why less is more; Feel the pace of fashion is too fast.

Byline: Mark Holgate

Aleksandra Woroniecka rummages around the closet in her West Village walk-up apartment and produces her beloved navy Chanel cardigan jacket. The Paris-born, New York-based stylist treasures this piece because it does exactly what all good Chanel cardigan jackets should do: elongates the arms, narrows the torso, lifts the shoulders with a little Gallic shrug. It has been performing this miracle of tailoring for the past fourteen years, yet its staying power goes beyond its ability to endure physically. Woroniecka measures its value in mental, not just material, terms. And that's the standard she uses for each and every rare wardrobe addition she makes. "I want fashion to have some meaning, and to last," she says.

How times change. A decade ago, Woroniecka felt driven to add more, more, more to her closet. "I'd see someone wearing a piece that I liked," she recalls, "and then buy the exact same thing. Then I would discover it wasn't me at all." Now she knows what works for her, so she buys less, less, less. Here, briefly, is what she has been getting by on, give or take the Courreges shift circa 1968 and a stack or two of striped matelot sweaters and tees: 1. Six navy jackets, including Balenciaga and Charles Anastase and a couple of boyish vintage blazers. 2. Ten pairs of lean jeans, dark and plain, that can pass for pants when required. 3. Four bags, with not a hint of It: black Hermes Birkin, Balenciaga brown leather saddle bag, and two Chanel gilt-chain-strap classics. 4. A pile of ballet flats of varying stripe and persuasion. 5. Two pendants, and a ring that belonged to her mother.

It's hardly nothing, but given the way that our wardrobes are rapidly expanding, it isn't that much. Yet Woroniecka doesn't feel deprived. She can quite happily say those immortal but not-often-heard words I have enough. She is, in fact, one of a growing number of women who have gladly gotten off the shopping merry-go-round of Always Something New and prefer to live with what they have unless something truly extraordinary and/or useful crosses their path.

Call it a reaction to where fashion is at these days. We live in an era when everything is bigger and better: our awareness of trends; our sense of personal wealth; and the readily available choice of fantastic, directional pieces, be they luxury label, mass brand, or collaborations like Kate Moss for Topshop and designers' luxe-for-less looks for Target. This proliferation of fashion has an upside: Everyone has greater access to it. But the downside is that somewhere along the way, constant, voracious accumulation became the norm. Woroniecka isn't the only one who wants to reconnect with what fashion used to be about: not just the mere act of acquisition but an investment, be it a $9 tee or a $1,900 coat, that enriches her look and, ergo, her life with a degree of self-expression and self-respect.

Of course, asking, Do I really need this? has become increasingly subject to ethical and ecological concerns. On the one hand, there is the true cost of whatever comes out of the fashion chain. Louise Trotter, creative director of the inexpensive U.K. brand Jigsaw, which plans to expand in the United States beyond its handful of stores in California, says that we need to ask ourselves what allows a pair of jeans to carry a $20 price tag. "When you factor in the fabric, the shipping, and the overseas production," she says, "then you know it should be a lot higher. So who is losing out?"

On the other, there is considering the impact a piece will have on the environment when you factor in a basic concern like how to care for it. Chicagoan Stephanie Arnett has, she says, become fiendish about checking labels. If something she deems could be washed by hand or machine says dry clean only, "I won't buy it," she declares. "There's the impact of all ...