Decluttering my wardrobe

Recently I've been reading blogs by Courtney Carver over at  Be More With Less

specifically articles about Project 333 and creating capsule wardrobes. 

Now, I'm not any kind of fashionista and generally cruise through life in jeans and a tee shirt, but I felt that my wardrobe needed looking at. To me it seemed over full and uninteresting. 

The idea behind project 333 is that you dress with 33 items or less for 3 months. Creating seasonal wardrobes with mix and match clothes and storing the rest somewhere else. They don't include underwear, sleepwear or sports clothing in your 33 items. They also don't include wedding rings or other sentimental jewelry that you never take off, but all other clothing, accessories, footwear and jewelry are included in the 33 items.

The idea appealed but I wasn't looking forward to going through all of my clothes and sorting things out. I also thought that 33 items of clothing didn't sound like enough. 

Boy was I surprised when I went through my entire wardrobe and counted all my clothes and shoes. 

Not including underwear and socks, I had a total of 42 items of clothing including my shoes! 

This was for all seasons! 

It turns out that my husband's clothes were encroaching on my side of the wardrobe and I thought all the squish in there was caused by me.

Well, once the shock wore off I sorted everything out and created a list of what I have.

• 3x pairs of jeans 
• 2x pairs of shorts
• 2x 3/4 pants
• 10x tee shirts mostly blue, my fav color
• 2x long sleeve tees
• 5x sweatshirts
• 3x polar fleece tops
• 1x winter padded jacket
• 1x rain jacket
• 3x pjs
• 5x shoes
• 2x old cargo pants for painting the house
• 2x old shirts for painting the house
• 1x old polar fleece for painting

A total of 42 items!

Now I haven't included jewelry here up til now as I don't wear any apart from sleeper earrings that I never take off. I do own a watch but never wear it. I also have a Pounamu (Greenstone) pendant necklace that I wear sometimes when we go out but otherwise I have no interest in jewelry. I sold my engagement ring years ago when things were tight. I stopped wearing my wedding ring when it got damaged at work about 20 odd years ago and it doesn't fit now post kids, anyway. I hurt my finger (not seriously, luckily) when the ring got caught but that put me off wearing rings and I haven't worn one since. If I include all this that totals 45 items. 

Now you might be thinking that my hubby is a lucky man but what I don't spend in clothes, shoes and jewelry I could easily spend on bags and camera equipment.  I have my eye on a nice macro lens right now lol.

Anyway this exercise was good for me. It's made me realize that some of the clothes I was hanging onto weren't getting worn because they had worn out and for some reason I hadn't binned them. I also discovered where the holes are in my current wardrobe. Eg, I don't go out anywhere fancy but I don't really have anything to wear if I did want to. My warm winter jacket has seen better days since I bought it 15ish years ago so I'll start looking for it's replacement as we're coming into Autumn here now.

It's also made me realize that hubby's side of the wardrobe really needs looked at too. He's got a dirty job at the moment and he works with sharp metal so has been wearing layers of tee shirts to protect himself, hence why so many shirts and things. Recently he has also started working a bit more back in the office so that also explains the mixture of clothing he has. I'm hoping to put in a wardrobe system when we start redecorating our bedroom and hopefully then he'll be able to sort his clothes a bit better. Rough work clothes in one area and clean office clothes in another maybe.

Anyway, project 333 is totally worth a look, if only to help you see the gaps in your existing wardrobe.

Have a great week :)