The last couple of months I have done a shirt challenge proposed by Wool and Prince wearing a single shirt for a 100 days a project that initially felt fairly daunting. Luckily hundred days passed without any major setbacks and I managed to complete the challenge gaining both a new shirt and some realisations regarding my wardrobe.

My initial fears spanned from the asthenic to the hygienic where I worried that the limitations in wardrobe choices would be socially awkward and the lack of washing created a worry from a hygienic point of view.

Ironically the issues I had during the period had very little connection to my initial worries which in itself provided some reflections especially my way of wearing clothes have been wasteful to the point of neglect.

Given that washing clothes is one of the fastest way to wear them out, any way to limit the times you need to wash clothes should increase the lifespan of favourites by a big margin. This together with the comfort of having a simple wardrobe makes it a lot easier to invest in quality clothes that can be kept usable and fresh for longer periods.

The actual issue I faced during the challenge was mainly related to the colour of shirt I choose (light grey) and the risk of oily stains which is hard to get out of wool clothing even when your washing them. However this gave me the opportunity to learn a few tricks to remove small stains, the simplest being the using of baking soda and a clothes brush which works wonders on fresh stains. For older stains spot treatment with bile soap and hot water followed by a round of baking soda solved most of the problems.

But because of these minor issues I found the challenge very rewarding and it strengthen my view that a shirt is probably the most multi-purpose piece of clothing you can own. For this challenge the shirt have been through regular office work as well as hiking, gardening, furniture making, guitar building and regular dad duties in 3 seasons.

If you are looking to do a similar challenge I do have some minor tips to take into account that should make the challenge easier:

  • Start with a clean shirt (missing this caused some initial stain fixing for me)
  • Wear sleeved under-shirts (I prefer wool t-shirts and usually switch between two over a week washing them at the end of the week)
  • Air out both under-shirts and the shirt overnight
  • Take care when layering for colder weather (having to heavy layers on top can cause excessive sweat)
  • Research spot removal and don’t be afraid to test it out

This challenge have inspired me to be a lot more conscious about my wardrobe and it will be followed by a larger scale experiment with some sort of “capsule/minimal” wardrobe spanning a year.