The key to liberation is fewer clothes worn on rotation

Christine Manby has discovered that living out of a suitcase is a luxury – choosing what to wear is simple and she’s found more time for the things that matter

Illustration by Tom Ford

I’ve been living out of a suitcase”. When you hear that phrase, it’s generally couched in tones of complaint, on the lips of a travelling salesman – “If it’s Thursday, it must be the Holiday Inn Lancaster” – or a rock god trying hard to convince us that it’s really not all that much fun on world tour. It conjures images of a wash-bag leaking shower gel on to rumpled shirts and a week’s worth of underpants. But for me, living out of a suitcase, as I have been quite a bit recently, can be both an interesting challenge and a relief.

It’s the old joke. A woman looks into a wardrobe heaving with clothes and announces: “I’ve got absolutely nothing to wear.” As soon as I started earning money, I started buying clothes I didn’t need as I embarked upon the endless quest for that one item that would make me a more attractive version of myself. I spent the first ever fee I made from writing on a black denim jacket from Clockhouse at C&A, sure at the time it would transform me from suburban schoolgirl scribbler to a junior Julie Burchill. That denim jacket never quite looked right. It’s since been superseded by at least a dozen other denim jackets that also failed to hit the mark. I never looked cool enough to work at the NME. I never really looked cool enough to work at the Magnet Kitchen Showroom, which was where I had a Saturday job.

But I kept trying and my wardrobe kept growing, as I remained convinced that just one more trenchcoat/blazer/pair of platform trainers would make all the other random things fighting for cupboard space make sense. But if you’re bigger than a B-cup, a trenchcoat will always make you look more ’Allo, ’Allo than Catherine Deneuve. Likewise the height of the platform on a pair of chunky trainers will not create the optical illusion of shorter feet. How I wish someone had told my younger self that more shopping just means more wardrobe chaos, which means you’re even more unlikely to find anything you want to wear of a morning.

In 2017, I embarked on a year without shopping for clothes. It was a project borne out of necessity. I needed to save some cash and I was able to do exactly that. But there were more benefits to the experiment than improved cash flow.

The advice many frugal bloggers who had completed the no-shopping challenge gave was that at the start of the year you should go through your wardrobe and get rid of anything that’s worn and torn or doesn’t fit you and can’t be easily mended or altered. It seemed slightly crazy. When you’re about to embark on 12 months of not replacing anything in your wardrobe, surely the more you start with the better? But there’s the paradox. The more you have, the more you think you need because you can’t get a clear picture of what’s there already.

The tyranny of choice is well documented. In 2000, psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper, from Columbia and Stanford universities, studied the phenomenon by setting up a jam stall at a local market. On the first day, they offered shoppers a choice of 24 different types of jam. The following day, they reduced the choices to a mere six. The counterintuitive result was that people were 10 times more likely to buy jam when their choices were limited. Iyengar and Lepper concluded that too much choice leads to paralysing indecision. They also found that their customers were actually more likely to be satisfied with the jam they did buy when they’d chosen it from the smaller array.

 If they do notice, refer them to the Duchess of Cambridge, who knows the joy of an old wardrobe favourite and isn’t afraid to share it. It’s far more a la vent to recycle old clothes than buy new right now

Iyengar and Lepper’s results have been widely replicated with a variety of products including clothes. That rings true to me. I know I’m more likely to buy something online from Cos, whose strategy is to offer five styles of jumper, all navy, than Asos, where searching for anything, no matter how specific, turns up eleventy-billion options.

But we’re not shopping anymore. At least not for new stuff. Not shopping for new clothing and “slow shopping”, which means not shopping for much new clothing, are both big Instagram trends this year. As is Project 333.

The theory behind Project 333 is simple. You choose 33 items from your wardrobe and wear them on rotation for three months. After which time you can choose another 33 items and start again. The 33 should include shoes and accessories (you get a pass for undies, sleepwear and sportswear). It’s like living out of a big suitcase for a season at a time.

Writing of the first time she tried the challenge in 2010, Courtney Carver, creator of Project 333, said: “Now that I’ve settled on my 33 items for three months, my closet looks bare, simple and surprisingly, inspiring.” The project took off, with thousands following Carver’s example. Now there’s a book. Project 333: The Minimalist Fashion Challenge The Proves That Less Really Is So Much More (TarcherPerigee from £15).

Carver was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2006. She writes: “My busy life may not have been the cause of MS, but I had overlooked the damage that chronic busyness was doing to my health and relationships for years. MS gave me permission to listen to my body, and to create a life with time and space for what really matters to me.”

It might sound banal, but as Carver discovered, having fewer items of clothing to choose from when you’re getting dressed in the morning (and deciding not to shop for more), really can free up an extraordinary amount of time.

But with just seven tops in heavy rotation, surely you’ll be washing twice as often? That takes time and it’s not eco-friendly! I suppose it depends how much you sweat. Most things can be hung up and aired overnight. The idea of limiting your wardrobe choices to 33 items might seem restrictive but in reality you’ll probably discover that you already wear a far smaller number of pieces again and again and again.

If you’re one of those people who worries that you might be tagged on Facebook wearing something you wore just a couple of weeks ago, no one but you will notice, I swear. And if they do notice, refer them to the Duchess of Cambridge, who knows the joy of an old wardrobe favourite and isn’t afraid to share it. It’s far more a la vent to recycle old clothes than buy new right now.

Carver’s minimalist mantra is that “simplicity is the way back to love”. I tried Project 333 during my year of no-shopping and it certainly helped me to love my clothes again. I came to appreciate the work horses that really do go with everything and also to be more creative. Framing having to limit my wardrobe choices as a creative rather than financial decision helped reassure me that I wasn’t missing out while I couldn’t take myself to Zara for a pick-me-up.

Now I’m doing Project 333 again, to help limit the amount of faff in my life during a busy time at work. By cutting down your wardrobe choices, you’re choosing to have the time to focus on the things that matter. It makes living out of a suitcase sound like freedom to me. The next challenge is to get down to Project 222.