family, I hadn’t thought much about minimalism, even though I found myself constantly weighed down by the amount of stuff I owned, and how much had accumulated in my apartment over the course of my four years of college. When I first read about the concept of minimalism, I was intrigued. The light grew brighter as I read more and more, and finally one week of personal experience pushed me to minimize my life.
I spent a week with my two best friends traveling in a small Subaru hatchback, covering 1,200 miles of open road, starting in Georgia, circling the southeast, up the coast of the Atlantic, and finally ending with a long journey back to Tennessee. It was a wonderful experience, but with three of us living out of such a small car, I needed to think minimalism when I was packing.
To my surprise, it was one of the most liberating tasks I’ve recently taken on.
With only a small duffel bag and a purse, I could only bring a limited amount of clothing, as well as one comfortable pair of shoes that would match everything.
Before I left, it worried me a little that I would get bored with what I had brought, want something else instead, or be tempted to wander into the closest mall to expand my vacation wardrobe.
To my delight, the opposite happened. I knew my options were limited, and I would have no opportunity to do laundry, so I never put much thought into what I was wearing each day. Getting ready for the concerts we saw or going out to dinner took no time at all, and the minutes I spent in front of a mirror debating the social acceptability of my attire disintegrated. By the time we would leave our hotel rooms and venture into the cities of the south, I felt more confident engaging with new people, expressing myself through personality and positive energy instead of the material that covered my body.
When I returned to my hometown of Denver after a week on the open road through states I’d never explored, I had a desire to take on a new challenge: incorporating minimalist fashion into my everyday life. Knowing that I did love the clothes I had and putting less than a minute’s thought into what I would wear each day opened my mind to focus on other things, breaking down any social inhibitions I had regarding fashion and giving me a desire to be a trend-setter in minimalist fashion.
I spent a week with my two best friends traveling in a small Subaru hatchback, covering 1,200 miles of open road, starting in Georgia, circling the southeast, up the coast of the Atlantic, and finally ending with a long journey back to Tennessee. It was a wonderful experience, but with three of us living out of such a small car, I needed to think minimalism when I was packing.
To my surprise, it was one of the most liberating tasks I’ve recently taken on.
With only a small duffel bag and a purse, I could only bring a limited amount of clothing, as well as one comfortable pair of shoes that would match everything.
Before I left, it worried me a little that I would get bored with what I had brought, want something else instead, or be tempted to wander into the closest mall to expand my vacation wardrobe.
To my delight, the opposite happened. I knew my options were limited, and I would have no opportunity to do laundry, so I never put much thought into what I was wearing each day. Getting ready for the concerts we saw or going out to dinner took no time at all, and the minutes I spent in front of a mirror debating the social acceptability of my attire disintegrated. By the time we would leave our hotel rooms and venture into the cities of the south, I felt more confident engaging with new people, expressing myself through personality and positive energy instead of the material that covered my body.
When I returned to my hometown of Denver after a week on the open road through states I’d never explored, I had a desire to take on a new challenge: incorporating minimalist fashion into my everyday life. Knowing that I did love the clothes I had and putting less than a minute’s thought into what I would wear each day opened my mind to focus on other things, breaking down any social inhibitions I had regarding fashion and giving me a desire to be a trend-setter in minimalist fashion.
