Week 1
I learned quite a bit about myself this week. Or more accurately, I no longer have any denial about one of my traits: my indecisiveness. I think it is the "permanence" factor that is causing the big issue. I know that clothes aren't permanent, but I don't want to be constantly buying new items. I'm not a big shopper, and my goal is to get wardrobe pieces of good quality that will last. This will take time, effort and money--added together that is a big investment in resources. I want to get things right, and that perfectionism is leading to an inability to make my final choices.
My first task was to decide the color scheme for my wardrobe. A large part of the efficiency of a capsule wardrobe, and one of the ways in which it reduces stress, is that you choose a limited color scheme so that your shirts, sweaters, trousers, skirts and accessories are mix-and-match. (See ideas below.)
That component is a big part of what appealed to me. So, no big deal, right?. Choose a color scheme. I know that I am an autumn--my mom made me get my colors done a long time ago when she was really into it. ;) I actually really like the autumn colors, so I figured this step would be easy. Au contraire! There are probably 20-25 basic colors for the autumn scheme in each palette you look at. I needed to limit that to 5 or maybe 6. Liking a lot of the colors is actually creating a problem. Who knew!
I'm lucky that I have a color palette, which looks a bit like paint chip samples bound together. (Update-I counted and there are 32 colors in mine.)
I played around with combinations for a few days. The colors were arranged in tonal groupings, and I couldn't really get an idea of how they would appear when next to each other, so I actually unscrewed them from the group to lay them out together and also hold them up to my face. Then I set them out on the dining room table so that when I walked by I could be "surprised" by a glimpse of them to see if they coordinated well and appealed to me. My dh (dear husband) asked what I was doing, and when I told him, he just gave me a confused look and said "ok". He knows about my project, so I think it was my strategy that had him baffled. When I asked his opinion about how I look in the chosen colors, he told me I looked good in all the colors I wear. (Someone trained him well, but it wasn't me.) I appreciate the sentiment and realize he was trying to avoid insulting me, but that comment was not helpful. Sigh.
I even took my colors to school and laid them out on the table in the library during the faculty meeting on Wednesday. I wanted to see how they looked under fluorescent lights and while I am in the work mindset, too. I didn't quite have the courage to tell anyone my wardrobe plan and ask them for color advice. Letting my friends/fellow teachers know would really place pressure on me. If this plan doesn't work, right now only my class, my dh and I would know, and my class will be leaving in a few short months! I will tell "outside" people when I feel more confident of my results.
Since last Friday, I have also read lots of advice and taken many quizzes to help determine my personal style, which is the other goal I set for the week. I've been told to "find a celebrity whose fashion you admire, look through images on the internet and make a collage or create a board of outfits you like in Pinterest, survey the items you love in your current wardrobe to see what elements they share", and other not-so helpful hints. The celebrity photos I viewed seemed to be filled with red-carpet wear, my Pinterest board seems to have no theme since I appear to like a bit of everything, and I really don't have enough clothes in my closet that I like to make any kind of trend.
The quizzes were worse. They, too, questioned me about my celebrity fashion icons (nonexistent), asked things about where I like to shop for clothes (I don't), and wanted to know where my ideal vacation destination would be (none of their choices).
I got crazy results that seem impossible to fuse into any kind of coordinated look. For example, bohemian (kind of hippyish) and classic(pretty traditional). Yep, I will wear my blazer with a big, floppy felt hat and my denim skirt--it would certainly be a distinctive style. I know that there are people who can combine those things and carry them off, I just don't think that I am one of them. It takes a certain confidence in your choices that I just don't have with my clothes.
In my opinion, the most valuable tip that I read was to go shopping and to try on different types of outfits: things you are attracted to, things you've seen others wear, things on display, even things you normally wouldn't try. This would seem to be the most effective way to see different clothes on your figure and really find out what you feel flatters you and that you like. Unfortunately, I don't really have access to a variety of clothing shops here in town, so I am going to do my best with photos, advice on figure-flattering styles from the internet, and what I have felt good in in the past.
So, I'm going with Classic style and can tweak with accessories. If it is too basic, I think it will be easy to change it with some additions, and going all funky and then trying to make it look more conservative, if I need to, seems much more difficult.
The colors are shown in the picture. They aren't quite as they appear in the photo, I'll have to be a bit flexible about them, obviously, but they are my starting points.
