My wardrobe

For awhile I've been intrigued by the idea of minimalist wardrobes and wardrobe capsules.  The idea is basically that you have a limited number of clothes and you really like them.

I like the idea because what I do over and over and over again, is find something on a screaming sale and I buy it even if I only marginally like it because what a deal!  I may not like it enough to pay full price but when it's so cheap, I like it enough.

Then I end up with a closet full of clothes I sort of like and that may or may not look very good on me.

I read some blog posts about minimalist wardrobe and read some of their "rules".  I decided that I would try to limit my wardrobe to 25 items.  I bent the rules to not include shoes, church clothes or jackets.

Because jackets.

I love them.

I piled all my clothes on my bed.

It was rather disturbing.

I talked to Marianne on the phone part of the time I was sorting and stewing over clothes.  She thought I was crazy.  She said, "You have space and you like to shop.  What's wrong with that?"

I told her that I also like to eat brownies but I can't just do it all the time.

I want to be the type of person that is disciplined and only wears and more importantly buys things that are really great.  And if they are really great, I won't need too many of them, right?  (I want to be that type of person, but I'm such a make do, settle-for-whatever type of person, I don't know if I'll ever change.)

I enlisted Adam's help.  I tried on clothes and told him to be brutally honest.

We have been married long enough that he knew I didn't want him to be anything resembling brutally honest.  We have also been married long enough that I knew when he paused a second too long before responding or if he said things like, "It's not as flattering as some of the other clothes..." that I needed to toss the article of clothing in the donate pile immediately.

So after discarding what didn't work, I sorted out clothes that are out of season and I tried to limit myself to 25 choices for my current wardrobe.

Then I started cheating.  Kind of like when you cheat at playing solitaire.  It's ridiculous.  I started allowing clothes to stay on the basis of being used when I do things like yard work and I started classifying zip up hoodie sweatshirts as jackets so I could keep more of them.

Baby steps. Rome wasn't built in a day.

The good news is that I filled three garbage bags with clothes I am getting rid of.  My closet is about half full.

We'll see how it goes.