I've been finding a lot of great wisdom in the end-of-year postings and decided to do my own. Would love to hear any feedback, as always!.

My wardrobe generally works ok, but I'm a bit bored or tired of what I have. It's also quite small, but that seems ok.

The 3 main issues are:

#1 the clothes that fit me are classic, super trendy, or sporty. The more funky, artistic, slightly tough, sophisticated styles that I prefer tend to not come in sizes that fit me or they fit but don’t flatter. My body type is a complete mismatch for what’s available at retail in the styles I want. Alterations help sometimes but honestly not all that often. Also, the stuff that fits tends to be at lower price points so needs replacing more often. I’m ok with some sporty and classic items, but can’t seem to fill in that other style I want, nor do I have a moniker for it. I don't have a solution for this.

#2 B&M Retail options near me continue to be extremely limited. For example, I recently looked at jeans in Nordstrom. (they fired me as a customer but I do look occasionally). All were high rise, mostly skinnies. I can’t wear high rise. A boutique where I often found a winter sweater or two closed for good because the owner wanted to retire and no one wanted to buy it even though the financials looked good. A Zara near me closed their fitting rooms during Covid and has NEVER reopened them. Their shapes/sizes are all over the place so I want to try on. Most of the retailers that carry petites only do some garment types (Boden has no petite sweaters for example,) or the stores near me don't carry petites. Also, I do have a few thrift/consignment choices but cannot rely on them because they usually don't have any petite sizes. Online shopping is the only answer.

#3 I’ve got some kind of issue going on with color. I love neutrals (grey, black, ivory, blue denim) but also like to wear earth tones (camel, burgundy, olive, and recently dark brown). I wear both warm and cool tones but do not like to mix them. When I look in my closet I see a lot of things that only go with certain other things and it distracting and feels like visual chaos. It’s especially an issue with outerwear – it feels like I don’t have the right outerwear style/color a lot of the time to go with an o outfit, yet I need outerwear 9 months of the year. I think I will re-organize my closet by cool vs warm and also post some pics in my closet of outerwear organized that way (My outerwear is on a different floor of the house) I could also do the 6-week capsule planning idea.

Specific Issues in 2023

Summer-weight pants for the 3 months a year when jeans are
too heavy continue to be a HEWI. I am still trying to replenish after losing weight a few years ago. Ordered and returned 20 pairs, probably 12 distinct styles, many multiple sizes. Most were casual, a few were more polished styles. Purchased at Ann Taylor, Bloomingdales, Dillards, H&M, JCP, LLBean, Macys, ON, and one boutique. Also some mistakes: 3 prs of cropped pants, white, black, brown. I HATE cropped pants on me and don’t know what the *&% I was thinking. I let down the hems on two of them and the brown ones were passable but the other two were awful. Also another mistake (although not my fault) was LLbean cargo pants that looked ok until I washed them when the leg shape changed and they were awful.

Outwear 2 fails. 1) a classic trench that I bought out of season and by the time I wore it I found it was too big, the fabric was wrinkly and the style no longer fit into my lifestyle - too classic and formal 2) an impulse buy lavender quilted coat that looks like winter-ish weight but is not warm enough for my climate. I've seen this issue before! I hope to wear more in cold spring.

Tops - I bought a bunch of tops that I didn’t end up liking. All pretty inexpensive. Plus a few that I like but don’ I love. I need to regroup here,
not sure how yet.

Successes

HEWI black tall boots. Super comfortable, lovely leather, a random find at one of the 2 shoe stores near me. Brand is ARA. So far just wearing them with my one or two remaining skinnies and my one winter dress.

Tahari sweaters, mostly found at TJMaxx. This brand has sweaters that are a little bit cropped (but not severely so) and have just the
shape/proportions that I love. I needed to do a sweater replenish this year and got 5 in various solid colors

Dark Brown Booties, bag, scarf. Haven’t’ worn these a lot yet but LOVE.

White eyelet denim jacket. Love the combo of pretty but tough (ragged edges all around)

NYDJ Marilyn Straight leg jeans. The fit is incredible once I shorten them a little. Bought 3 more this year – light blue denim, black coated (workhorses for holiday outfits), and dark brown.

Grey teddy coat. Just structured/streamlined enough to not make me look like a real teddy bear. Not for deep/freezing winter but warmer than I expected.

Plans for 2024

These need more refinement, but here is a start:

I'm already partway through a ruthless move-to-holding zone of anything that I vaguely don't like.

I need to find some new places to shop online. Bloomingdales
and Dillards have shown some promise. Found a t-shirt I LOVE at AllSaints and might look for more in that style. Maybe I need to figure out a new moniker before I do this.

I do have a few boutiques near-ish me that I could visit every couple of months but with low expectations

For pants I need to get really disciplined, read the rise, inseam and hem width measurements carefully and track in spreadsheet so I don’t go
back to the same site too often. Skip the ones that don’t give those
measurements in detail

For tops I need to regroup somehow, not sure how yet.

Need to rethink color too.

Thanks for reading!!