In March 2024, we tasked 46 Stockholm-based customers and four employees to wear - as far as possible - only 8 ASKET garments for an entire year. The goal: To study the longevity of our garments by way of an accelerated, longitudinal wear-and-wash tracking program. And to understand how it impacts everyday life to radically reduce the amount of garments at our disposal.

We built a basic tracking app, that sends a text message to each participant every evening, asking you to register what you've worn during the day, if you've washed the garment and how you rate the condition of the garment on a scale from 1 (trash) to 5 (mint), to monitor the degradation over time. In March 2025, we'll have one years worth of data and collect the garments for qualitative review to understand how they hold up over time.​

Generally, yes. 87% of days people are wearing at least one of the garments. In fact on average 2 of the 8 garments are worn every day. When talking to our testers, they seem to have little issues having so few garments at their disposal.

What's more, 300 days into the test, we find that even with just 8 garments at their disposal, there is significant variation in garment utilization: Some participants have worn a pair of jeans hundreds of times, while they've worn their oxford shirt just a handful of times. If a wardrobe consisting of just eight garments is under-utilized, what does that mean for normal wardrobes consisting of dozens, sometimes hundreds of pieces of clothing?

The short answer: We don't know yet.

The long answer: After 300 days, an average of 62 wears and 12 washes per garment, their condition is rated on average 4/5. The garments are nowhere near being disposed of. If you consider that one might wear a garment on average once a week normally, that means we have 1 years of wear in the bag, on average, for each garment - and probably plenty of years left to go.

If we go beyond averages and look at the most worn garments in the test, we have T-Shirts that have been worn 135 times with condition ratings of 4/5 - that's almost 3 years worth of wear with nearly any degradation. There are jeans that have been worn over 300 times with condition ratings of 4/5 - that's 3-6 years worth of wear, and still no sign of abating. Some garments that are used less frequently than more intimate garments, like our knits and shirts, need much more time to see how long they last. These numbers are supported by the empirical experiences of how long our garments last based on ASKET team member and customers accounts.

• 50 men in Stockholm are participating in the test from March 8th 2024 to March 8th 2025

• They’re required to wear at least one of eight ASKET garments 85% of days

• The garments are 2 T-Shirts, 1 Oxford Shirt, 1 Merino Sweater, 1 Cashmere Sweater, 1 Sweatshirt, 1 pair of jeans, 1 pair chinos

• After 300 days, the average track rate is 87%, with 4/5 people tracking over the goal, wearing on average 1,9 of the 8 garments every day

• 24.000 wears have been tracked, aggregated

• Each garment has been worn on average 62 times, and washed 12 times

• On average the garments now have a condition rating of 4/5 (1 - trash, 5 - mint)

• The average cost per wear is down to 19 SEK or ca 1,55 EUR or 1,69 USD

• Some garments have been worn over 300 times, bringing down the cost per wear to about 5 SEK or 0,44 EUR or 0,49 USD​

• It's logistically tough to wear so few garments as they often become unavailable, waiting for laundry day.

• Most participants seem to find that, over time, the benefits of simplifying your choices outweigh the drawbacks of limited variation, feeling free with a limited wardrobe

• Even with a very limited wardrobe, some garments are left nearly unused

• The devil is in the details: with s few garments having the right color and fit in every garment is critical for utility

• After 300 days, sometimes hundreds of wears and washes, the garments are generally nowhere near finished. The only garments that have been rated 1/5 ("unwearable") so far have been subject to accidents (stains, tears etc).