I was out with friends last night and someone hesitantly asked me, “I’ve heard something about you … people have said … you only own six items of clothing.”

I like the idea that people are whispering things about me and she was the one who dared to ask me direct about it. “I heard he only has six clothes!” “Well I heard he doesn’t have a phone!” I’m not a monster, I’m a normal human person, just ask me.

So this is why I only have six items of clothing: I went to Zambia in 2010 and the people there (as you can imagine) don’t have lots of clothes, but they also don’t need them to be happy (shocker). I was inspired when I got back to have a serious reduction on the clothes I have and started googling minimalist sites to see what was the least amount of clothes I could have and still maintain a functioning wardrobe. The search led me to the Six Items Or Less challenge, which is to go only wearing six basic items of clothing for 30 days (not including underwear, coats etc).

Now I had my guideline, I promptly threw out my clothes. I kept the clothes I wear now because I like being expressive with what I wear, and having so few items means I get desensitised to what I’m wearing; my jeans aren’t the ‘snazzy’ ones in my collection, they’re just one of the two pairs of jeans I have.

My items:
2 jeans
4 t-shirts
4 boxers
4 pairs of socks
1 pair of shoes
1 hoodie
1 coat

I wear everything for two days at a time except my jeans which are four days at a time, meaning I do laundry once a week.

I love it and would never go back. It means I can always be wearing the clothes that most express what I want. All my clothes have a similar feel to them, which at the moment is monochrome patterned things. Before that it was plain bright colours. I never have a lazy day because I don’t have lazy day clothes - I always wear my best stuff and as a result I always feel more ‘me’ than I otherwise would. I never have to think about what I wear in the morning. I also save a lot of money because I’m rarely buying new clothes. Whenever I buy a new shirt, I throw out an old one, so suddenly ‘do I like this shirt’ becomes ‘do I like this shirt more than the ones I already have?’ and almost always the answer is no.

So yeah, that’s why. Everyone has five or six favourite clothes that they always love to wear. All I’ve done is keep the favourites and ditch the rest, so I get to wear my favourites all the time :)