The Project 333 Experiment

I was inspired by Project 333 this month to take the challenge of dressing with less. Here is how the project works:

For three months, you live with only 33 items in your closet. Everything else gets pared down to only the items you really love, then those are boxed up and put away.

The idea is that you spend less time thinking about what you wear and that you enjoy the space that "less" gives you both in time and square footage.

So, this is a photo of my minimized closet.  The Project 333 encourages keeping only 33 items including shoes and accessories, but I love accessories and figured it was enough to get down to 33 items of clothing.  I did minimize my shoes, donating any that weren't 100% comfortable, and I downsized my jewelry, scarves and bags as well.  The result is that everything fits in my closet with space between the hangers and lots of room to spare.  (I even had room to hang my bags and 2 swimsuit/sarangs at the back.) The entire lower bar is empty giving  me room to "stage" my outfits for a work week. 

After living like this for a couple of weeks, two things have surprised me.

1) Laundry is much simpler. (I kept very few things that need dry cleaning.)

2) Because I created a capsule wardrobe on a limited color pallet, it is really easy to create "new" outfits on the fly mixing in scarves and changing up the jewelry. The rest of the clothing I kept is in an under-the-bed box. I only kept pieces I loved and most are seasonal. I'm considering it my inventory of spares so that I can replace or rotate pieces as they wear out. More on the capsule wardrobe next.
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Side note: for those of you have been following, why yes, that is Samax Amen's Starving Artist print on the wall. It is hung at my eye height for daily inspiration when I'm getting ready in the morning.