My 365-day outfit tracking streak
I’ve used Style Book – the wardrobe tracking app likened to the ‘Clueless Closet’ – for 365 days straight.
When I downloaded the app, I did not intend to use it every day without fail. I was simply curious. Would the data prove my year-round capsule wardrobe was functional? Was I wearing everything I owned or, like so many people, was I using 20% of my clothes 80% of the time? I also wanted to know if my so-called ‘investment pieces’ were worth the money I’d spent, and if i’d reduce my consumption by tracking how I dressed.
The results
Over the course of the year, my ‘style stats’, as Style Book dubs them, told me I had worn my entire wardrobe. Phew! But I will reluctantly admit this does not mean all 46 items I own – which includes clothes, shoes, bags, jewellery and accessories like spectacles and sunglasses – had earned their place in my closet. I bought a brown velvet suit that had been on my ‘wish list’ for years, but I only wore it once over the course of the year. And a pair of jeans that I bought a couple of years ago and had worn 73 times in the last 12 months no longer fit. According to my Style Stats, the jeans have a cost per wear of £3.97. From a monetary perspective I consider these jeans expensive and a piece of clothing that I could not really justify given the amount of use that I had gotten out of them. The environmental impact of the garment also needs to be considered, particularly given that making a pair of jeans typically uses an estimated 3,781 litres of water and 33.4kg of emitted CO2.
Data trends
Aside from my two ‘flops’ I am otherwise pleased with the statistics from my year of outfit tracking. The key trends in my data showed:
1.I am an outfit repeater. I enjoy getting a lot of use out of my things and no one notices that I wear the same clothes again and again.
2. A wardrobe of <50 pieces is plenty. While I recognise that a small capsule wardrobe wouldn’t be right for everyone, I never suffer from ‘I have nothing to wear’ moments.
3. I feel most put together when I plan my outfits a week in advance. This also makes laundry more efficient, and it helps avoid a ‘chair-drobe’ situation building up in my bedroom.
4.I don’t know if my consumption reduced. While I think I made fewer purchases, I need data for a further year to draw an exact conclusion. I noticed that I was more thoughtful, and when I saw something I liked I usually looked at my digital closet in the app to see if I had anything similar or whether the item would work with the clothes, shoes, and bags I already owned. While this doesn’t mean that I bought or spent less over the last year compared to previous years, it does suggest slower and more considered consumption, and I think that’s a win.