The Capsule Wardrobe Experiment
What happens when you pare down to thirty-three items for three months—and why most people never go back.
Craft & Creativity Columnist
Thirty-three items, three months, everything else in a box in the spare room. Shoes count, coats count, jewellery counts. Underwear and sleepwear do not. That is the experiment, and the box is the important part: nothing is thrown away until you know.
The first week is spent noticing how much of a wardrobe is never worn. The second is spent enjoying how quickly you get dressed. By the third the box has become slightly embarrassing, because you have not opened it once.
Most people who try it do not go back to the full wardrobe, but they also do not stay at thirty-three. They land somewhere around fifty, with everything in it something they actually wear, and the box goes to the charity shop unopened.
By the third week the box has become slightly embarrassing, because you have not opened it once.
Alisha Ramos
Craft & Creativity Columnist
Alisha is a textile artist and a compulsive mender. Her column follows the objects and skills that connect us to the people who made things before us, and to the rooms we live in now.
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