Studies say that a smaller wardrobe can decrease stress
By Liz Maciocio
Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, was once the richest man in the world. Every day, Jobs wore the same outfit, more specifically a black turtleneck, jeans, and sneakers.
By waking up and already knowing what he was going to wear, Jobs avoided a decision that could cause stress and affect his productivity later in the day. With a job and title as demanding as the CEO of Apple, Jobs’ life could be very stressful — but having a smaller amount of clothes to choose helped decrease Jobs’ levels of stress and improve his focus on making Apple the all-encompassing and successful corporation it has become.
People are obsessed with wanting more than what they need. Every day, brands and designers release new clothes in hopes that people will go out and purchase them — and many people do.
Having more clothes to choose from, more styles, and bigger closets is what the clothing industry feeds on. Studies indicate, however, that the opposite of this belief (having fewer clothes) offers greater benefits to one’s mental health.
The stress that comes from making constant choices is referred to by psychologists as “decision fatigue.” Decision fatigue refers to the decreasing quality of decisions made by an individual after making many other decisions.
Ava Moffitt, a sophomore at South Kingstown High School is one person who feels anxious when selecting an outfit each day.
“Every morning I feel like I have nothing to wear, even though my closet is full!” Moffitt said. She added that it takes her a very long time to pick out an outfit because of all the choices she has.
According to some fashion experts, a capsule wardrobe would benefit Moffitt by helping her pick out an outfit from a smaller wardrobe with pieces that all pair well with each other.
Recently, fashion bloggers like Ashley, better known as “bestdressed” on social media, have experimented with a smaller wardrobe that includes fewer pieces of basic clothing in an effort to decrease decision anxiety. In her YouTube video entitled: “I tried a capsule wardrobe for 30 days,” Ashley shared her findings from her experiment to her 2.59 million youtube subscribers.
“A capsule wardrobe is essentially a mini version of a wardrobe,” said Ashley in her video. “The idea of a capsule wardrobe is to select thirty to forty items that you love, that fit you well, and that mix and match.”
For thirty days, Ashley chose her outfits from a suitcase of about 40 items that she packed at the start of the month. After concluding her experiment, Ashley said that she “overwhelmingly had a positive experience.”
Her biggest goal was that she saved a significant amount of time in the morning and this simplified her life appreciably. Since she already accomplished the mental process of picking out a wardrobe that went together, Ashley said that it helped her feel less overwhelmed.
These positives of having a capsule wardrobe have also been found in various other studies. Kathleen Elkins, a writer for Business Insider, built a capsule wardrobe of 30 items — and she is “never looking back.”
Elkins wrote that she “quickly found that choosing what to wear to work each day became infinitely easier.” The idea that her wardrobe was full of pieces that paired well together helped her to spend “less energy on mundane decisions.”
A smaller wardrobe of basic, high-quality pieces has not only been proven to benefit a person’s mental state, but also the environment. Along with fewer pieces of clothes in a wardrobe comes fewer pieces that will be discarded into the environment.
When Ashley she woke up, she said there were fewer pieces to pick from, and they all pair well with each other. When she experimented with new pairings of clothes, she found that makeup and hair are other ways to change up a look without buying more clothes. These new ways to change up a look can limit the amount of clothing waste from buying more clothes.
Fast fashion, defined as “inexpensive clothing produced by large-scale retailers to fit the latest trends,” has added a large amount of clothing waste to the world. Articles of clothing manufactured by fast fashion companies are designed to fall apart.
Bethany Johnson for Tom’s of Maine wrote that “the average person sends 82 pounds of clothing and fabric waste to landfills every year.”
Steve Jobs primarily wore the same outfit every day to decrease decision fatigue in his life — but little did he know that, though having a smaller wardrobe, he was helping the environment by limiting clothing waste.
Jobs also used this idea of a wardrobe to benefit his work life and to better the quality of decisions he made as the CEO of one of the wealthiest companies in the world.
