Incredibly, I have been tracking my wardrobe for 8 consecutive quarters!! That’s writing down in a spreadsheet every single item I wore for two years in a row!
I’m preparing a future post with lessons I learned from my two years of wardrobe tracking, but for now I wanted to record my findings for the last quarter of year 2 (my years run 1st Oct to 30th September btw). This is because I always do the comparison to the previous quarter, so I wanted to make sure I don’t miss out on this for my own records.
If you are wondering what I am on about, check out how I decided to record every single thing I wore every single day for a year. I called it One Year Wardrobe Count project. The full Year 1 results can be read here, Year 2 Quarter 1 here, Quarter 2 here and Quarter 3 here.
So, what happened in the past 3 months, lifewise and wardrobewise? Oh, where do we being…
It’s funny that although so much is happening in the world, there is remarkably little happening in my life. I am still working from home mostly, with 1-2 days/week trawling to the office. We go out to the local pub every now and again (just the two of us, socially distanced and wearing masks), we even managed a cinema outing (which made me extremely happy). We’ve also had two mini-holidays this period, one in North Devon and one in Norfolk, which were lovely!
The weather spectrum was very up and down, from the hottest days of the year in August, when I was literally broiling in our top floor flat, no air con, to some very cool early autumn days in September.
So I dug into my deep wardrobe for very light summer clothes and also took out my winter coat one day.
So let’s see how I finished the tracking year.
WARDROBE TRACKER – SUMMER NUMBERS
MY TOP 10 MOST WORN ITEMS
The underlined and bold listed ones are made by me and the ones marked with a * are new for this period.
| Item | Worn |
| Biker leather jacket | 20 |
| Denim jacket | 18 |
| Grey and pink trainers | 17 |
| Denim cut-offs | 16 |
| Light blue skinny jeans | 12 |
| Navy cable jumper | 10 |
| Sparkly trainers | 9 |
| Sequin Fitflops | 9 |
| Mint shorts | 8 |
| Thermal turtleneck | 8 |
TOTAL UNIQUE ITEMS WORN IN Q4: 111 (previous Q=81), OUT OF WHICH SHOES: 19 (PREVIOUS Q=5)
MONTHLY AVERAGE: 58 ITEMS (previous Q=37)
TOTAL INDIVIDUAL ME-MADE ITEMS WORN: 39 (previous Q=32)
ME-MADE: 35% (previous Q=42%); RTW: 62% (previous Q=55%) ; REFASHIONED: 3% (previous Q=4%)
NUMBER OF ITEMS WORN ONLY ONCE (ONE TIMERS): 39 (previous Q=34)
NEWLY COUNTED VS PREVIOUS PERIOD: 13 (previous Q=6)
MOST WORN BY CATEGORY:
| Type | Category | Total |
| Clothing | Top | 24 |
| T-shirt | 16 | |
| Dress | 8 | |
| Trousers | 7 | |
| Shorts | 6 | |
| Jeans | 5 | |
| Jumper | 5 | |
| Jacket | 4 | |
| Cardigan | 4 | |
| Jumpsuit | 3 | |
| Outerwear | 3 | |
| Shirt | 3 | |
| Skirt | 3 | |
| Vest | 1 | |
| Clothing Total | 92 | |
| Footwear | Flats | 7 |
| Sandals | 4 | |
| Trainers | 3 | |
| Lace-ups | 2 | |
| Ankle boots | 1 | |
| Boots | 2 | |
| Footwear Total | 19 | |
| Grand Total | 111 |
MOST WORN COLOURS:
| Colour | Total | % of total |
| Black | 28 | 25% |
| Blue | 27 | 24% |
| Green | 11 | 10% |
| Grey | 9 | 8% |
| White | 8 | 7% |
| Red | 6 | 5% |
| Stripes | 6 | 5% |
| Beige | 4 | 4% |
| Pink | 4 | 4% |
| Metallic | 3 | 3% |
| Purple | 3 | 3% |
| Brown | 1 | 1% |
| Yellow | 1 | 1% |
| Grand Total | 111 |
MOVEMENTS:
This is about how many new items made it into my wardrobe this period and how many were taken out, for various reasons. To note that the ‘out’ category refers to items that I had already recorded in the spreadsheet (i.e. have been worn since Oct 2018).
IN: 3, of which 2 sewn
OUT: 0
FANCY TRACKING YOUR WARDROBE TOO?
WARDROBE TRACKER – SUMMER INSIGHTS
OVERALL
This quarter was strangely disappointing, as I realised just how big my wardrobe still is. I had to take some summer clothes that I mostly wear on holidays out of storage, as it was incredibly hot. However, there were loads of one-timers, much more than I expected. Also, much lower number of Me-mades vs RTW worn this period, as I tended to reach for t-shirts and shorts, of which I have a significant RTW collection.
My style has been definitely veering towards the casual side, with much fewer dresses, no heels at all, jeans, t-shirts and shorts as the basic staple. I pretty much lived in my grey and pink Sneaker Kit trainers and my very old (2006) biker leather jacket has been an absolute staple.
SAVE THIS FOR LATER ON PINTEREST
ACQUISITION
Although I have been sewing loads this period, it was mostly for other people. Plus masks, still loads and loads of masks. But this was good, as I only added very few items to my wardrobe, the Danika jumpsuit from Fibre Mood and one of my favourite dresses ever, this pink version of Mira. This is great news, as I almost had a breakdown at how massive my total wardrobe still is. More on that in a few weeks for the annual post review
WEARING
Dresses were the biggest victims of this weird transitional/work from home period. I really did not feel like wearing them while working from home. If I did put one on for an outing, it would be over trousers. However, I did reach out for separates, especially shorts, jeans and skirts and it only made me more keen to sew jumpers and tops for the colder season.
CONCLUSIONS
Overall, a very disappointing period. 111 up from 77 last quarter is a bit mad. This is the highest I ever scored in any month and it’s really made sit up and pay attention. I was convinced I had a grip on my wardrobe, but clearly I have been kidding myself that I’m pairing down, when there are still pockets of clothes hidden out of sight.
Here’s to doing much much better next year!
