Important note:

This analysis has been updated - view the latest analysis here

How much clothing do people own?

The first question most people ask when they want to transition to a minimal wardrobe is: how much clothing should I have? In this story - I explore how much is in a ‘typical’ wardrobe using data from 86 people from around the world.

On July 30, 2020, I opened a survey and invited my Instagram followers to go through their closets and count all their clothing - including things out of season, in the laundry, their gym clothes, pajamas...everything! You can check out the survey (and submit your own responses!) here.

I heard from

As I'm sure you can imagine, getting people to respond to any survey is a challenge, but especially when it requires a significant amount of time and effort counting every piece of clothing and pair of shoes!

My assumption is that my data skews a bit lower than what the 'true' average is for a few reasons:

-People with less clothing are more likely to count everything and submit a survey because it's not as big of a time and effort commitment

-The audience that was asked to complete the survey is more likely to have a smaller wardrobe already because they follow accounts related to sustainable fashion

Disclosures: This is obviously not a true scientific study. I am very aware that there isn't enough data, controls around data submission and even survey respondent selection to make real conclusions. Please read and participate with this as an art project that is intended to make you think...and enjoy!

And finally...BIG thank you to Elise Ay and Sophia Li who shared this project with their audiences on Instagram and helped me get more responses!!! Please go check out the great work they do around fashion and sustainability! <333

Survey submissions

This chart animates the average amount of clothing of the survey respondents by country submitted between July 30, 2020 and September 2, 2020.

People own an average of 148 pieces

Most survey respondents seem to have between 77 to 155 pieces in their wardrobe with a few outliers in the 300+ range. Again, I believe the survey data I collected skews a bit lower than what the 'true' average is for most people.

Total number of clothing and shoes people own based on survey data collected.

What does a 148 piece wardrobe look like?

These images show the average number of tops, pants, dresses, skirts, outerwear and shoes owned by the survey respondents.

62 tops

25 pants

18 dresses

7 skirts

17 outerwear

20 shoes

Want to participate in this project?

Share how much is in your closet here to be included in the future.

P.S. Here’s a self-portrait with all my clothing

60478A92-2FE4-404A-BB3A-3854A75EE3AB-A8A0D6F3-4BEC-462F-B594-35F0125B7D45 2.JPG

I took this portrait in early August 2020 to better visually understand how much clothing and shoes I own. There are technically 82 pieces pictured here (which is everything I own except for socks & undies) including all typical wardrobe pieces I requested people count for the survey, but also my bathing suits and even my wedding dress.

Finally, this project was not designed to make anyone feel bad about how many clothes they do or don’t have compared to others. The purpose is to help you evaluate what you own and decide if it’s the right number of pieces for your lifestyle. How do you do that? I’ll talk about that more in a future post, so stay tuned.