I have spent the last few years reducing my clothing collection by approximately 60%.

Yup, I used to have a lot of clothes.  A lot of it was clothing that was trendy or items that I thought I would use. I guess you could say that I had clothing for a life that I did not live.

Most of the clothing I had just did not align with my priorities.

Once I realized this, the stuff that didn’t align was pretty easy to discard. But I still wanted to refine my wardrobe further.

It’s more of a feeling that not all of the clothing I own is a true reflection of my real style. That I still have items that are not a reflection of who I am.

I spent so many years just buying clothes for the fantasy version of myself that I wanted to be or because it was what the magazines told me I should buy. I think this is my attempt to rebuke all of my past poor shopping decisions.

Why do a clothing challenge?

I find the idea of a clothing challenge to be intriguing.

I think that challenging myself to wear specific items, especially ones that I don’t turn to right away when I’m getting dressed, will help me determine if they have a place in my life.

The fact that I have to select specific items for a specific amount of time and try to make it work appeals to me because I will often wear the same things over and over and it bothers me that even though I’ve reduced the amount of clothes that I own, there is still clothes in my closet that I don’t wear.

Perhaps the most popular clothing challenge is Project 333 which is the brainchild of Courtney Carver, who writes over at Be More with Less.

The premise is that you select 33 items from your wardrobe (excluding underwear, socks, sleepwear and workout clothes) and you wear outfits from these 33 items for 3 months, hence 333.

I like the thought of an extended experiment and I think that I will try it at some point in the future, but since I have never done a clothing experiment before, 3 months seems like a pretty long commitment.

10 days would definitely be better.

I have been following Caroline Joy Rector over at Un-Fancy for a few years and she runs a clothing challenge every season, with fellow blogger Lee Vosburgh of Style Bee, called the 10×10 style challenge.

The rules for this challenge are pretty simple: You select 10 items of clothing to make up 10 outfits that you then wear over the following 10 days.

This is much less of a commitment and it feels like a good jumping off point into the foray of living with even less clothing. The items consist of tops, bottoms and shoes.

The idea is to not wear the same things over and over. But a new outfit can be as simple as changing the shoes.

I have a few reasons for wanting to do this:

1. I’m a little bored and I want a challenge.

I feel like I am at the point where I’ve minimized our possessions and commitments to a point where I am comfortable with the amount of things we have, both in our home and schedule. This challenge would allow me to foray into an area of living with less that I have not yet explored.

2. I have been in a rut in terms of my wardrobe.

I’ve been wearing far too many workout clothes on a daily basis. I also have a tendency to stick to my designated favorites so I end up cycling the same items over and over. A wardrobe refresh would be nice.

3. I want to determine what items in my closet I really love.

I was to determine the clothing that make me feel the best when I wear them. My initial thought was to exclude my absolute favorite items from the challenge so that I actually wear other items from my closet. The ones I don’t normally select.

But what if I don’t like any of the items that I select? What if I spend the next 10 days being miserable in my clothes and it just makes me feel badly about the challenge.

So I’ve decided that 6 items will be some of my favorites and the other 4 will be items I don’t wear often. This would give me the chance to determine if they belong in my wardrobe while still ensuring that I definitely like something in the challenge. If I don’t feel great in something, I will discard it at the end of the challenge.

The Items

This could all totally backfire. Or it could be brilliant. Here are the 10 items for my first 10×10 challenge…

Tops

Top to bottom: Mello Day Pale Pink Cotton Sweater; Lululemon Black Cotton Blend Burnout Tee; Eileen Fisher Organic Linen Tunic; Chelsea Violet Blue Tencil Tunic

Bottoms

Top to bottom: Joe’s Jeans The Icon Ankle Jean; Gap Distressed Super Skinny Jeans; Athleta Highline Hybrid Cargo Tight

Outerwear

Top to bottom: BB Dakota Long Stripe Sweater; Marc Fisher Black Sneakers; Sam Edelman Tan Suede Booties

I very much enjoyed picking out these items. And I am excited to see how the challenge goes and if any of these items will be discarded in 10 days.

The items I am on the fence about are the Chelsea Violet tunic, the Gap distressed blue jeans, the BB Dakota striped sweater and the Sam Edelman booties.

I actually really love the Sam Edelman booties but I have had them for many years and they are looking a little worse for the wear.

If you want to see how this little challenge turned out, read all about it here.

If you’re reading this long after this challenge has ended, but you would still like to challenge yourself to get dressed with less, give it a try anyways. And if you want a friend to do it with you, drop me an email!

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Until next time,

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