him get rid of those space-stealing extras (he still kept a couple back-ups) but it reminded him that he doesn’t need to buy any more when he’s standing there in the store staring at them. Win-win.

And for anyone who worries that just having a small number of favorite staples (aka: a uniform) might make you look like you’re wearing the exact same thing every day – it definitely doesn’t have to. Even with my very limited palette, I put together this little visual to show you how easy it is to layer things and change accessories to really switch things up. YAY PERMUTATIONS! I TOLD YOU THIS WAS MATH!

So those are some of the combinations I can make out of a few of my favorite items in my closet. Note that there are 10 different outfits in the image above – and they’re all made from just 4 different tops, 6 bottoms, and 2 dresses (the patterned skirt-looking-thing is a dress that feels too crazy for me, so I layer a tank over it to make it look like a skirt).

I love this demonstration because at first thought you might say… “Ok so if I want to have 10 work outfits and 7 causal outfits to get me from laundry day to laundry day comfortably with some wiggle room, that means I need 17 bottoms and 17 tops.” But wait! That’s bad math! Think about how you rewear your denim and maybe even a blazer if you don’t feel like it got too dirty – and then think about how many combo moves you can make by layering things in different ways! Remember that the 10 outfits above that are made from just 12 pieces – not the 20+ you might initially think would be needed if you just assumed you’d need different bottoms and tops every single day.

Am I rewearing those black tanks between washes? Nope! So it does bear mentioning that I love those so much, and I wear them so often, that I have three of them. They’re inexpensive and so versatile and they stay looking crisp and fresh that way. So occasionally purchasing multiples of something that you wear a ton can be an awesome way to keep it looking nice long-term and allow yourself to wear it in a few different ways throughout the week.

A Few Other Reasons We Buy Stuff We Don’t Wear

A big part of my method is just being honest with myself about what I actually wear day in and day out, and then being willing to let go of the rest of the stuff that’s taking up space. I know a lot of us hold onto clothes that we think that we’ll wear for some future hypothetical occasion or circumstance (“aspirational wardrobe” is what I call it – it’s when you buy some item for some imaginary very glamorous event but you never actually wear it because this is real life and not the Simms, so you don’t actually go to those types of events). So sometimes that’s what gets us into this overcrowded closet situation.

It also might be a good deal that tips the scales for you (“ooh these are so cheap, I can’t say no! I’ve gotta have them even though I have 15 shirts I like better BECAUSE THESE ARE TWO DOLLARS!”). Or it could be this idea that buying a certain thing will make you more stylish or pulled together (but then you never actually wear it because it turns out you wear/love super comfy clothes and that item that looks more pulled together is way less comfy than your soft and cozy favorites, so…).

What About That One Super Colorful Thing In Your Closet? 

See this colorful dress? I know, it’s kind of hilarious next to everything else in my closet. But it fills a need, and I wear it often enough to warrant it staying. Why do I have it? Well, it’s kind of like my one fake uniform. I like how I look and feel in black, but every few months or so we need to give someone a bio picture or get dressed up for a photoshoot (like for our furniture line for example) and this dress comes with me. All black in a picture can look like a big dark hole amongst an otherwise fun and colorful shot, so I literally bought this dress from J. Crew Outlet a few years ago just for photos. Life is weird, huh?!

But we might all have strange wardrobe guidelines. Mine might be weirder than yours, but I’m sharing this because the instinct might be to tell yourself “hey I have this weird part of my life and I need some outfits for that, so I should probably grab like 10” – but in reality, I don’t need 10 colorful “fake uniforms” – one does the trick. So I have one.

Shopping Tip: Protect Your Closet GPA

Here’s another way to think about paring down your closet: you want to maintain a high closet GPA (grade point average). This is how I’ve been thinking about my closet for YEARS, and it really helps me avoid impulse purchases. Imagine giving every item of clothing that you already own a grade that’s based on how much you like it AND actually wear it. The things you wear all the time and love are As. Wahoo – working towards that perfect 4.0 average.

But that random yellow sweater you picked up on a whim or because it was on sale, and have only worn once… well that stinker is closer to D or F territory. IT IS BRINGING DOWN YOUR ENTIRE CLOSET’S GPA. You want your closet to be filled with your very favorite and most wearable items – so when you’re out shopping, think to yourself “is this new shirt better than all the other shirts I already have, so it’ll bring up my average – or do I love everything I have more than this shirt? Because if the latter is the case, that bad boy is gonna bring down your GPA – and ain’t nobody got time for that.

I think in general we tend to overcomplicate our clothing needs – and stores are constantly telling us we need something new, different, and trendy in order to look better or live a happier life or whatever story they’re trying to tell you when you see those people dashing across the street and hailing a cab in the commercials. Once I got really really happy with my clothes (they make me feel good! I love everything in my closet!) that’s like armor against all of those temptations to buy the newest and trendiest clothing and accessories.

You Don’t Have To Be Minimal Everywhere

I’m not a minimalist in every stretch of the word, though! So here’s a caveat to help you embrace whatever items you might actually not want to pare down at all. This minimal wardrobe of mine is about making my life easier and making me happy – it’s not about deprivation! AT ALL! So take my earrings for example. I probably have over 20 pairs of big fun earrings along with some classic studs and other jewelry like a few bracelets, a watch, a few necklaces.

That might be a lot to you!! You might not even have one pair of big dangly earrings. But for me, they’re part of my uniform – just like blazers and black tanks. So I embrace the fact that I have this many. I’m totally cool with it, and I don’t beat myself up. Incidentally, I think my love of them grew in NYC when I had no space for lots of clothes but I could always fit a few more earrings in my tiny apartment! Ha!

Does Owning Less Cause More Wear?

I got a lot of questions about how my clothes hold up if I’m wearing and washing each item more often. I see how someone could jump to that conclusion, but… drumroll please… I’m just washing things once a week like everyone else. Everything you wear, you launder it every 7 days or so, on average, right? And you probably wear your favorite 10 or so outfits and then you launder them. Well same for me! I just don’t have that extra stuff hanging between each item or shoved into the back of the drawer.

Since I have fewer items, I’m encouraged to take better care of them. Things aren’t getting shoved or crammed onto a rod or into a drawer, and they’re not sitting crumpled somewhere because I don’t have space. I hesitate to say they’re “precious” (I do most of my shopping at places like Old Navy and Target) but when I have fewer backup items, I’m more inclined to take the time to get stains out, fix missing buttons, or follow the proper care instructions with the things I do own.

tank / jeans / fitbit 

In fact, I am SUPER NICE to my stuff because my uniforms work hard for me. I like to wash everything in cold water (helps to lock in colors/black), I wash denim and black things inside out (helps with fading), and I always do a gentle wash and a tumble dry low (nothing too harsh for my babies, I mean clothes). I also always try to put laundry away right after it’s done, so I’m not losing track of piles of clothes and then rewashing them because I’m not sure if they’re clean or dirty – which is definitely something that my friends with more clothes say happens to them.

I have blazers and jackets and tops and jeans that I’ve owned for three or even over five years… so it’s not like I’m rebuying this “minimal wardrobe” every season or even every year. Most of my staples work for at least a few years, although I do buy a few multiples of inexpensive items (like my black tanks) so they stay looking fresher for longer.

How I Combine My Outfits

This is pretty self-explanatory, so I’m not gonna linger on it too much (and your closet favorites might look completely different than mine do), but seeing how I switch out shoes and jewelry and purses or some other thing below might just help the whole “permutations” thing click into place in your head, so here we go…

These are examples of what I might wear on a date night or to a work meeting or something. You can see the “uniform” in total effect here. Both outfits are skinny pants + a fitted tank + a jacket (blazer on the right, leather jacket on the left). I like to play around with shoes and jewelry, so that helps to add a little something extra for me, and I’m good to go.

Left: jeans / heels / similar top / leather jacket

Right: jeans / shoes / striped tank / blazer / necklace / watch

This is another example of what I might wear if I want to be slightly dressier for a holiday gathering or some sort of dinner out or party or something. Once again it’s skinnies on the bottom, a fitted top, and some big earrings and fun shoes. I like a simple black clutch too (hi, have you met me? I like simple black accessories). One funny thing I didn’t even realize until I took these photos is that I also like nude and leopard in my shoes along with black.

Left: jeans / heels / top / black clutch / earrings

Right: jeans / leopard flats / top / green jacket / similar earrings / black clutch

This is an example of what I might wear in the summer to a super casual something (on the right) and a slightly less casual something else (on the left). Oh and to everyone who asked what I walk in (because I’ve been doing these awesome long walks over lunch or after bedtime) and the answer is: whatever outfit I wear that day + sneakers or even flip flops in the summer. I can’t stress how chill these walks are (there’s no sweatband and sprinting, these are delightful strolls) so as long as I have deodorant on, I’m good.

Left: skirt / similar shoes / striped tank / clutch / earrings

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / similar earrings /similar sunglasses

Here are some more summer casual “uniforms” I wear all the time. It may shock you to learn that my everyday purse is this tan crossbody bag (WHAT, IT’S NOT BLACK?!?!), but the reason I love it is because I’m almost always wearing black, so I like that it adds something interesting with another color and goes with everything.

Left: shorts / sandals / striped tank /similar sunglasses

Right: shorts / sandals / tank / earrings / similar purse /similar sunglasses

If I want to dress up a little for some reason (or no reason – I once wore the long black dress on the right to an ice cream parlor with the kids) these might be what I wear. I mentioned before that the left outfit looks like it’s made up of a patterned skirt and a tank but it’s actually a dress that feels way too crazy to me when it’s worn that way but I LOVE it with a black tank layered over it. Once again I add cute shoes and some big earrings and either of these outfits have me out the door in minutes. Isn’t it funny that they have the same silhouette too? Creature of habit right here ;)

Left: dress / tank / similar shoes / similar earrings

Right: dress / leopard flats / earrings / similar purse / similar sunglasses

Got Any Tips For Minimizing Kids Clothing?

There are lots of tricks for determining what you or your kids actually wear, versus what you think you wear. Like turning all of the hangers in one direction and then turning them around once an item is worn. The theory is that after a couple of weeks or months you can see exactly what didn’t get touched. You can also move everything to one side of your hanging rod and move it back once it has been worn. Any version of that works well for hanging clothes, but lots of us – especially kids – store big chunks of their wardrobe in drawers. BUT I HAVE A SOLUTION!

You just have to do one simple thing each week for a few weeks in a row. Ready for it? Just look in their drawers and at their hanging bar on laundry day. That means the things they love most and have already worn are all in the hamper, so they’ve sort of naturally selected their favorites for you – but instead of putting them on the bed they’re all nicely coralled in the hamper.

So with their favorites pulled out of the fray, go through their drawers and their hanging bar and take note of what’s left. If you do this for a few weeks in a row, you’ll start to notice a theme. Certain items never leave the drawer. A few things might always get shoved in the back of the closet or balled up on the floor. VOILA – there is your excess! Put that in a tupperware bin and see if you ever even need it again! And if you don’t, gleefully donate or consign it. And then remember what those “space wasters” were when you’re standing in the store about to buy another outfit for them – just to be sure you’re not repeating some pattern of thinking they’ll wear some item when in actuality they never do.

Whew. Ok, that’s 5,688 words and I’m feeling ready to call this turkey of a post done. I hope this was helpful in some way if you’re looking for ways to simplify the clothing situation in your house.

Psst – If you’re looking for more on this subject, here’s an old post I wrote about my clothing, here’s an awesome book called Simplicity Parenting that talks about decision fatigue and simplifying our homes in general (it totally changed my life and I’ve read it 3 times), and here’s a podcast we did with an amazing man named Matt who worked on the show Hoarders, and has some pretty enlightening and kind things to say about paring down. Also Katie Bower did a post about her one-rack wardrobe yesterday, which was a fun read too!

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