A life of less: How to streamline your wardrobe

Jeans that never fitted. A coat from the 1980s. Sale items bought but never worn. A wardrobe full of clothes with nothing to wear? It is estimated that each household on average owns around £4,000 worth of clothes with approximately 30% neglected for up to one year. These statistics probably don’t come as a shock as we are all guilty of hoarding excess amounts of clothing in our wardrobes. However as the rise of minimalism continues to move towards home and lifestyle trends we want to explore the benefits of a life with less.

Below we have listed our top 6 tips to declutter and detox your wardrobe.

Find your Style / Go to your wardrobe, open the doors and take out your most worn pieces. Don’t think too much about it, be critical and remember less is more. You’ll most likely find your most worn pieces all carry similarities, whether that be a colour or silhouette. These pieces are the items you feel most comfortable in, your uniform, your style. Straight away you’ll have created the beginning of your very own capsule wardrobe made up of the items you really enjoy to wear.

Let Go / Now comes the hard part. In order to detox, you have to let go of the bad stuff. We say if it hasn’t been worn in the past year, loose it. Don’t make excuses, keeping extra baggage in the wardrobe is a daily reminder of what used to be, what money you’ve wasted, and what bad fashion choices you’ve made. Refer back to your most worn pieces and build from those, taking into consideration your lifestyle, the season and the space in your wardrobe. How much you keep is up to you but remember less options, less stress.

Organise / Now you’ve cut down your clothing its time to get organised. Think of your wardrobe as your very own clothing collection. Pair together things that make sense to you, this could be by colour, material, style, or you could even make getting dressed even easier by sorting your wardrobe into ready to wear outfits. Get creative, this is the fun part.

Shop less / Now you have downsized and decluttered the next step is to understand the benefits of shopping less. Shopping less saves you money, time, energy and most of all saves you from fast fashion trend temptation. We recommend cutting shopping trips down to once a season but if you find this hard then try the one in one out system to avoid the dreaded wardrobe relapse.

Favour Quality / The money you’ve saved from shopping less will give you the opportunity to invest in quality. Look for timeless pieces, that will carry you throughout the year. This step is a great opportunity to apply some ethical thinking. We recommend you to source locally, research sustainable fashion and shop responsibly.

Do something good / Here comes the most rewarding part of the detox. Finding a new home for your unwanted clothing, whether that be a charity donation, a car boot sale, a clothing bank, an up-cycling project or a swap shop. There’s some really great options out there, we urge you to use them.

We created the White T-shirt Co with a streamline wardrobe in mind. Our luxury, organic cotton T-shirts are timeless pieces that make the perfect base layer to any capsule wardrobe. Stay tuned for the next instalment of a ‘Life with less’ series where we will be discussing the benefits of achromatic fashion.

Make sure to check out our Pinterest page for styling tips.