The start of a new year, still clouded by the recession, is a fitting time to purge. And it may bring better focus, more profit, more savings, or just freedom. Get rid of excess shoes, books, gadgets, or, as in the case of the Brooklyn Museum, precious artifacts.

The museum decided to declutter its overstuffed closets of items it acquired when it hoped to become the biggest museum in the world. It is preparing to return 4,500 pre-Columbian treasures taken from Costa Rica about a century ago, culling its collection to reduce storage costs and conserve staff members’ time. Kevin Stayton, the Brooklyn Museum’s chief curator, told The Times it was an effort, in a time of strained budgets, to make sure “we’re not overextending ourselves.”

This tighter focus is on the menu. Literally. Restaurants trained on a single dish or a niche ingredient, are popping up all over, especially in New York. The Meatball Shop has a menu built around, well, meatballs. Hill Country Chicken has one entree: fried chicken. And the first outlet of a Brazil-based mini-chain called The Best Chocolate Cake in the World opened in SoHo last year.

It’s a pattern that more chefs are following, The Times reported, cutting unnecessary trappings and focusing on what’s important: the food. John Fraser, a chef, has signed a short-term lease for a space in downtown Manhattan. Because the place will not necessarily be a keeper, Mr. Fraser is keeping his investment low, he told The Times.

There won’t be a sign outside, the bar will be stocked with only one brand of each spirit, and there will be just two whites, two reds and one sparkling wine.

“I want to strip things down to what’s really important,” Mr. Fraser told The Times, “and figure out what’s really essential.”

So do a growing number of retailers like Bloomingdale’s and Nike, which are trying smaller stores and an edited inventory to cut costs and cater to consumers spending with greater purpose, The Times reported.

“The customer walks in the door, and often sees a huge selection of stuff in a multibrand store, and can’t figure out what to buy and ends up buying nothing,” Paco Underhill of Envirosell, a Manhattan-based company that advises stores on shoppers’ behavior, told The Times.

“We have reached the apogee of the big box, meaning that we can’t grow the store or the shopping mall any bigger .”

And that’s probably fine for the fashion world because it is also paring down, as the designers in Milan’s recent men’s fashion week chose a minimalist approach. The Prada collection was mostly without gimmicks, The Times wrote, or even gadget pockets. There were practically tailored garments and modest materials at Gucci, Versace and Dsquared. “ Consumers have too much on their minds … to be caught up in fashion theatrics and folderol,” Cathy Horyn wrote in The Times.

Roche Fierman, who runs New York’s Little Elves, a cleaning service used by some of the city’s fanciest designers , cleaned the excess out of her own life. She has just three dinner plates, the two shelves in the living room are bare and she throws out books when she is done reading them.

“What I think I learned from the crash, and from some of my clients who are owned by their things, is that it is a ridiculous way of life,” she told The Times. “It has taken me years to really realize items are not worth worrying about.”


ANITA PATIL