After months of reading the Project 333 blog, Miss Minimalist, and other minimalism/capsule wardrobe blogs, I had whittled down my clothes to a manageable and enjoyable amount. My housemates (DH and two friends) started to get interested the more I talked about it and they kept seeing me drag bags of stuff through the house. So last week we held a house "wardrobe audit." I scheduled it formally and sent an email with a bunch of instructions for thinking about de-cluttering clothes (like "does this fit my lifestyle right now?"). I think that helps people take it seriously and there is some accountability when de-cluttering in a group.
Everyone brought their entire wardrobe into the living room/dining room and dumped it in a pile. Then we went through each category of clothes (pants, shorts, dress shirts, tops, winter coats), each person going through their own clothes. It was such a fun way to go through stuff! It is way easier to part with things when they are in a pile on your couch then stuffed in the back of a closet. It is also easier to part with things when you stack like things together and realize that you have 5 winter coats, and perhaps that is a bit much. It is also easier and more fun to do a big de-cluttering push together (dance music, cookies, etc.) and you can ask advice on things you are on the edge about. It took about 3 hours, but we ended up donating almost 100 items to Goodwill.
Even though I basically forced my house to participate in de-cluttering with me, they seemed to enjoy it. Afterwards one housemate said, "maybe we can do this again next month in the kitchen!"