55 Item Year-Round Wardrobe

As a minimalist, how many articles of clothing should I have?

There is no perfect answer to this question.

We all live different lives, have different needs, live in different climates, and therefore will have to have different wardrobes.

But people have asked me to share my wardrobe, so have pulled out all of my clothes and I’m going to show you EVERYTHING I own – not counting socks, underwear, or layering tank tops.

I keep all my clothing in my closet during all seasons

  1. Because I don’t do well with complicated systems and that feels like a hassle to me. Whether it truly is a hassle or not doesn’t really matter – if it FEELS like a hassle, I won’t stick with it.
  2. And 2, because I live in Montana where the winter days can range between -20° F to 70° F above and our summers can range between 40° F and 115° F

In the closet, I have one drawer for pants and sweaters and then I hang everything else on a hanger. This still takes very little space and my closet is not crowded in the least.

This is my wardrobe (in the video above), and you can probably tell, I’m not big on fashion. I don’t like clothes shopping.  I work from home – doing this, making videos, teaching courses, creating printables, writing books, so I can wear whatever I want.

Most of my clothes coordinate easily and I stick with Jewel tones.

I don’t do any sort of capsule wardrobe. I don’t like putting that much thought into my clothing – which is why I purchase duplicates of things that I like and I pick a lot of solid colors so I don’t have to worry about coordinating. 

During the winter months, I’m always wearing long sleeve shirts with cardigans over them. And during the summer months, I normally just wear T-shirts.

I have my favorite pair of pants that are Beta Brand, they are basically yoga pants for feel, dress pants for appearance. They wash beautifully and I wear them most of the time.

I do have a renaissance dress – because we go to the renaissance festival each year.

55 Clothing Items:

11 Long sleeve shirts

6 Cardigans

3 Jacket/coats (fleece jacket, windbreaker & wool coat)

16 T-shirts

4 Pants (1 jean, 1 black pant (affiliate link), 1 yoga, 1 legging)

1 Capri

2 Shorts

4 Skirts

3 Dresses

1 Workout Capri

1 Workout tank

1 Swim tank

1 Swimshorts

1 Robe

1 renaissance dress


Shoes: 8

As far as shoes go, I wear my Dansko slip-on most of the time, but I do have others when I feel like I need to change it up or we go hiking. I love the look of heels, but I tend to go for comfort over style, so this is what I have.

3 Tennis style

1 Keen sandal

1 Dansko 

1 Snowboot

1 Slipper

1 Flipflop

Before minimalism, I had 4 times this amount at least.

And if you want to see a silly skit our family did about our before and after minimalism laundry days – check that out here:

The fewer clothing items I have, the less laundry I do.

I know that sounds strange, but here’s the breakdown:

Before minimalism, I had 3-4 weeks’ worth of clothing.

My children also had an insane amount of clothing.

I HATED doing laundry.

So I would wait as long as possible to do laundry. I would climb over the mountain of clothes and stand on top of it to start the wash.

I would then pile all the clean clothes on the couch.

Folding seemed like an enormous job, so I would procrastinate, leaving the clean laundry on the couch for weeks.

From time to time I had a friend that would come over, and she would immediately start folding the laundry and putting it away. To her, it wasn’t a big deal. 🤷‍♀️

All that to say that a lot of my daily life involved laundry, though I detested it more than all other chores.

Fast-forward to minimalism:

On average I spend 15 minutes a week doing laundry.

Ways I’ve made it easier on myself:

  • I wash a load every other day
  • I wash everything together (we treat the washer as a laundry hamper)
  • I do not have specialty-care items
  • None of us wear whites
  • Towels are washed once a week
  • As soon as the dryer is done, I sort into piles for different people and call the children to fold their own.

Do they do a good job at folding? No.

But it doesn’t matter because there is room enough in their drawers, it all fits whether it’s folded or not.

If this sounds like the place you WANT to be, this week I’m promoting my mini-course The Clarified Closet to help you simplify your closet and create a minimal wardrobe from what you currently have.

Use the coupon code SPRING to save $20

Click here to get the mini-course now.

About Rachel Jones

Hi there! I’m Rachel Jones, and I founded Nourishing Minimalism in 2012 at the beginning of my minimalist journey. If you're looking for encouragement in your journey, I created a FREE Facebook Group - feel free to join me there: Nourishing Minimalism Facebook Group and I share videos each week on YouTube

3 Comments

  1. Jessalynn Jones on 03/20/2022 at 8:18 am

    Very cool! I’ve wondered about hose beta brand pants. I am super impressed that you have 55 items for all year. I just finished project 333 and I can’t wait to get some different clothes out but I’ve always loved clothes. I’m working towards a simple wardrobe though. One thing I’ve learned is that if I get rid of something I don’t necessarily need to replace it/ I wait until I actually feel a need (like I’m out of pants and it’s not even laundry day yet) and it hasn’t happened yet!

  2. Gail on 03/23/2022 at 2:55 am

    Sounds good!
    I, too, like having less choice: in fact, my total is now 29, with 4 pants, 3 toppers, 5 outerwear, 2 tees, 4 shoes, 1 bag, 10 tops. I am elderly and have given up skirts and dress officially, so that does help reduce. I also have some exercise/walking clothes which I have not included (5 pieces). I keep it to blues, grey, black and white with some unavoidable red/pink trim on some items that I could not get without. I am not constrained by this wardrobe, although things do wear out a bit more often.
    If only my kitchen stuff were so simpleI enjoy your blog.

  3. Vivi Karya on 03/24/2022 at 12:58 am

    Hi Rachel,
    Greetings from Indonesia, tropic, equatorial line.
    I’m a homemaker, but I like to dress a bit chic.
    Mine total is 50.
    9 Tshirt, 2 long sleeve shirt 4 Polo, 5 blouse, 2 long sleeve shirt, 4 shorts, workout (4 tops + 4 shorts + 1 swimsuit), 2 pants, 1 jean, 1 casual dress, 3 knee length skirts, 4 midi skirts, 1 cullote, 1 hoodie, 2 warm jackets.
    Cheers.
    I live in tropic, equatorial line.

Leave a Comment