Less Is More in a Culture of Sameness

From design to fashion, minimalism through Less is More promised focus. But what if it is erasing something more important?

By Hans Sandkuhl, eolas – 14 minutes read

Every evening, before anything else, I clear my table. Today’s cup goes to the sink, a few papers get stacked, the charger tucked away and all messy post-it notes aligned symmetrically. The space feels calmer and safer for tomorrow. In that small moment, “less is more” makes total sense to me. It feels like I am clearing my head just by clearing a surface.

Many of us may reach for that phrase when life feels too full. It reassures teams under pressure to simplify. It helps friends feel lighter when they let go of things they no longer use, just like Mari Kondo used to teach us on TV. At first, it seems wise, cleaner, easier, quieter.

And still, I keep wondering. Is all this simplicity starting to erase something else? Not just clutter and noise, but character and expression. I look around and I see fewer bright colours, fewer bold ideas, fewer unusual opinions being voiced out loud. Music starts to sound the same. Fashion loses its contrast. Even disagreement feels toned down. Could it be that we are making room, but also making everything the same? Why is this happening, is our individuality at stake? 

There is something in the air that feels less personal, more aligned, more… safe. Too safe I would say. I still believe in the value of Less. What I question is what we might be losing without realizing it. And who decides what gets kept, and what quietly disappears.

Where the Phrase Took Shape

The idiom “Less Is More” came from an architect. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said it almost a century ago as a design principle, his personal mantra, and he meant it literally: fewer materials, fewer decorative elements, fewer distractions. The structure itself should speak.When you walk through the Barcelona Pavilion, one of his most famous works, you feel it. The space is open, almost empty, but not cold. A single line, a smooth surface, a silent material, they do more than fill space, they shape it. You notice what is there, because so little is trying to compete for attention. Mies did not want to impress. He wanted to create clarity.

That clarity became a philosophy in everything from product design to presentations, not just in buildings. His phrase travelled far beyond concrete and glass, picked up by creatives, CEOs, and lifestyle coaches alike, myself included. 

Each of us use it to mean something slightly different. And perhaps that is where the story starts to blur. When a principle escapes its original context, it starts serving new purposes, and not always in the way it was first intended.

Focus Becomes a Filter

In business, Less Is More has turned into a mantra, too. Strategy teams now aim for tighter portfolios, sharper roadmaps, and faster decision-making. The logic sounds reasonable: focus on fewer projects, test ideas quickly, and kill the ones that do not work. Harvard frames this as “failing fast,” and many startups embrace it with pride. One clear direction, one strong product, one key market.

And yet, I feel something is quietly changing underneath. The room for playful detours gets smaller. Anything too complex, too early-stage, too uncertain is often cut before it has a chance to show its value. Wild ideas, vague hunches, slow-growing bets, they all risk getting lost because they do not fit neatly into a sprint or a slide deck. 

Focus becomes a filter rather than a tool, and it decides what deserves to be seen.

I understand the reasons. Teams are under pressure. Capital is tight. Time is short. But if everything must prove its worth quickly and clearly, where does that leave the strange, the different, the slow? Simplicity makes things manageable. If taken too far, it starts shaping what gets built in the first place, not always based on merit, but on how easy it is to explain. That may be efficient, it is also a quiet way of narrowing the future.

Every Song Sounds the Same

Music tells us a lot about where a culture is heading. And lately, I hear less surprise, fewer risks and way less identity. Walk into almost any bar, club, or party and you will notice something: the same rhythm, the same drop, the same voice effects. What used to mark one place or one crowd now blends into a kind of universal background beat. The crowd moves, but nothing really moves you.

Part of this is driven by algorithms that reward what gets clicked most, not what makes you feel something deep or new. The more familiar a track sounds, the more likely it is to be recommended again, a loop that feeds itself until everything sounds vaguely similar.

Reggaetón is a striking example. Once rich with cultural roots and poetic energy, it has become a factory of repetitive beats and shallow lyrics. Not always, of course, but far too often. The problem is not that people enjoy it, music is personal, but that it fills every space, all the time becoming the new normal. It drowns out older Latin sounds that carried more history, more emotion, more craft. Salsa, cumbia, bolero… they get pushed to the margins by auto-tune.

And because the exposure is gone, the ear changes. Listeners no longer hear the nuance. DJs do not need to read the room. They play the same lists everywhere, and crowds are trained to respond to the beat more than the soul behind it. What gets lost is not just variety, but meaning, that emotional arc of a night. The surprise track that makes people stop and ask, whaaaat is this? That sense of local flavour, of something curated with intention to connect with your crowd. Now anyone with a phone can call themselves a DJ. And the audience, instead of being moved, is just… moving.

When everything becomes available and easy to blend, nothing truly stands out. We end up with more sound, but fewer voices.

Are You Getting Dressed To Blend In?

There was a time when getting dressed was an act of expression. Think of the seventies or eighties, the loud prints, the bold cuts, the flair. Even if you did not like it, you could still tell one person from another. There was personality in a jacket, confidence in a pair of shoes. Clothes were not just functional, they said something about who you were and what you dared to try.

Today, I step into shops and feel none of that. Everywhere I look: beige, oatmeal, off-white, soft khaki. Neatly folded racks of sand-coloured sameness.

We are told that it is not just a style choice, that it is sustainable. Responsible.  Neutral tones are easier to mix and match. Earth colours feel timeless. The same five shades reappear, season after season, now sold as “essential” and “versatile.” And yet, I cannot help thinking that behind this calm aesthetic is a quiet surrender. A giving up of personal taste in favour of not standing out. As if the goal is not to be beautiful or strange or bold, but to blend in politely.

Of course, fashion changes. But this change feels less like evolution and more like erasure. Recent articles in Vogue Business note how the rise of “quiet luxury”, those neutral, clean silhouettes once meant to project confidence, now feeds a wave of sameness. Even Normcore, once intended to reject trends, has settled into its own kind of uniform. Conformity, just with better fabric.

Pigment fades, and with it, something more personal: emotion, play, instinct. The joy of putting something odd and random together just because it felt right that day. Even the mannequins seem quiet. Safe. Tired. And my curiosity walks out of the store just as untouched as the credit card in my pocket.

When Restraint Becomes a Rule

Politics has its own version of less is more. You hear it in talks of lean government, simplified systems, and responsible cuts. Austerity is often praised as discipline, less spending, fewer programs, and tighter control. On paper, it may sound wise and even sound. In practice, I feel it strips away what makes public life feel human: care, creativity, and access.

And when too much is taken away, someone always shows up promising to bring it all back. Simpler, stronger, and more certain. Populist voices gain ground not because people want extremes, but because they are tired of emptiness.

At the other end, new movements call for smaller footprints. Less growth, less noise, less stuff. Degrowth makes some valid points, especially when it questions the damage done by endless production and their predecessors. Yet even here, I sometimes feel the same pressure to conform, to wear the right badge, say the right words, prove you consume the “right” way.

What begins as a personal choice slowly turns into a moral obligation. And in that shift, nuance disappears. It starts to feel more like obedience than awareness.

We are not living in 1984 (by George Orwell – not Orson Welles, easy mix-up). There are no loudspeakers barking orders, no thought police kicking down doors. And yet, something about today’s cultural climate feels oddly close, maybe not through force, but through silent alignment. The pressure does not come from a government. It comes from each other. From ourselves. We praise minimalism, mindfulness, and responsible choices. All good words. Still, the repetition of them, the total agreement around them, starts to resemble a kind of curated obedience. No one has to tell us what to do. We have already agreed to it.

And maybe that is the most unsettling part. No one needs to enforce uniformity anymore. We are doing it ourselves, one filtered opinion, one capsule wardrobe, one neutral stance at a time.

Less Tries to Save the Planet

Sustainability is often where the phrase less is more finds its strongest defenders. And on the surface, the logic makes totally sense to me. Less consumption means fewer resources burned, less waste, fewer emissions. Many of us now choose products labelled recycled, local, biodegradable, even if they cost a bit more. It feels like we are doing our part, right? 

I wonder though if we are asking the right questions. Buying less is framed as a climate solution, and perhaps it is. The way we tell that story matters. If the message becomes just “stop buying,” “own nothing,” or “consume with guilt,” it starts sounding like punishment more than progress. People want to feel in control of their choices, not shamed for them. If less is more, then less must come with meaning. There is a difference between deciding to live with intention, and being told to shrink your life.

And here is the part that is often left out. The biggest share of global emissions is no longer just from factories or energy. It comes from the full chain of what we buy, including things made elsewhere and shipped across oceans. That sweater, that phone, that lamp you loved. The math adds up quietly, behind the scenes.

So yes, personal choices do matter! We should not pretend that wearing beige and buying bamboo toothbrushes is enough to reshape the world. Real change still needs big systems to shift, not just individuals to behave. Minimalism is often sold as an environmental virtue. And it can be, but only when it gives people agency. When it becomes a moral standard, a purity test, or a marketing tool, it completely loses its soul.

Simplicity Must Follow Chaos

There is a reason we love clean lines and clear plans. I admire the beauty of a precise sketch, the sharpness of a single, well-made decision. The kind of elegance that only comes after you have explored every messy alternative. A two-ingredient recipe can feel like magic but only when you have tasted what happens with five, or twelve.

And then I think of teenagers remixing thrift-shop jackets into wild new silhouettes. That kind of personal rebellion, not for likes or labels, but just because it felt right in that moment. I think we need more of that, not less. Ideas grow in the space between certainty and confusion. First, we stretch out, we gather, we question. Then, we come back in lighter, clearer, more focused. That is how the best teams work. That is how artists work! That is how progress works. You reach the right answer by exploring the wrong ones first.

Society needs that same rhythm. Minimalism can offer clarity, and I insist in saying only when it follows curiosity. When we remove the messy part, with all its trial, noise, and surprises, we stop designing for life and start designing for control.  Expression deserves its season, and play deserves its place. Then, once we have seen enough, we can choose what to keep. That is how the world stays vivid, without falling into chaos or collapsing into silence.

If the public space still welcomed noise, colour, dissonance, and the disagreement, restraint would not feel like a punishment, it would feel like intention. And when the time comes to cut back, we would be trimming from a place of richness instead of lack.

I still believe in simplicity. I really do. I just do not believe in skipping the part that makes things worth simplifying.

A Personal Note on Simplicity

Less Is More began as an invitation to focus. A way to clear space and make room for what matters. When that choice comes from within, it can bring you freedom. When it comes from repetition, or the quiet pressure to stay neutral, it starts to feel like something else. Less alive. Less personal. Almost oppressive. 

I will keep clearing my desk each evening. That small act helps me return to what I need. But next to the order, I will leave one bright scarf on the chair. Not because it fits. Not because it follows a rule, but just because it is mine. That scarf is a reminder that colour matters, contrast matters. Sometimes even excess has its place.

It is a signal. A quiet way of saying I am still here, and I will not flatten myself to feel tidy.

Sources of inspiration for this Insight

• “Normcore” and “Flat Fashion” Are Not Anti-Expression
• Phaidon, “What did Mies van der Rohe mean by less is more?” 2014
• Harvard Business School Online, “Failing Fast: Why It Is Essential for Entrepreneurs,” 2025
• Wang, E., “Homogenization of Pop Music,” 2024