Monday, July 26, 2010

Shoppers on a Diet

Last week my Mom shared with me an interesting article from the NYT titled, "Shoppers on a "Diet" Tame the Urge To Buy." It talks about a recent internet challenge known as Six Items or Less, where people decide on six items in their wardrobe to wear, and nothing else, for one month.

Seriously? A whole month on just 6 things?

Reasons for the program varied for each person, like controlling their spending habits, making a statement by rejecting current fashions, or even going as far as linking cheap clothing production to ruining the environment. The rules are a bit flexible too, like if you have multiple pairs of black slacks, you can count them all as one item...

But still. A whole month?!

I don't do well with those kind of limits. I (usually) try really hard to not buy new things that I don't really need (exception: new shoes here and there). I (usually) try to only buy items that are multi-use, like a black pencil skirt, a jacket that can be dressed up or down, or a pair of pants that will go with a lot of tops I already own. I (usually) only buy things like clothes when I have some extra money to spare.

Note the use of the word usually. Sometimes (cough this month cough) I might stray from these concepts a bit, and deplete my monthly fun-money "budget." But it's nothing a few nights of cereal or frozen pizza for dinner can't fix... :P

Forget picking just six items. How about we all just shop within the full range of our own closets, instead, seeing how we can mix and match items that we usually wouldn't? I have a few easy combination outfits for my lazy days, like where a particular shirt goes with a particular skirt. But otherwise, I approach my closet with a certain mental challenge of my own -- how can I put together some new angle of an outfit out of all these things in here? For example, a basic shift dress can be ramped up with different accessories or shoe choices, or a belt could be added to a cardigan outfit with a cute skirt.

How do you approach your daily wardrobe? Would you ever try something like the Six or Less challenge? Why?