Well friends, this has been a year, hasn’t it?

I have enjoyed reading everyone’s 2021 wrap-up/2022 look-ahead posts and have learned a lot from them. My apologies for not commenting on all the threads.

For me, 2021 has been a year when style took a back seat to other aspects of life. Physical and mental health challenges for family members in both the generation above and the generation below meant increased caregiving responsibilities for me. Plus we moved house mid-year (just across town, but still, after more than 15 years in one place it was a big undertaking). All of this left me with little bandwidth to focus on wardrobe management, outfit creation, or style creativity. It is what it is.

I had actually forgotten that I wrote a post this time last year with 2021 goals. I pretty much didn’t follow up on them at all. I still bought stuff, haphazardly, but I didn’t track my wardrobe or budget at all. (I am pretty confident I didn’t overspend; thanks Calvinist upbringing!) I wore some of the stuff I bought constantly, some very little, and some not at all. I dressed VERY repetitively this year, a consequence of that lack of bandwidth and also pandemic fluff that means some of my clothes do not currently fit comfortably.

There is nothing wrong with dressing repetitively but it does not bring ME joy, I think 2021 has definitively proven *that*.

I suppose the good news is that because I forgot about last year’s goals post pretty much everything I wrote there still applies! And, actually, a lot of it still resonates with me, albeit with a few tweaks.

So here’s what I’m thinking for 2022:

Keep an eye on spending, wardrobe size, and churn — but let go of the need to track obsessively. Look, I am not a huge spender. I can tell when my wardrobe is getting too big because my quite reasonable clothing storage gets crowded. I know when I edit out a bunch of stuff that I never really wore. Maybe there is no need to commit it all to a spreadsheet, you know? I think in the past my impulse to do so has been about control — about turning the frivolity of fashion into a demonstration of virtue. Instead let a gentle awareness of these things be part of the joy of living my values. I’m old enough now to be honest with myself, know when I’m not on the right track, and make a change.

Less shopping, more sewing and mending — oh, this will be a tricky one! I continue to shop mostly secondhand online and the thing is that means shopping is by far the easiest style-related activity for me to do. The Ebay and Poshmark and Etsy apps are always there, and surfing them requires no preparation, skill, or cleanup. And yet, I know in my heart that it’s not always the most productive use of my time and effort, in terms of actually getting me a wardrobe that I will enjoy wearing. So it will be a matter of creating new habits and working them into my schedule.

About that mending: oh, I know I’ve mentioned this multiple years now! I still have a big backlog of mending and alterations. I think I need to reframe this task so that instead of being a chore I’m perpetually behind and failing at it becomes a kind of joyous praxis. (Yes I know that sounds impossibly earnest but earnestness is what’s fun for me, so.) I’ve just spent the past couple of days cleaning up a Dutch oven that I got from my local Buy Nothing group. Can I bring that spirit to tending my wardrobe, as well? I’d like to learn more about visible mending, for one thing — I think that would be a fun and creative pursuit.

I need to not only plan but also TRY ON outfits ahead of time. I just simply do not have time or headspace or creative energy in the morning to *figure out* an outfit. And even if I pick out clothes, say, the night before, if I don’t KNOW for sure that the items will work together and fit properly and feel comfortable then I will not actually wear the clothes I’ve picked out, I will just grab the same leggings and tunic sweater I’ve already been wearing for the past 5 days. I essentially need ALL of the outfits that I plan to wear to be FFBOs.

So that means:

• outfit creation sessions at the beginning of the season and/or at the weekends to prep for the week ahead.
• when I buy something new, brainstorm possible outfits while waiting for it to arrive, and then
• do an outfit creation session when a new item gets here. This will hopefully help me integrate new pieces into my wardrobe more quickly rather than letting them languish because I don’t know for sure how to wear them.

Shop in a more organized way with more of a big picture in mind. The thing about online secondhand shopping is it really fosters a hodgepodge, catch-as-catch-can approach. I tend to buy the thing that’s super cheap, the thing with the listing that is ending soonest, the thing that I suspect someone else is going to snap up. The result is often a whole that is less than the sum of its parts. But I wonder if I can create some strategies to shop with more intention — for example, this month I’m going to focus on burgundy. Or this month I want to experiment with X new silhouette so I’m going to find 3 pieces that can help me create it and buy them at once, rather than piecemeal. Maybe? Worth a try!

About that experimenting: last year I said that I was “really drawn to new and more dramatic silhouettes. A cape style cardigan! ¾ sleeves over long sleeves! A midi length bubble skirt and stompy boots!” That is still true! The good news is that our new house is a LOT warmer than our old one, so now I have more leeway to experiment with outfit formulas that don’t involve layer upon layer of long-sleeved sweaters. Hooray!

Thanks for reading and as always I am interested in any comments you have!