Minimalism is an increasingly popular lifestyle movement in western economies (predominantly in the USA, Japan and Europe) that involves voluntarily reducing consumption and limiting one’s possessions to a bare minimum. This is with the intention of making space for the ‘important’ (potentially immaterial) things that are seen to add meaning and value to one’s life. Drawing on interviews with minimalists in the UK, this article reveals that minimalists practice sustainable (non)consumption via limiting their consumption. This is achieved by actively buying less, using up and maintaining what is owned, and, when objects are acquired, only practising highly intentional, considered and (sometimes) ethical consumption. For some, such practices are predominantly based on strong ethical and environmental motivations or are seen as a positive ‘by-product’ of their minimalist lifestyles. Whilst for others, their motivations are primarily aligned to personal well-being. The article subsequently argues that the limited and considered practices of minimalist consumption can be seen as sustainable practices in outcome, if not always in intent.

Minimalist fashion has become a key element of the wider minimalist movement that promotes reducing one's wardrobe space to a bare minimum of essential items (or a 'capsule wardrobe') with few, quality items that co-ordinate. Minimalist inspired 'fashio n challenges', in which participants are challenged to only wear a certain number of garments over a certain time period, have also gained increasing momentum: particularly in the USA and the UK. This study considers 'Project 333' (in which participants must only where 33 items of clothes over a three-month period), and 'the 6 Items Challenge' (which requires participants to only wear 6 garments over 6 weeks), to explore their potential to encourage sustainab le fashion (non)consumption. This is achieved via an analysis of 20 blog posts of individua ls reflecting on their own participation in the two challenges and an auto-ethnography of my own participation in the 6 Items Challenge. The research reveals that whilst just over half of participants mentioned sustainability as a motivation or outcome of their participation in a fashion challenge, the challenges' focus on garment reduction, re-use, repair and not shopping whilst partaking in them, renders them sustainably driven in practice. Almost all challenge s also mentioned personal benefits of conducting a fashion challenge (such as money and time saved plus greater fashion creativity) which could be seen as a helpful way in which to encourage their uptake. However, the paper also considers the idealisation of 'perfect' minimalist wardrobe spaces and subsequent fashioned identities and issues regarding who has the pecuniary means to embrace the quality over quantity narrative of the challenges. The paper therefore concludes that fashion challenges do have the potential to encourage more sustainab le This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as

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