Week 6: Project 333

This week I decided to take the challenge, am I able to wear the same 33 items for 3 whole months??

Well, I honestly have to say I didn’t think much about my world changing plans last week, but since I had been thinking about the challenge for quite some time, I knew it was time to take it now. And, surprisingly, it wasn’t that hard. For now.

For those who have not heard of Project333, the rules are simple:

Choose 33 items of clothing (including shoes and jewellery, excluding underwear) and wear nothing else for 3 months. Then revisit what you haven’t been wearing, or just get rid of it (donating, of course!).

That’s what I did in a 30 minute quick-declutter session today, choosing my 33 favourite items. Funny enough, it turned out it wasn’t that hard, for two reasons:

1. I didn’t own that incredibly many clothes, especially after my 2 boxes of clothes I gave away a few weeks ago.
2. There was a lot of pieces I had which I could easily put away, either because it was summer wear (20%) or because I kinda wore it a lot but kinda didn’t like too much at the same time (80%).

Actually, I surprised myself with the fact that I had a few things which I didn’t like, but had to put into my 33 clothes anyway due to lack of any other similar pieces. This was especially true for my shoes, it looks like I’ve just been too tight to buy a new pair of flats during the winter. So, is this good or bad?

The hardest part was certainly to select my dresses, as I have (and had) way too many, even after giving away quite a few! I think I was left with about 10 dresses, 3 of which were special occasion, and I love every single of them. Needless to say, my Project 333 rules are stretched a bit, and I allow myself to swap the two dresses I selected for two new ones after every month. I also bent the rules a second time to include all my winter gear (i.e. scarf, gloves, hat and other stuff) counting as one, as I’m a cold cold cold person and I freeze to death here in Scotland without them.

Other things I counted out completely were the following:

• underwear, tights & socks,
• one pair of jeans and one pair of wellies I use only for gardening, and
• one special occasion dress & two heeled shoes (I actually don’t expect there to be a special occasion in the next 3 months)

Anyway, if you like sneaking into other peoples’ wardrobes, here you go, have a look at mine (I’m awfully sorry for the poor quality, I’m not a photo blogger):

Coats and winter gear, fluffy and cozy stuff, winter boots and some lighter footwear.

I’ve noticed I won’t wear shorts until May anyway. But lots of layers! Plus, a necklace & my watch (essential!)

No Project 333 without dresses! And my 4 favourite sweaters.

3 more tops which I really like. Will come in handy when temperatures go up again.

What’s this challenge actually for? Most obviously, it’s for realising how many clothes in our wardrobe are just there, without them being any useful to us. How much time we spend shopping for things we don’t need, and maybe don’t even like. I myself found a top I had just bought recently, and I had to admit to myself that I didn’t plan to wear it from the very beginning (luckily, this doesn’t happen often to me).

Secondly, this challenge is also supposed to help people concentrate on the really important things. It’s for people who stand in front of the wardrobe every morning, thinking: “I’ve got nothing to wear!” It’s to simplify our lives by giving us only the pieces we love every day, so we can spend the time we save with each other or more important things. Nobody says: “I need to have this many clothes, I want to think about my outfit every day, I love being in front of my wardrobe and can’t see the wood for the trees”.

So there it is, possibly a solution. I will have to determine whether it’s the solution for me and of course I’ll keep you informed on 15th May what I plan to do with the stuff that’s left.

Let me know in the comments whether you’ve tried the challenge before or what you think of it in general!