Your alarm goes off at 5:25am. Crap, time to get up and go to work. You stumble into your closet, glance side to side and think, “What the heck am I going to wear today?” You reach for a cobalt blue blouse and think, “This will do.” You start to leave your closet but you stop short and think, “Wait, when did I wear this last? Was it last week? Was it three days ago?” You rush back into your closet because we CAN’T re-wear the same blouse so soon. Crap, now what do you wear??!!
I know y’all know what I’m talking about. It’s not like were worried about wearing the same outfit twice in a month, but twice in a week??? Sorry, but that just can’t happen. So, what are we to do? How do we fix this crisis? Here’s what my sister, Windy, started doing and it’s brilliant! When she gets home from work and changes into her “comfy clothes”, she hangs the blouse she wore that day in the very front of her closet. She does this every single day so that newly worn tops are added to the front while older worn tops are pushed further back. By doing this she has created a natural rotation of her tops. She walks into her closet and instantly knows what she has worn recently because they are in order that way. If she doesn’t want to waste time planning an outfit, she just picks the blouse that’s hanging in last position. Told you – BRILLIANT! Three weeks ago, I decided to give her system a try and I’ve learned two important lessons. The first is that the blouses I wear the most are all blue, green, tan, or white. (Guess I found my color palette.) Secondly, the blouses that are now in this rotation only make up 25% of my closet. That means there’s 75% of my closet that I’m wearing very rarely or not at all. To see it lined up that way was an eye opener. I’m almost nine months into this one year challenge and I thought I had a clear idea of what I was going to keep and what I was going to purge when this is over. After rotating my clothes with this system for only three weeks, I know see I have a lot more I could get rid of. So, here’s your challenge. Start rotating your clothes like my sister has been. You’ll find two positive benefits from it – you’ll easily know what you wore recently and you’ll also see what you’re NOT wearing at all. Post a comment and let me know how you did!
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It’s August and I can’t believe I’m eight months into this One Year No New Clothes
challenge. Omg, I can see the finish line now. Whew…. I think most of you have gotten to know the “real” me over this time and I’m not going to start lying to you now. No, I haven’t purchased new clothes, but I’m already planning my first shopping trip IN MY HEAD. Seriously! I’ve picked the day, the places, and the items. It’s like I’ve started planning my wedding or something. Is that sad? And as excited as I get thinking about my first new purchase in a year (it will be a purse, btw) I’ve started to wonder how these new items are going to make me feel. Will I feel elated or will I feel guilty? Either way, I know I’ll value them more than I’ve valued new clothing in the past. My hope is that I continue to purchase new clothing LESS in the future, and when I do go shopping, I will go knowing exactly what I need. The last thing I want to do is fall back into old habits of shopping just to produce a “fake high.” It’s not like I think buying new clothes is a bad thing, but maybe we should all be a bit more deliberate in what we are buying. I read this great article that suggests everyone not shop for three months and then keep track of the items you wear during that time. This will show you how little of your wardrobe you actually wear, and you’ll start to notice the outfits you wear over and over. Turns out there’s a REASON why we wear only 20% of our wardrobes. Fashion stylist Ali Call explains it this way: We are living in a fast-paced world and with so many variables at play, an easy solution is to quickly choose from something paired with success at an earlier date. These pieces become the wardrobe front- runners because they have a proven track record. And now that I have had almost a year of wearing the same things over and over, my eyes are finally open and I see this pattern for myself. There are times when I take the time to mix up my wardrobe and work at pairing pieces together. If the outfit is a “success,” I find that I wear it over and over again…and I grow lazy…again. So instead of heading back to the mall out of wardrobe boredom, maybe we should go with a purpose and treat it like grocery shopping. No, really. Think of it this way – if you know you want to cook a certain recipe, you go to the store with a list of the ingredients you need. If you didn’t do that, Lord knows how the meal would turn out. Why should we put more thought into what we’re buying for our refrigerators then we do for our closets? It’s true, I HAVE to buy clothes next week – BUT NOT FOR ME!
My daughter is starting 9th grade soon and like every other parent in America right now, I’m off to buy her overpriced, low quality, back-to-school clothes so that she can “fit in.” Sigh…. I’m pretty lucky as a parent though because my daughter hates to shop and doesn’t like most of the current trends that are “so basic” (her words). My daughter would love it if she could wear the same pair of leggings and fandom t-shirt every day of the year, but even she knows that she’s being judged on her wardrobe, and she feels the pressure of “dress to impress.” So, I’m stuck in this ongoing mental dilemma of wanting to teach my daughter that clothes aren’t the most important thing, but I still want her to feel confident at school. As much as I want to tell her that clothes don’t define us, I know they do. The person we are on the inside is expressed in how we accessorize the outside. My daughter is artistic and smart and, at the age of thirteen, already knows she doesn’t want to shop at Abercrombie & Fitch. She has no interest in Ugg boots or North Face jackets. All she wants to do is order fandom t-shirts from Hot Topic and wear black leggings. And who am I to tell her no? Not buying clothes this year is a personal decision of mine, something I felt I needed to do to change my perceptive and to get my own priorities straight. I haven’t purchased any clothes in eight months, but I still have a closet full of items that help me express my own style and personality. So, even though my daughter has clothes that still fit from last school year, I’m going to take her shopping and I’m going to let her pick out multiple outfits. I’m going to let her buy fandom t-shirts and dark blue hoodies because they make her feel comfortable. I’ll spend too much money on a pair of Converse sneakers because she really wants them and they express her own person style. And I’m 100% ok with it. |
AuthorMy name is Misty Day (yeah, that really is my name) and I'm a normal every day person. I'm a twin, I work as an analyst, I take my daughter to Girl Scouts and swim team, I play bass guitar in a band, I love food and wine, I like new clothes, and I'm trying to be a better person. Archives
December 2017
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