Vaguely Horsey, Must Be the Boots--Friday, 2/19/16
The cobalt blue blouse in this inspiration photo reminded me a lot of a blue blouse that I am trying to wear more often. I wasn't sure how well it would work to try to get one more wear in during the Work the Wardrobe Challenge (now that the weather is cold) but this was a promising combination.
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| From bridgetteraes.com |
I felt that my version was reasonably faithful to the original (yep, it helps that I wear the same cognac boots as she prefers), though I did wear skinny jeans instead of skinny ponte pants (which I do not own). The tweed blazer in the inspiration photo is awesome, but I wore this surprisingly useful mottled black/brown jacket instead. (I think it was probably a part of a suit originally, though I bought only the jacket at the thrift store.) When you want to wear both black and brown in an outfit, it can look a bit odd unless you make it look very intentional, and I find that wearing an item that already incorporates both colors is an easy solution to this.
Brown/black open front blazer (thrifted, Perceptions New York), $1.67/wear
Skinny jeans (JCP), $1.23/wear
Blue short-sleeved blouse (212/Kohls), $6.66/wear
Black/pink/blue sparkly scarf (Target), $3.00/wear+
Tall cognac boots by Sam Edelman, $12.66/wear
Outfit total: $25.22/wear
Using that brown/black jacket made it feel more acceptable to me to wear both cognac boots and this black striped scarf (which complemented the blue color of the blouse and I needed to wear it for the WtW Challenge so I'm glad it worked out).
In other news...It was nice to wear my newly-re-waterproofed boots today because we had RAIN, that liquid that falls from the sky and makes the ground wet (not icy).
Jen sent me
this article about becoming a minimalist in the fashion realm by "wearing the same thing every day." It's an interesting synopsis, re-iterating some of the points we've talked about on this blog before re: the efficiency and lack of decision fatigue involved in having a uniform.
One thing that struck me about it, though, was that it seemed to conflate some very different approaches to dressing. For example, it talks about capsule wardrobes as though that is the same as "wearing the same outfit every day" (which I take to mean having a uniform). NO. I mean, you can use a capsule wardrobe as the basis for a uniform, but it's really not the same thing.
A capsule wardrobe is where you select a limited set of items that can be mixed and matched with each other to create various outfits. Capsule wardrobes are often developed around a particular season or a particular use situation (e.g., work, stay at home mom, formal). They often have a "minimalist" feel in the sense that you are limiting the number of items and there is often a focus on ensuring that you have your essentials covered.
But I do not believe that capsule wardrobes inherently lead to dressing the same all the time/wearing a personal uniform. For example, check out
this plus-size business casual capsule wardrobe--it contains a lot of different patterns, colors, and silhouettes so you might wear a bright ankle pant with a striped top and cardigan one day, a fit-and-flare patterned dress and blazer another day.
Here's another great example of a spring business casual capsule wardrobe--while utilizing a limited color palette to make mixing items easier, it has a lot of variety in the shapes (e.g., pencil skirt, ankle pants, bootcut pants, straight leg pants) and the textures of the items. Both of these capsules give you the opportunity to maximize the variety of looks you can achieve with a minimal number of pieces.
Of course, you could easily create a capsule wardrobe that supports wearing a uniform. Robert has a capsule wardrobe for his work clothes that makes it monkey simple for him to get dressed Monday through Thursday mornings in a pair of black or grey pants, a long-sleeved button up shirt (with a focus on blue, burgundy, and white color scheme), and matching black shoes/belt or oxblood shoes/belt. On Friday, he wears a pair of somewhat more casual beige pants with a long-sleeved green (solid or patterned) button up shirt and a brown shoes (more casual)/belt set. I helped him last time he "refreshed" his work wardrobe capsule and he was
extremely intentional about it.
But in addition to having a capsule wardrobe that maximizes variety, you can have a huge wardrobe of similar items from which you generate your uniform. There is nothing inherently contradictory about wearing a daily uniform consisting of a pair of skinny jeans, ballet flats, graphic T, and cardigan every day and owning an absolute TON of clothes. (I mean, have you checked
Threadless lately? A person could spend a gazillion dollars on t-shirts there.) And you might have a bunch of these items that mix and match well or have sets of them that you always wear together (e.g., you always wear the French bunny top with the grey striped cardigan and the bright pink ballet flats). Or you might go the easiest route of all and have a really basic uniform and only the essential items to support it--like a bunch of white, grey, and black T-shirts, jeans, a couple jackets/cardigans, a few pairs of shoes, maybe a button up shirt and a pullover sweater in the same white/grey/black color scheme.
I guess I see at least 3 dimensions in play in these discussions of wardrobe "minimalism," all of which can get conflated:
(1) Variety--do you wear a uniform or wear a lot of different looks?
(2) Wardrobe size--do you own few clothes or a lot of clothes?
(3) Intentionality--do you shop carefully and curate your closet to achieve an overall coherence in your wardrobe or do you shop more randomly?
I think it's important to remember that these are separate dimensions and that you can choose to be more minimalist on some and more maximalist on others.
Let's be clear--I am a wardrobe maximalist. I have high variety, a large wardrobe size, and a tendency to shop randomly. I have a lot of space to keep my clothes, I like bargain hunting and thrift shopping (both of which are highly reliant on serendipity), and obviously this whole thing is a hobby to me. So I'm not really going to start worshiping at the altar of minimalism for minimalism's sake.
I think that article forgot to point out one of the reasons to pursue wardrobe minimalism: It's what all the cool (non-"mainstream") kids are doing! It's a way to avoid the "artificial pursuits" created by capitalism. "Successful people" are doing it! People who want to criticize consumer culture and write self-congratulatory articles displaying their "social consciousness" on the Internet are doing it! (The quoted phrases all appear in the first couple paragraphs of the article.)
And thus as wardrobe minimalism becomes more frequently presented as the right way to have a wardrobe, people for whom wearing one of your
100 identical black turtlenecks every day (so that they can save their energy toward
being an asshole) is not immediately appealing start to feel pressure and stress about how they can become minimalists. (This can occur on top of existing feelings of anxiety and inadequacy because they are "mindful" enough. Living a life of mindful minimalism while ensuring you have lots of interesting, enviable photos to post to social media is like the holy grail right now, I think. Here I am wearing sustainably-produced organic cotton yoga pants, eating a perfect locally-grown tropical fruit you've never heard of and sitting with my gorgeous puppy on top of a mountain in the Andes.)
I wholeheartedly agree that minimalism can be awesome. I have embraced food minimalism (eating the same simple meals over and over again, so low in variety, low in pantry size, and high in intentionality) and I am not looking back. I mean, it frees up a lot of time for taking photographs of my scarves and posting them on the Internet, you know? But it's not a necessity, it's not a morally superior way to live, it's not a competition, it's not something to beat yourself up over if you can't get as minimalist as somebody you read about on the Internet. Minimalism (which is itself a multi-faceted construct) is something to do in the ways and to the extent that it serves you.
If you read no other thing in the world about capsule wardrobes, you MUST read
this take on the reality of a capsule wardrobe for moms. She had me at "1 set of fairy wings."
