Work wardrobe Results:

Here are the results of my 4-week 12 piece work wardrobe challenge

Monday 11: Jeans, white ¾, moccasins
Tuesday 12: Purple pants, white ¾, moccasins
Wednesday 13: Purple pants, black satin shirt, grey jersey, moccasins
Thursday 14: Jeans, black satin shirt, grey jersey, moccasins
Friday 15: Jeans, coral shirt, waistcoat, geox tekkies

Monday 18: White striped shirt, black pants, moccasins, grey jersey
Tuesday 19: White striped shirt, jeans, moccasins, navy cardigan
Wednesday 20: Jeans, Black satin shirt, moccasins
Thursday 21: Jeans, white ¾, moccasins, navy cardigan
Friday 22: Jeans, white ¾, moccasins, navy cardigan

Monday 25: Purple pants, black satin shirt, geox tekkies, grey jersey
Tuesday 26: Jeans, black satin shirt, moccasins, navy jersey
Wednesday 27: Jeans, white striped shirt, moccasins, navy jersey
Thursday 28: Jeans, white striped shirt, moccasins, navy jersey
Friday 29: EXAM – so I exempted myself from work cloths

Monday 2: Jeans, white ¾, moccasins
Tuesday 3: Jeans, black satin shirt, moccasins, grey jersey
Wednesday 4: Jeans, white ¾, moccasins
Thursday 5: Jeans, White Striped shirt, moccasins
Friday 6: Purple pants, White Striped shirt, moccasins

What I learned from the experience;

· 4 tops are not enough. I wear 3 in a week, laundry is in the weekend and, because I air-dry, ironing is done on Wednesday evening. This means I have a three day week start with only 1 available clean top. Fortunately my black satin top requires no ironing and can be worn straight off the dry line

· The coral top was a mistake: It is hand wash or with similar colours only. Normally I can just wait until I’ve some same colours or a stack of hand washing and do it all then. With just 4 tops though I cannot afford to have one unavailable for long. It is also a fairly loose summery top, so for work I actually cheated once and added a waist coat over it to give it some more shape.

· The black pants also didn’t get a lot of wear. I like the idea of sleek black clothing but don’t actually seem to like wearing it myself. Maybe they remind me too much of a school uniform (all through high school I wore black pants with a white shirt). I don’t know what it is but it is something I have picked up on before. That’s one of the reasons I decided to make Navy a base colour of mine instead of using black.

· A limited wardrobe like this is fairly boring! Especially since (see above) my one pop of colour was mostly in the laundry basket. At the start of week three I was already tired of the look. I decided then to try and inject some interest via more interesting jewellery I had. This helped a bit but not much as I was uncertain about wearing anything too flashy to work.

· Nobody seemed to notice my limited wardrobe, I do work with only men though, they are not as perceptive but it did make me realise you don’t need a large work wardrobe

· I’ve also started to notice increased wear and tear on my cloths. My white striped shirt has worn so thin that the sleeves are starting to fray and it is going see-through!

Conclusion:

Even though I succeeded at the 4 week challenge I did not enjoy the process. I found such a limited wardrobe dull and yearned for some more variety. I think the concept of fewer items is great in theory and I can understand the benefits for saving time (getting dressed took all of three seconds with such limited choice) and money but I don’t know if it will work for me. I think I’ve reached a point in my wardrobe where I’ve slimmed down as much as I am comfortable with for now. Yes I probably still own too much but I’ve cut out about 60% of my wardrobe which is huge so I should be happy with that for now.