Governed by serendipity and entropy

Due to the magic and wonder of making my own rules (otherwise known as cheating), I'm actually coming in at under 100 pieces for my summer wardrobe now.


Plus now I get to go shopping -- clearly, I need more clothes!

This is really just for my own benefit, to track progress and keep me honest. If you're not interested in my 100 Things wardrobe mission, move along.

( What's in YOUR dresser? )

I'm concentrating on the summer clothes right now because those are the ones that are readily available. Winter stuff is in storage in the attic; I'll deal with that once I get the summer stuff done. I've done the first weeding of the winter clothes, though, and there's a lot of that in the Goodwill pile.

I'm kind of enjoying this. It feels good to get rid of things. Some things I've had long enough that they have a memory involving an ex; it's felt cathartic to hold the item, think about that memory, and then acknowledge that I've moved on and don't need to hold onto the item anymore. Some are good memories, but I've realized I don't need to keep the item to keep the memory.

I have more than 100 things in my dresser alone, and that's after throwing things away (or putting them in the Goodwill pile) and not counting things like yoga clothes.

There's been a few stories lately on "The 100 Thing Challenge" -- that is, can you pare your belongings down to 100 things?

The answer to that one is easy: No. No, I can't.

But, I thought to myself, I might be able to limit myself to 100 items in my wardrobe.

I've got a pile of things going to Goodwill that I just went through and cataloged (for tax purposes), and I was deeply, deeply depressed by the number of sweaters in the pile. It was more than 30, and closer to 40 than 30. (Most of them were well-worn -- there was only one piece I found in the pile that still had tags on it, so it's not like I'm buying things and then not wearing them. But why I'm keeping sweaters that I've had for eight or ten years and not wearing is beyond me.)

Anyway, I'm wondering if it would be possible for me to limit myself to 100 items in my wardrobe. I'm going to have to make a caveat here, though: I think I might have to do this separately for summer clothes and winter clothes. I don't think it's possible to have one 100-piece wardrobe that would serve me for both Michigan winters and Michigan summers.

Also, as a teacher, I'm in front of people all day. Call me vain, but I don't want to rotate the same five tops each week.

So here's what I'm thinking:

Summer wardrobe:
16 pairs underwear
10 bras
10 pairs socks/tights
10 pairs shoes
3 pairs jeans/shorts
10 pairs pants
20 sweaters/tops
10 layering tops (tanks, camis, etc.)
5 skirts
3 dresses
2 comfy pants/sweats
2 sweatshirts

100 total

I'm actually thinking that the underwear, bras, and socks/tights would then not count for the winter wardrobe (I wouldn't wear tights in summer, anyway, so they don't really count for summer).

Or, even better -- those 36 items could count for half -- so they'd count as 18 items for summer and 18 items for winter. That would give me 18 more items to play with for each season. I like that idea better.

There's some other pieces that can serve double duty -- I've a cardigan sweater, for example, that I use in the summer when my office is over-air-conditioned, and in the winter when my office is under-heated. I think that should only count once.

I'm also thinking that any time I add something to the wardrobe, something has to get purged to keep it manageable.

I think it's entirely do-able. Do my proportions seem way off? Any comments? Anything I've forgotten? I suppose I should count the pieces in my current wardrobe to see how close or far away from this goal I currently am.