Exploring radical minimalism

A month or so ago, I saw a video shared on facebook featuring a Japanese man who only owns 3 shirts (out of choice not out of poverty). I immediately loved the idea. Although I don't consider myself a materialist person, I seem to have ended up with quite a lot of clothes. To give you an indication, I can easily go three weeks without needing to do any washing (and wearing clean clothes each day I might add!). People tend to give me clothes for birthdays/Christmas, and I don't tend to dispose of any until they're really falling apart.

This approach definitely has some benefits: if I don't feel like washing (most of the time), I don't have to. But it also has downsides. I found myself looking at my wardrobe not really liking most of the items in there.

So when I moved recently, I gave away about ten shirts to an op shop. A beginning, but hardly on the same scale as the most inspirational guy in Japan. "Is it even possible to live like that", I wondered. To test this, when I went down to Melbourne in August, I intentionally packed light (for me anyway). I only took three casual shirts (plus another three workout shirts for exercise).

It worked surprisingly well. At first, I tried handwashing the clothes each day which was actually relatively pleasant - it's a somewhat meditative process. I (helpfully assisted by my mother's nose) soon realised that I wasn't very good at handwashing though and my clothes still smelled after being "washed". So I resorted to using the washing machine. I was loathe to do this initially because it felt wasteful to wash in small loads but as a household with five people, it generally worked out.

I survived the three weeks in Melbourne without needing more than those three shirts (well really six if you include workout gear). Haven't continued the experiment now that I'm back in Sydney but it seems to me that it can definitely work providing you have sufficient laundry backlog to justify a load.

My conclusion is: for my two person household in Sydney, having three shirts will lead to inefficient washing cycles. Six casual/formal shirts plus six workout shirts is probably about right.

Now of course the next step is to decide which of the fifteen shirts in my wardrobe should be culled...

(and I should probably do something about my sock drawer - I must have close to fifty pairs hahaha).