The Wardrobe

The Wardrobe

Dressing well with fewer clothes: uniforms, capsules, cost per wear and studies of people known for a consistent look.

Guides

  • Wardrobe guide

    Basic is not boring: dressing in repeats

    Wearing the same clothes often does not make you look dull. Sameness of shape and surface does. How to make a small set of basics look chosen, again and again, without buying more.

  • Wardrobe guide

    Project 333

    Wear 33 items for three months and put everything else away. A short, strict experiment that shows how little of a full closet you really use, and what the rest was doing there.

  • Wardrobe guide

    The capsule wardrobe

    A small set of clothes in which almost everything works with almost everything else, built mostly from what is already in your closet. The point is to buy less, not to buy a new set.

  • Wardrobe guide

    The classic white shirt

    One good white shirt goes with nearly everything you own. How to judge the fabric, cut and fit before you pay, how to make it last, and how to keep one better shirt from starting a chain.

  • Wardrobe guide

    The five-piece French wardrobe

    Keep a core of basics you wear constantly, and allow yourself five considered additions each season. It is a buying rule more than a wardrobe size, and a good one.

  • Wardrobe guide

    The one-suitcase wardrobe

    A year abroad or a long trip forces every wardrobe decision at once. Pack for the climate, hold to three colors, let layers do the work, and you may come home with a better closet than the one you left.

  • Wardrobe guide

    The wardrobe audit, season by season

    Twice a year, take everything out, decide what stays, and find out what is really missing. A worksheet in prose that takes about two hours and ends with a short list you are not allowed to shop from yet.

  • Wardrobe guide

    Uniform dressing

    Pick one outfit formula that works, own it in a few versions, and wear it most days. Fewer decisions, fewer purchases, and a wardrobe that stops asking for more.

Style studies

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  • Style study

    Ana Kraš

    A designer and photographer who calls her style free, yet keeps returning to comfort, simplicity and clothes with a long history. What her approach, in her own words, teaches about buying less.

  • Style study

    Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran

    Two Paris designers who talk about clothes as tools for everyday life, dress practically themselves, and design each season as part of one long wardrobe. What their stated approach teaches about buying for compatibility.

  • Style study

    Françoise Hardy and Serge Gainsbourg

    Two of the most photographed people in Paris in the 1960s and 1970s wore the era's most daring clothes for the camera, and a small, steady set of clothes for everything else. What a personal uniform did for each of them.