Thirty-three. That’s how many wardrobe items participants were allowed in an eight-week research study by Haeun (Grace) Bang, ’18 Ph.D.

Bang, who received support through gifts to the U’s College of Design, studied the capsule wardrobe trend for her thesis. A capsule wardrobe is a small collection of essential clothes that can be mixed and matched. The average number of items in the participants’ closets before the study was 150.

Bang found the exercise prompted participants to be creative in how they used the items, combining them into 40 different outfits, on average.