The Fashion Diet: No New Clothes for 1 Year

Here’s a policy that husbands and boyfriends can certainly get behind. Women across the world are pledging not to buy any new clothes for one full year.

The movement, dubbed The Great American Apparel Diet, was started by Sally Bjornsen from Seattle back in September. She convinced a few friends and family to join, and it has since grown to include more than 100 members from countries as far away as England, Italy and Serbia, just to name a few.

Bjornsen, who had previously worked in retail, recently told ABC that she was largely motivated to start the site after learning that many Americans continued to spend more money than they had even during the recession. "I was sick of what was happening in our country with consumerism," she told ABC. "But I totally understood it because of the way we're marketed to.”

So she decided to push people to eliminate their clothing expenses. Of course, there are a few caveats. People who join this movement are still allowed to buy underwear (phew!) and can swap clothes with friends. Interestingly, they can also continue to buy shoes and accessories, which seems sort of like cheating, but is probably good for morale.

Each person who decided to sign up for the diet has a small blurb about themselves on the site explaining their motives. And each motive is slightly different than the others. One 28 year old woman did it for the challenge, others realized they were just spending too much money on their wardrobe.