Hi,

This is going to be another long post. I tried to bold some subtopics in case you have a specific one in mind.

To read more about the challenge, including the rules, click here.

For Week 3 recap click here.

Hot on the heels of a number of observations from week 3, I wanted to test some of my findings during week 4. I had learned that I do not have enough toppers for our cold weather so that was an area I knew I wanted to increase in size. Also during week 2, I realized that I was not happy letting my new purchases that were meant to be wardrobe refreshers sit unworn. Week 4 was about adjusting my wardrobe size and incorporating items I’ve been missing.

My Shopping Plan:

I started off by going shopping in the boutique. Before I began, I came up with a plan.

1. I decided on my best guess of the ideal number of toppers, layering tops and bottoms I need for the current season.
2. I compared what I had in the working closet, with my best guess.
3. I came up with a total of 10 toppers, 10 layering tops and 6 bottoms.

Where did I get 10 toppers and tops from? I had only four toppers before I shopped so this is the area I wanted to increase in size the most. I was repeating these four items every week and did not like that level of repetition. I’d rather sport an item every other week to work, although repeating on weekends is ok. Following the idea of Mo’s wardrobe size and my personal repeat/remixing preferences (two items per bottom) I added an additional six toppers.

I had nine layering knits/LS T’s and that seems to be working ok so far so I only added one more.

Where did I get six bottoms from? I know that I prefer to repeat a bottom more
than once a week. I also know that I have some new bottoms meant to be wardrobe refreshers sitting unworn. So I added one new bottom. This still keeps me under seven so I can repeat every week, but now I will only be able to repeat one bottom a week if I want to continue wearing everything every week.

I also wanted to add one thermal top and one scarf. I am assuming as the season progresses I’m going to wear the thermals more often and I enjoy scarves to mix up solid tops.

Shopping in Action:

I started off with adding two “outfits” based off of my trendiest pair of jeans (grey metallic skinnies) which were purchased as a wardrobe refresh during NAS. These are a statement pair compared to the more subtle bottoms in my closet.

I created two outfits around the jeans. I pulled a sweater/jumper that was purchased specifically for the jeans. Then I added a solid blazer (black) that is a neutral that will coordinate with everything in my closet. I then added my trendiest
turtleneck to pair with the jeans and blazer. (photo 1)

By adding these four items, I was able to address the issue at week 2. I now have a pair of bottoms that were purchased as a style refresh and are relatively new, fit for the weather of our current season, and were not currently being worn. I originally thought about just adding in the jeans, but they are a metallic grey and do not remix very well with the other items in my working closet. Also, one of the sweaters, was purchased specifically to sport with the jeans, as I liked the entire outfit when I saw it in the NAS catalog. Then I built a second outfit using items in
the boutique that were not new purchases and now I have my two new outfits.

I then added another sweater/jumper that was a new purchase for the season. A white sweater. It has a subtle sheen to it and is white, a nice color to mix up from the darker palette I just created with the grey metallic jeans. I didn’t realize it at
the time, but I think this sweater will also coordinate with the grey jeans.

Then I reached for two more sweaters/jumpers and a black cardigan to round out my toppers total to 10 items. The remaining two sweaters were favorites last year and the black cardigan I added because I currently own two black cardigans and neither of them were in the working closet yet.

Finally I added a printed scarf that only coordinated with the sweater/jumper I was wearing while I was shopping. Why did I do this? Sometimes when I shop I want to freshen up the outfit I am shopping in, so I added a blue printed scarf.

And photo 2 is my shopping haul of 10 “new” items.

Reflections on shopping

Even shopping my own “boutique” I had some purchasing and returning.

At first when I started pulling items from the boutique that caught my eye. This is how I shop in the stores, I always go for what catches my eye first before I consider what I really “need.” When I looked at my original selections along with the items in my working closet some items were not pairing with anything in the closet! Now I have a large wardrobe (if you combine the boutique with the working closet) so usually when I make a purchase if I cannot immediately think of a good pairing I don’t worry about it because I know there is SOMETHING at home that will make it work. And indeed there are other items in the boutique that pair well together. But those items that would not coordinate well with my CURRENT working closet were “returned” back to the boutique.

Sometimes I think it’s a workhorse item and it’s really just excessive repetition.

Another habit I have when I shop, is I will see an item that I think is a workhorse piece, and it turns out it’s really not. When I grabbed the black blazer my first reaction was, I should also grab a black turtleneck, a black pullover, and a black cardigan because black remixes with everything in my working closet. However, when I looked at them together with my working closet I realized I had four out of my 10 total toppers, all in black! This is a little too much black for me, especially since I will wear at least two (or maybe three) of these items every week. So I put two of the black pieces back and reached for a color on the opposite spectrum (the white pullover) deliberately to mix up from all the darker colors I had. This probably explains why I have some heavy repeats in the boutique (2 black cardigans, 4 black turtlenecks, 3 grey layering knits, etc).

Everything does not have to coordinate with everything in your closet.

I don’t anticipate some of my “new” items remixing well with my working closet. That’s ok as long as every topper and every layering top can be remixed into at least two outfits. Some items I anticipate will remix more than that (grey vneck that I’ve worn every week since I started this challenge I’m looking at you) and that’s ok because I don’t mind a little bit of creating new outfits. I just don’t want to have to
always come up with new outfits, nor do I always want to be limited with only the same couple of pairings. Having a small range of flexibility with pieces was my goal.

Photo 3 is my current closet with the new additions.

And here are the stats.

Starting week 4, I had 42 items:

6 bottoms

1 hoodie

10 toppers (added 3 sweaters/pullovers, 1 blazer, 1 bomber
jacket, 1 cardigan)

6 knits

3 gear items

1 shirt (for layering)

3 LS T’s (for layering-added one LS T in a print [stripes])

4 tanks (for layering)

3 thermal layers

3 scarves

2 workout outfits (top and bottom)

I'll try to post outfits soon and thanks for reading!

Edit to add: Here are the outfits.