Stylebook Closet App: Rule of 5:How To Stop Over Consuming Clothes (2024)

Rule of 5: How To Stop Over Consuming Clothes

by Jess Atkins, Stylebook Co-Founder

Are you looking to reduce your fashion carbon footprint? According towriter Tiffanie Darke, reducing your clothing purchases to just fivenew items in 2024 is the ideal way to do it. It may sound impossible,but trust me: you can at least significantly reduce your clothesshopping. Here are 5 tips to help you buy way less but love yourwardrobe more.

But first, let's start with a timeline. On the left, you can see typicalovershopping habits over a year, versus living by the five-item rule.

1. Learn To Be Anti-Trend

If you're on fashion TikTok, you've probably seen videos telling youthat certain clothes are embarrassingly out of style. While there arelong term trends that can make someone look up-to-date, it’s theoverall vibe of an outfit that counts, not individual pieces.Remember, it’s still possible to have fun and look up-to-date evenwithout shopping:

• Play with your clothes in Stylebook and try new outfitproportions or color combinations
• Vary your inspirations and look beyond social media to get more choices
• Save styling tutorials in Stylebook on the latest waysto tie, tuck, or zhuzh your clothes
• When everyone is wearing the same thing, stand out by sticking to whatmakes you happy and makes you glow with confidence

2. Get To Know Your Closet

The only way to add high-impact pieces is to know exactly what clothesyou already own. You’ll be able to choose new things that fit in withwhat you have, which will maximize your new outfit choices. Creating acloset inventory is the best way to get to know your current wardrobe.Recording your wardrobe is a bit of upfront work, but it's worth theeffort because:

I use Stylebook toinventory my wardrobe. I add photos from online stores, or I quicklytake pictures of my secondhand or home-sewn clothes. I like usingCopy Subject to cut them out.

3. Flourish Within Boundaries

You become more creative when you limit yourself to clothes already inyour wardrobe. This is a great exercise because it also forces you tostop using shopping as a crutch. Record what you actually wear on anoutfit calendar and you’ll get a sense of your true style.

4. Try Fashion As Self-care

If you feel amazing in an outfit today, why not get that joy again inthe future? Save your best outfits in Stylebook and rewear them.Stop depending on newness to feel special. Sometimes, I wear a greatoutfit, and it makes me feel so happy. Saving it in Stylebook makes it easy toreuse it again; otherwise, I'd forget! This is especially great when Ifeel like it was wasted because no one saw me.

5. Learn To Deal With Shopping Triggers:

Finally, you need to learn how to avoid impulse shopping and rememberpersonal style is the antidote for overconsumption. Here’s how I dealwith common shopping triggers:

Vacation

This is my biggest shopping trigger because I often want to shop tofit my destination. My perspective changed when I heard a friend callher favorite clothes, "holiday clothes." The idea is that she she wouldonly bring her best clothes on holiday and would be happy beinglimited to those choices. Now I think of my vacation wardrobe as anopportunity to wear my most loved pieces.

I save my packing lists in Stylebook, and the appautomatically keeps track of my "most packed" items, which is always agood place to start since they have been proven to travel well. I evenreuse entire packing lists occasionally, especially for family visits.

Events

When holidays, dates, parties, etc., come up, I turn to my going-outcapsule. A capsule wardrobe does not need to be boring or neutrals. It only needs to bemade-up of clothes YOU can easily restyle and re-wear. I start with afolder in Stylebook of allmy going-out clothes, then remix them into outfits with OutfitShuffle.

Promotions

I keep a clothing wishlist in Stylebook's shopping featureto slow down how often I shop. Waiting at least a few days can helpdetermine whether it's an impulse or a genuine desire.

Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t stick to just 5 items. Sometimes youchange size, clothes are unexpectedly ruined, and life happens. Theimportant part to reduce unnecessary clothing purchases is to understandthat keeping up with trends isn’t necessarily being stylish. Be yourselfand know the difference between personal style and a personalaesthetic.

A personal aesthetic is an overall look inspired by a specific theme likea time period, place, or subculture. It encompasses accessories,beauty, and clothes that fit the theme. Aesthetics have their owntrends and come in and out of fashion, for example, normcore,cottagecore, quiet luxury, etc. Personal style is more aboutcollecting inspiration from many different sources that you’renaturally drawn to over time and then melding them into your own uniquelook that fits your life. It can incorporate vastly different stylesthat are combined to your taste, evolving with you over time, but itis not tied to trends.

In the long term, shift your mindset to appreciate some things from afar.It’s ok to skip some fashion moments. Even if you love a new trend, it’sok not to participate. When you look back at past trends you wereobsessed with two years ago, do you still care about them? If you hadskipped them, nothing bad would have happened.

"Fashion you can buy, but style you possess. The key to style islearning who you are, which takes years. There's no how-to road map tostyle. It's about self expression and, above all, attitude."– Iris Apfel