The text is quite small but the price tag, quite large. The twelve-item, low stress, capsule wardrobe suggested by this article will set you back $7205. For perspective, the average American women spends about $2000 annually on clothing, sayeth the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of course average is just a statistic; the range is gigantic.
And a lot of that spending is waste.
The average American woman has 103 items of clothing in her closet - more than enough to put together outfits for any occasion. But she considers 21 percent to be 'unwearable', 33 percent too tight and 24 percent too loose, according to a survey of 1,000 US women by ClosetMaid. Admittedly this source is a bit less authoritative than the US BLS but it has a ring of truth. The old 80/20 Rule is a rule for a reason. It’s also call Law of the Vital Few. That’s what this article was getting at- the vital few. When you don’t have 80% distracting you, putting the 20% to work is a lot easier.
I heartily endorse the idea of the capsule wardrobe, provided you go shopping in your own ample closet. From the article, “When you assemble a deftly curated closet devoid of flashy, trend- driven splurges, you cut out wardrobe confusion.”
About my title? The reason I don’t want these things, is that I don’t need them. I already have plenty of capsule options. No need to shop. The real stress-reducer is to find a better way to distract your money.
* Credit/apologies to the lovely little book, A Bunch of Pretty Things I Did Not Buy by Sarah Lazarovic