Minimal Lifestyle.

Hi there, it is Emi again! 🕺

It has been very cold and crispy out there these days in Melbourne.🥶 I hope everyone is keeping warm and doing fantastic! In winter, we feel snuggly and we wear lots of layers which lead us to feel heavy.

I personally used to spend a lot more times to choose outfit for going out in this season. Because… there are so many items need to match harmoniously to make an outfit.

Today… let’s talk about Wardrobe!

As I imagine lots of us too experienced this…you decided to go out to meet up with friends one day. You want to impress them by looking great but effortless at the same time (what a big ask!). You prepare, so opened the closet… but you spend ages to decide what to wear! You tried on so many outfit…you feel itchy on this jumper, so tried on different tops… but it doesn’t go with the pants you are wearing now… as you struggle, clothing pile magically show up on your bed, floor…😬 clothes’ fibre dance in the air, entering your nose and eyes so you are sneezing now!🤧 You are tired… hmm maybe lower the standard and put on “the compromise outfit”😱?! What an emotional burden! (And this is without mentioning all about shoes, bags, makeups and jewellery…)

There is a lot of considerations happening in our head for choosing outfit. However, maybe your closet is not offering solution for you… This used to be me.

If all that painful details describe your regular relationship with wardrobe…the harsh thing is… maybe you still do not know what style work on you, what makes sense for your lifestyle… essentially, you do not yet have a wardrobe that “works” for you!

I recently decluttered my closet, and wanted to show how was my process. I was bale to get rid of fair amount of clothings. Particularly, I only focused on Winter, spring and autumn seasonal clothing, no summer. This is because when I am not living the summer life, it is hard to keep track of which item I wore the most. Now in cold season, I am clearly aware which winter clothing is superstar✌️in my wardrobe, and which sadly, been neglected ☹️.

I am donating these following things:

• 5 tops
• 2 pants
• 3 outer wear
• 1 down jacket
• 1 scarf
• 1 Hoodie
• 4 of underwear category clothing ……In total 17 items.

I think I would not have been able to achieve this amount if I approached it through randomly rummage and browse through my cabinets and closets. rather, we should all make a…

Perfect ideal wardrobe list 🎩✨

It is like a shopping list. When you imagine you cook a meal, you start to plan what, and how many ingredients to get… It is just like that. Only, the end goal is not make “yummy meal”, but “wear outfit that makes us happy, everyday!”

Here is my list I made to guide myself in decluttering winter wardrobe:

Now with this list as a guideline… I needed to absolutely stick with the amount that are assigned to genre of clothing. I found it was hard, particularly with outerwear, jackets and pants. I had 5 similar length and colour jackets, and 2 extra pants that I do not wear very often…

Now, here are several sign that indicates you to let go of these clothings:

• Things that is not in best condition
• High maintenance (such as from pilling fibre, ironing…)
• That makes you feel uncomfortable (itchy, not able to move smoothly, tight…)
• Are great in condition and appearance, but can not pair into many outfit (poor mix and match value).
• That is not “you” anymore. A clothing you wished could turn yourself to be “other version of me”, but Gary wore it because… well, it’s not really you.
• “Special occasion” clothing that never seen the sun of light. (Any fancy cocktail dress? Cosplay costume only wore for that one time?)

If you wear suits, formal dresses everyday for work or lifestyle… absolutely, you have reasons to keep them. But from other criteria… ones that you do not wear often because of the above reason… why not get rid of them? I am sure you may look great with that tight, short complicate knitted fish net shirt… but do you need to push down, adjust it discretely many times in a day? Or… do you keep your best clothes deep in the drawer and never wear them because “its not a special day” so… you wear something you do not necessarily love but “wearable”?

If you want to make everyday count, why not only keep the top choices of clothing? That you wear most when you are most comfortable, makes you confident and feel attractive? We can call this type of winning clothings as:

The starting members 🎖️🥇✨

Here is my end result of my winter 2023 wardrobe decluttering ⤴️

I feel that there are more space in the closet, and i do not need to look through clothes again. The wardrobe is absolutely lighter, and have great circulation of air and energy.

All the shirts and jumpers were originally in the plastic drawer case… but now they are all hanged up for easier reach! The case used to store all teh types… but now it is only for underwear category things (Top drawer), gym clothing, spare towel and scarfs (second drawer), and summer clothes (bottom drawer).

However, I do understand many of us many not be able to make such snap decision to get rid of everything. Me too sometimes. This time, I have four items I put into “review later” box. This is for me to see if I can live without them for couple of months and not think about them.

I will let you know what happened with those…! 📦

There is limitless things we can talk about wardrobe too. I am sure we will come back to this topic again sometime!

I will see you again! 🥳