I No Longer Identify As A Minimalist
My 3 biggest lessons from years of trying to perfect a "capsule wardrobe"
My manager at work recently asked me to send a picture of my WFH desk for a “fun” regional team call activity where we would take turns guessing whose desk belonged to whom.
What I replied her:
I used to believe that my instinctive over-thinking and inclination to control my surroundings didn’t align with my 100% hit rate of messing up every space I occupied. No clean office desk and cafe table was safe around me.
This was why books like Goodbye Things: The New Japanese Minimalism and shows like Minimalism: A Documentary About The Important Things (2015) excited me. The truism they convinced me about myself I needed to fix: I have too many things. A mix of data and personal anecdotes highlighted the evils of advertising, consumerism, hoarding, a messy home, messy mind, and messy life.
The minimalist solution? Live out of a suitcase, essentially.
1. Liking minimalism (the aesthetic) ≠ being a minimalist (the lifestyle)
When I first learnt about minimalism, I was sub-25 years old and had spent years trying to “perfect” my wardrobe. One huge plus I told myself adopting minimalism would do was end my endless pursuit of acquiring more clothes.
“I just need to spend the next year or so buying the best of every basic," I convinced myself. This would put me in the headspace for success, à la Steve Jobs and Anna Wintour—she repeated outfits once every maybe three months? It would save me thousands of dollars on mindless shopping; and when applied to other parts of my life, force me to be neat and open me new opportunities.
Over time, my idea of minimalism evolved into buying multiple versions of the same thing. Some of the wilder things I “needed”:
“Restaurant” jeans, different from everyday jeans (this applied to sneakers too)
A bag specifically for clubbing and concerts (I’ve been to one concert in my life)
A bag specifically for going to the supermarket (I go to supermarkets once every two months)
Sandals, different from “rain” sandals
A raincoat
A few full-black outfits in case I got a job in PR (hasn’t happened)
A custom suit for weddings (I’ve been to three weddings as an adult)
I was rarely happy.
Lesson learnt: preferring plain T-shirts over logoed ones doesn’t inherently make me a minimalist (the lifestyle). Neither does it make me more of a moralist.
I can shop more, as long as I shop honestly.
2. I’m as susceptible to cults as anyone else
There are great things about minimalism that I still try to adopt today. Yes, I’m talking mainly about clothes, but I think it has spilled into other parts of my life too.
Today, I can say with certainty: I care about versatility and quality (cost per wear). And the end goal is no longer torturing myself for the sake of virtue—which for me, always backfires.
Comfort and style—happiness—are enough. I’m now less guilty of my purchases: I can actually see them in my wardrobe for years, rather than anticipate them being soon desperately listed on Vestiaire for 40% off so I can recoup losses.
I rewatched some Marie Kondo videos to remind myself what I might have felt watching Tidying Up With Marie Kondo in 2018. The dopamine rushes of imagining how much better my life would be if I just folded my clothes into pyramids or had a Muji-esque wardrobe felt reminiscent of watching Andrew Huberman or Your Rich BFF (Vivian Tu) TikToks. Such content is not inherently bad. But they’re also all thanks to great storytellers, with ultimate solutions, and coveted manuals to sell.
Apparently, it’s also not sustainable to live at home like you’re on a forever business trip.
3. Wanting more can be good
In episode one “Bleach Demon” of Brendawareness, Brenda Hashtag talked about “people having finite goals when they should have infinite goals […] In reality, all of our goals should be endless. It’s not ‘I want the boyfriend’, but ‘I want the happy relationship’, and I want to work every day to make myself happy, to make the other person happy, to grow together—like, I don’t just want this job title, but I want the career, a long-lasting career, I want to help everyone around me.”
That’s one of the main reasons I’m no longer actively working towards having a “capsule” wardrobe. Slowly shifting away from it has made me realise wanting one was likely me operating from a mindset of scarcity. Subscribing exclusively to one way of life can be limiting. Wanting more isn’t necessarily bad. Happiness isn’t necessarily indulgent. Indulgence in itself can be good too. Am I still messy? Sometimes. My solution: clear it and try again.
Some recent “non-minimalism” outfits:
