What to wear as a researcher- how I optimized my closet

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My wife and I have been fans of Marie Kondo long before her Netflix show. We’ve also read and reread “The gentle art of Swedish death cleaning” multiple times. Through those processes, we’ve focused on decluttering the house for years. However, I’ve never given much thought to what I wear as a researcher.

For the most part- I think we do a pretty good job of having few possessions. Several people have commented on how “clean” our house is (I think that is their polite way of saying empty). Others have asked “where all the toys are”. I’ve seen these people’s houses and they scare me.

But after reading the Financial Mechanic’s post about her closet, I realized I could do a much deeper purge of my closet.

“Give each piece of clothing a job or fire it”

My favorite line in the Financial Mechanic’s post was that you should give each piece of clothing in your wardrobe a job. If it doesn’t have a job, you should toss it. That made perfect sense for me. I have a ton of clothes that I feel like I should keep because “I might need them” in a certain situation. I don’t really enjoy wearing these clothes. Often when the situation arises, I end up wearing something else I like and making it work for the situation.

What does a researcher wear?

I was really inspired by the Financial Mechanic’s approach to winnowing her closet. The first step I needed to do was figure out exactly what clothes I needed. (What “jobs” my clothes need to fulfill). I came up with 5 different scenarios:

• Formal. Suit & tie. (Weddings, funerals, winning an award)
• Conferences. It seems like the only people wearing suits at conferences are desperate graduate students and post-docs. I only realized this after I had a PhD. Most of the time now I can pull off jeans + a sport coat. Sometimes I’ll wear dress pants and a button down shirt.
• Everyday work. I can wear jeans! In the summer I wear polos. In the winter I wear sweaters. I’ve already packed away my sweaters for the winter, so I can only optimize 3 season’s worth of tops
• Weekend. I wear jeans + t-shirts with hoodies.
• Sports. I’ve got a few soccer jerseys. I guess I could lump these into weekend clothes, but I felt like they deserved their own category because they’re special to me and I wouldn’t toss them.

Given this list of 5 different scenarios, I could then couple that information with their frequency to figure out what an optimized my optimized closet would look like for what a researcher like me would wear.

• Formal:
  • 1 suit
  • 1 white dress shirt
• Conferences:
  • 3 dress shirts (typically I’m at a conference for a maximum of 5 days and there is no way I’d ever pack more than 3 dress shirts in a suitcase)
  • 1 sport coat
  • 2 pairs of dress pants
• Work clothes:
  • 2 pairs of jeans
  • 5 polo shirts (summer)
  • 1 button down short sleeve shirts
  • 5 light sweaters (spring/fall)
  • 2 long sleeve shirts
• Weekend clothes:
  • Jeans (from above)
  • 2 pairs of shorts
  • 5 t-shirts
  • 3 hoodies (light, medium, heavy)

Here’s what I actually had

• 2 suits, black & gray. I liked the gray one a lot better than the black & haven’t worn the black one since 2011.
• 7 pairs of dress pants. Many of which are either too big of too small. More on this later.
• Too many dress shirts.
• 10 polos
• 4 short sleeve button down shirts
• 6 light sweaters
• 2 long sleeve shirts
• 9 t-shirts
• 3 pairs of jeans that were too big (and too long)

Uck! That’s almost twice as many clothes as I needed to wear as a researcher.

Where did all of these clothes come from?

As I mentioned in my previous post about body dysmorphia, my size has fluctuated a lot throughout my adult life. Because of this, I’ve had to buy clothes (especially pants) in several different sizes throughout my adulthood. The body fluctuations resulted in me not wanting to get rid of any pants in case my size changed suddenly in the future. Additionally, the self-flagellation about my body caused me to buy cheap clothes from thrift stores that I didn’t like because I felt like my body didn’t “deserve” clothes I enjoyed wearing. Finally, I had weird ideas about what my pants size “was”, which I think is also related to some of the struggles I’ve had accepting my body.

As a result of all of these mental barriers I’ve had with my body, I have ended up with a closet full of pants that I hate and jeans that are essentially “clown pants”. My jeans won’t stay on without a belt. They also need to be cuffed unless I’m wearing them with shoes. (Although sometimes I need to cuff them even with shoes). I’m not sure when I decided I was a 32″ inseam. But I’m definitely not and have never been this tall.

The purge- optimizing what I wear as a researcher

Getting rid of my clothes was really easy once I had made a list of what I needed. I’ve had many extended work trips for 6+ weeks where I’ve lived out of a suitcase. It seems obvious in retrospect that if I can live out of a suitcase for 6 weeks, I shouldn’t need more than a suitcase worth of clothes for my daily life.

I was able to reduce my dress pants down to 2 pairs. 1 pair of Lululemon ABC pants that I had bought earlier this year that I really like. (Buying pants at full price was a big mental step forward for me when I did it). I felt like I also needed a pair of khakis. But the only pair of khakis that fit me was a faded pair from when I was 19 years old that I’m not super crazy about but will actually wear them. Probably time to upgrade those.

I was also able to reduce my polos from 10 to 5 and my t-shirts from 9 to 7. It turns out I have some emotional connection to some of my t-shirts and they double as pajamas, so maybe it’s not unreasonable to keep extras. Likewise, I know I only need 1 sport coat but kept them both. One goes better with khakis and the other goes better with my grey ABC pants. And while I’d only pack one per conference, I might change up which one I take with me when I go.

Also, I got rid of all my jeans. They don’t fit and there’s absolutely no reason for me to have them in my life. In fact, in some ways, they’re a subtle reminder of weight issues I’ve had in my life.

Stumbling blocks

So it turns out that there were only 5 things I had struggled with getting rid of.

I realized I didn’t strictly need these clothes, but when I put them in the “toss” pile, I realized I couldn’t quite do it. Either the clothes had sentimental value or I still like them. I think I must have discarded 30+ pieces of clothing, so only having to rethink 5 of them is pretty good. In the end, I decided to keep these clothes in a container under my bed. If I really want to wear them, I know I can pull them out and add them back into the wardrobe. If not, I’ll know in a year or two that I am moving on from those clothes and I can give them up without fear.

What about work pants?

In addition to my jeans being “clown pants”, they were also starting to wear out. My jeans always fray at the crotch from biking to work.

I decided to replace them with “Firehose pants” from Duluth Trading Company. I had asked for recommendations on Twitter about how to find jeans that could stand up to bike commuting. Multiple people had recommended these pants and I bought 2 pairs. (One in brown and one in blue/gray).

The pants fit me wonderfully (30 x 30). (I was wearing 33 x 32 before this. Clown. Pants.) I can’t speak to their abrasion resistance yet but I think they’ll last longer because they have a special crotch gusset instead of a seam. They’re also super comfortable and I love them.

It’s about optimization

I know that buying new pants wasn’t very frugal. And it wasn’t great for the planet. But I needed everyday pants. Moreover, I feel so much healthier wearing these pants than pulling on pants that didn’t fit me and made me waste mental energy on how I felt about my body.

I think I can get by with just 2 pairs. And if my body changes size, I’m going to donate these pants and get pants I love in a different size. At this point, it’s just not worth the mental energy of hoarding so many different sizes of clothing and beating myself up over what fits. My goal was to optimize my closet, not wear stuff because it’s cheap or I have it.

I was talking to my friend Moriah from OurTable4Two.com about my wardrobe update and was excited to hear that she had done something similar! It’s fun to know that multiple people in the PF space are thinking about wardrobe intentionality.

Summary- what to wear as a researcher

This process has caused me to be very intentional about what I wear as a researcher. To me, pursuing FI is about being intentional with your time and money. Being intentional about the clothes I own has “sparked joy”. I like getting dressed now because I know I have exactly what I need and I don’t need to go past the clutter of clothes I don’t like wearing.

What do you think? Have you gone through your closet? What would your packing list look like if your closet were a suitcase? Leave a comment!!