I have been wearing only five clothes a week on rotation for about a month now. My work clothes comprise 2 long pants that I paired with one of my three tops (2 shirts and a kebaya). Occasionally, if the day isn’t too hot, I’d wear a long dress. But that’s a rare occasion since the whole of southeast Asia has been struck with intense heat waves.
Like many others, I have bundles upon bundles of clothes in a room that I’ve turned into a walk-in closet. One day, I just decided to do something different. I plan to wear as less pairs of work clothes as possible. And I did.
I went to my closet and picked some that would suit my daily activities and the weather. Yes. Weather plays a significant role in my choice since Malaysia’s heat can feel too unbearable at times.
I have been doing this intentionally and I find some lessons in it. Here it goes:
Elimination of decision fatigue
I feel lucky to be born as a woman because we have tons of choices when it comes to fashion. However, it isn’t fun when you have too many clothes and you can’t decide which one to wear for work. Since I have decided on only three tops and two pants, I have put an end to the long thought process and just wear whatever I have that’s in my list. I learned this from Mark Zuckerberg and his famous grey shirt that he wears daily. Thanks, Mark!
When I have removed the possibility of decision fatigue, I have more brain power to focus on other things that require a lot more brain power. For example, writing this article.
Minimal usage of physical energy
When I first started this journey, I said to myself, “Choose clothes that require zero ironing effort’. I failed at this because most of my shirts needed to be ironed out. So I settled on something close to it: non-ironed pants.
Every weekend, I’d spend about 15 minutes ironing my shirt and then I could watch Netflix. So now, not only do I have extra mental energy, but I also have extra physical energy.
Being economical
In the past, whenever I saw people wearing fancy office attire, I would be tempted to buy new clothes. I love everything about new clothes: the smell, the intense colour that only comes with the newness, the neat stitches after only a wash etc.
It isn’t like that any longer. I might sound a tad bit pessimistic in the next sentence but hear me out. Nowadays, whenever I see people wearing obvious new clothes, my brain starts to calculate how much money and effort it takes.
You see, we trade our time and energy for work and money. With those sacrifices and resources, we invest more time, money and energy to buy new work clothes. Those things do not appeal to me any longer.
As long as I look professional and presentable, I’ll keep wearing whatever I have in my closet.
People don’t care
My deliberate experiment paid off when I realised that people don’t recognised that I have been wearing the same articles of clothes every week.
I have written an article about this before and it is known as ‘the spotlight effect’. This tenet basically boils down to two key takeaways: 1) we are biologically selfish creatures. As such, we never pay much attention to others as much as we pay attention to ourselves and 2) even if they pay attention, they quickly forget about it.
So if people don’t care and I don’t care, who are we to impress?
When the news of young officegoers in China trying to outdo each other in wearing ugly clothes to work hit news outlets, I couldn’t help but chuckle. In some weird ways, I can relate to them.
The trend basically consists of young people wearing ‘disgusting’ and ugly clothes to work and putting their comfort above all. The uglier they are, the more applaud they have on social media. Long story short, it was a viral trend.
Ugly work clothes are the antithesis of OOTD (Outfit of The Day) and GRWM (Get Ready with Me) culture. Imagine wearing a pyjama with knee-high boots. It’s funny but it’s comfortable.
Conclusion
It has become my mission now to simplify my life. The older I get, the more I become tempted to an unsophisticated way of living. After all, YOLO? I might as well shift my focus to something more meaningful than trivial. I am still struggling with my need to look pretty but as of now, for work at least, I try to be as simple as I can throughout the week.
