Love decluttering and minimalism? You're probably loaded and flaunting it

• Maximalism stages a comeback in interiors
• Forget minimalism, glamorous interiors are in
• The minimalist movement: owning less to live more

It might be difficult to believe, because we all love white walls, but the minimalism backlash has already begun. In the early 1980s, a sparse loft with only a futon for furniture was the peak of aspirational living, now it likely means you’re loaded – and flaunting it.

In this age of rabid consumerism, most middle class families would admit they have too much clutter in their home. We know this because the de-cluttering craze, which began in earnest on Oprah and has reached its zenith with Japanese professional organiser Marie Kondo, has enjoyed so much popularity.

Now, as anyone who has children will attest, keeping a home moderately tidy is an ongoing challenge. You either have the time to keep your home exceptionally clean, or the money to have someone clean for you.

Either way, that’s a rather luxurious lifestyle you have going for yourself. Lower-middle class families, where two parents work outside the home just to get by, likely don’t have the time or energy to devote to the perfect folding of jumpers and socks until your wardrobe resembles a work of artistic brilliance, a la Marie Kondo.

And while we’re talking about Marie Kondo, if you follow her motto, throwing out anything that doesn’t “spark joy”, it means you have the privilege of disposing of excess stuff, safe in the knowledge that there’s plenty more where that came from.

As Reductress, the parody women’s website, pointed out last month, the advantages of decluttering your life include, “no longer [being] bogged down with all that stuff you don’t need … that you can immediately order again on Amazon. Thankfully, you make enough money that owning things feels like a burden!”

This de-cluttering craze began with Japanese professional organiser Marie Kondo. Photo: Penguin

This is why Chelsea Fagan, writing for The Guardian, calls the minimalist trend “just another form of conspicuous consumption, a way of saying to the world: ‘Look at me! Look at all of the things I have refused to buy, and the incredibly-expensive, sparse items I have deemed worthy instead!'”

Fagan likens it to all the other self-righteous trends currently over-taking the zeitgeist, describing it as a household manifestation of clean eating and yoga. “There are a million variations – fitting all your belongings into a single box, small-house or van living, radical de-cluttering, extreme purges of technology or social activity, etc – but they all hold the same vague, usually unspoken level of superiority.”

In this sense, minimalism is the new thin. In 13th century Europe, when food was scarce, and starvation common, obesity was synonymous with wealth and power. In 2017 we understand that, for most of the developed world, leanness, particularly for women, is symbolic of not just wealth, but self-worth.

Look at actress-turned-lifestyle-guru Gwyneth Paltrow, the human nexus of fashion, righteous eating, aggressive exercise and ludicrously expensive homewares. She knows the right foods to eat, (organic, grain-fed, which are the most expensive) and she eats them in the correct amounts. Is it a surprise that Paltrow’s website, Goop, extols the virtues of Marie Kondo?

A decluttered house used to be considered a sign of anxiety and loneliness. Photo: Stocksy

Similarly, if every middle class household is able to purchase three TVs, then the real sign of wealth is watching all your programs on a cordless, wireless, thin-as-paper screen that can easily disappear into your rice-coloured wall.

But it’s more than an empty sense of superiority driving minimalism. Whittling your possessions down to the very basics, writes Arielle Bernstein, is now perceived as a sign of moral fortitude. “Those who live in KonMari homes are presented as being more disciplined: invulnerable to the throes of nostalgia, impervious to the temptation of looking back at something that provokes mixed feelings.”

A decluttered house, with three pieces of furniture and no piles of clothes in sight, no toothbrushes on the basin; no little bowl of loose change, used to be considered a sign of anxiety and loneliness.

Remember Ferris Bueller’s sidekick, Cameron? His bedroom appeared to consist of a grey bed and a phone. Ferris even described it as a “very cold” museum where you weren’t allowed to touch anything.

One might argue, that in an age where we are more physically isolated from one another than ever before; where our homes are less about hospitality and more about taking refuge from our harried, anxiety-driven schedules, it would seem that minimalism as a life movement, is not simply about conspicuous consumption but rather the authentic connections with people that are missing from our lives.