Could You Wear Just Six Clothing Items for 30 Days?

Photo courtesy of nytimes.com.

Not including underwear, shoes, and accessories, could you do what other “sixers” have done and wear only six carefully-planned items from your closet for an entire month? Stella Brennan, 31, an insurance sales executive from Kenosha, Wisconsin did just that.

Her six chosen items were:

• A black blazer from H & M
• Pants from H & M
• Two button-down shirts — one black and one pink
• A pair of Old Navy jeans
• A pink T-shirt.

Brennan’s experiment, called a “shopping diet,” is one of several discussed in a recent nytimes.com article titled, “Shoppers on a ‘Diet’ Tame the Urge to Buy.”

In Brennan’s case, “her revelation at the end of 31 days, after her husband still had not noticed, even when she wore her floral-printed pajamas to do yard work: “Obviously, I didn’t need all of these clothes.” To see her discuss the experience, click on video below :

According to the nytimes article:

“This self-imposed exercise in frugality was prompted by a Web challenge called Six Items or Less (sixitemsorless.com). The premise was to go an entire month wearing only six items already found in your closet (not counting shoes, underwear or accessories). Nearly 100 people around the country, and in faraway places like Dubai and Bangalore, India, were also taking part in the regimen, with motives including a way to trim back on spending, an outright rejection of fashion, and a concern that the mass production and global transportation of increasingly cheap clothing was damaging the environment.”

In an interview, Brennan discusses her motivation for the month-long experiment: “She spoke of a rack of clothes in the back of her closet that still had the tags on them, and clothes that she has not worn in 15 years but that she cannot stand to part with, and her 72 pairs of “active” shoes (meaning those that she actively wears, not the ones still in the boxes), and a closet full of clothes for her 3-year-old daughter, and, lest she forget, a wardrobe of clothes for her dog. “My daughter doesn’t care what she wears, and I’m turning her into a monster,” Ms. Brennan said. “We’re ruining the next generation of girls with fashion.”

In the article, other “sixers” chime in about their experience:

“One Sixer from Venice, Calif., confessed online to splurging on T-shirts at a James Perse sample sale. Addy, from Milwaukee, wrote that she had become so bored with her six items “that I don’t even have a desire to get up in the morning,” and she complained of mood swings.”

“Sneha Lakshman, 32, a founder of Dig Design, a Web and mobile products company in Bangalore, said by phone that she had decided, “That’s it, I’m going to wear only black from now on.”

“Kelli Bauman, 24, a visual communications student from Indianapolis, said she was facing up to her compulsive-shopping habits. She described herself as the type who gets excited about buying cleaning products; a thrice-weekly shopper at Target. “I feel like I am programmed to want to buy new things,” she said. “When my jeans got a hole in them, I wanted to buy new jeans that instant.”

Dean Kakridas, 42, the director of business development at Frog Design, an innovation firm in Austin, Tex., said that he was obsessed with efficiency. “I kind of question everything,” he said, including why he was spending 20 minutes every morning figuring out what to wear.”

I’m so not about to try this experiment myself, but at the same time, most of my personal styling clients have greatly benefited from weeding out clothes they don’t wear or that aren’t doing them any favors — fashion-wise or body-wise. Often times, this is the first step I take in helping my clients uncover or create their personal style. Having fewer clothes and a well-organized closet filled with items that work well together, are appropriate for your lifestyle. and flatter your body type can make the act of getting dressed easy and effortless. Even still, I own (at least) ten pairs of jeans and I’m not about to get rid of any of them.