Why I’m Simplifying My Closet With 20 Wardrobe Staples

You can have a full wardrobe with just 20 special pieces.

Why I’m Simplifying My Closet With 20 Wardrobe Staples

There’s a reason why I’m opting for a closet made up of 20 wardrobe essentials. With New York City opening back up, I’m prioritizing the things I otherwise “never have time for”—like figuring out how to make my closet a more well-oiled machine.

As Benjamin Franklin once said: “For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned.” Perhaps our closets are the best illustration of this sentiment—a closet bursting with clothes translates to time wasted digging through piles and putting outfits together on Sunday nights. The opposite then must be true: a streamlined closet filled with wardrobe essentials saves precious time.

When it comes to sartorial efficiency, it’s impossible not to think of Steve Jobs, who took optimizing his closet to a new level, removing decision fatigue altogether with a strict uniform of a black turtleneck, jeans, and specs. While Jobs’s tight edit was exemplary, not everyone wants such an extreme closet crackdown (myself included).

Deciding to use Jobs as a starting point, I soon realized the answer to a curated (and not constricting) wardrobe resided in flipping what’s considered a “wardrobe essential,” a term typically reserved for an amalgam of boring basics, on its head. More basics wouldn’t save me time—honing in on the pieces that made me excited to get dressed in the morning would.

As an editor at Vogue, I get dressed up for work each day, and the clothes I wear to the Vogue offices (or to Zoom meetings as of late) translate well to my weekends. So, I started to do the math—20 workdays in a month translates to 20 “slots” in my closet for items that pack a punch (aside from basics like T-shirts and sweaters), like my favorite nylon Prada skirt or tea-length Proenza Schouler dress. That way, paired with the basics I already own, I’d have one exciting piece to build an outfit around each workday in a month, saving me time in the mornings and sparing my coworkers from growing tired of the same patterned top flouncing around the office each and every week. If I happened across a new, must-have dress or skirt, I’d think of Jobs’ no-nonsense attitude, and swap out one of my other 20 allotted pieces.

While 20 essentials may be the right number for me, perhaps seven (for each day of the week) or 30 (for each day of the month) is right for you. Take a look at the below list for inspiration about how to build your own collection of wardrobe essentials. Get ready to spend less time getting dressed, and more time enjoying life.

Here, 20 wardrobe essentials to save you time.