Angie's challenge to edit our closets motivated me to undertake a necessary and previously overwhelming project. I have done my best to be ruthless, and have used used several guidelines to help sort through my closet, working in categories because of time. Breaking my wardrobe into categories also made sorting through my large wardrobe possible with my busy work schedule. I have been motivated by other's participating in the challenge and find that after I read someone's "closet edit" post, I go running to my closet to pull out more items. So far, I have removed 161 items from my wardrobe. The number sounds astronomical! I know some people on this forum don't even have that many items in their entire wardrobe.

Much of what I removed falls into several categories. The first category has to do with color. I have a well defined color palette. I think of my colors as those that might be seen at a Mediterranean Beach. Think fuschia, pink corals, mid-tone blue greens, turquoises and aquas, sky blues, periwinkles, and some greens. My neutrals have been charcoal grey and light to medium indigo, and on occasion I will wear a darker navy or royal blue. I have used white and winter white as a light neutral, however as one of the bigger epiphany's during this closet edit, I figured out that I really don't like white. I think it looks stark and cold instead of clean and crisp when I wear it, and it reminds me of the white lab coats I wore as a medical resident. I pulled out all items that were not in my color palette with very few exceptions. I also pulled out almost all white items unless they are used as accent items or underneath something like a sweater or a blazer.

I find that I prefer solids over patterns, and if there are patterns, there are some that I really do not favor. Horizontal Stripes are by far my least favorite pattern. I pulled out every horizontal striped item except for two, which serve as a key element for an outfit, but I may end up pulling those out in my second phase edit. I also kept pencil think strips of very low contrast, like light grey and white. In general, I don't like a lot of horizontal detail on my clothing either. DH hated horizontal stripes more than me, and he was a big helper with my pattern sort. The patterns I kept tended to be abstract, had either round or geometric qualities, or floral qualities, and multiple mid to low contrast colors. I do not like patterns on a white background or a black background. All those items were culled.

A large number of items pulled out were low rise bottoms. Skirts, jeans, leggings, shorts, etc. I happen to have a frame with an extra long rise, so anything less than 10" ends up looking mid rise on my frame. I am so happy to see high rises on jeans and Yoga leggings that I am at risk of buying too many. I need to keep myself from indulging or my collection will grow too large again. As it is, I have 2-4 pairs of jeans in each of three color tones, light, mid and dark, and then I also have them cropped and long. In addition to these, I have an assortment of modern trendy cuts of denim.

Finally, I removed things that didn't function as expected, for wear over time, because the style was no longer in keeping with my current direction, fit, and bulky over sized items. I need to keep the bulky thing in mind because there were a fair number of items that were just too heavy looking or feeling. I don't mind a chunky sweater, but I hate if it is also boxy. I need it to have some fluidity so my shape can be implied by the material as it falls against my body, but not be bodycon.

I have started to come into some conclusions about my style, but I want to reserve that for my phase 2 edit. For my phase 2, I still need to try on everything left, make sure that I am not duplicating things unnecessarily, and truly consider my essentials, statements, and basics. I suspect that even more will be removed. In the meantime, I have managed to almost cut my wardrobe in half. I will not be building it back up to the same size again because we will eventually be downsizing. I'm feeling good so far. For anyone worried about what will happen with all this stuff, I am not sure yet? Much will be offered to my DD, friends, and people at work. I will then donate the remainder if it is in good enough shape for use by someone else.

Here are the counts:
35 tops culled including camisoles, a turtleneck, white tee's, striped tee's, fashion tee's, sweatshirts, sweaters (4), button down's and blouses (11, 6 were white), vests, and cardigans.

13 pairs of low rise yoga pants of varying length (short, 7/8, long) some were very worn out, others less worn.
7 pairs of cropped cotton leggings - removed because I never wear them
Bike Shorts - I culled 3 pairs and kept 2. I rarely ride my bike.
31 pairs of pants, mostly jeans, 10 were white, all were mid to low rise, 4 were cropped bootlegs that I am done with stylewise

14 scarves - many of these were very old, snagged, torn, etc. A few were not the right color or the pattern was no longer bringing me joy.
10 hats - this includes sun hats and worn out winter beanie style hats, mostly of the wrong color. I also removed one baseball style cap with an alumni logo. I am not much of a Logo person.
4 pairs of gloves - anyone else with Raynauds will understand that you try gloves and they don't end up keeping your hands as warm as you had hoped. Only one pair were the wrong color.
3 coats - One TNF bomber style down puffer in chocolate brown. This is one of my favorite, but the material is so worn it's pilling. The other's were not used much, probably because of their color.

7 skirts - one of these was a leopard print, but it is too warm toned, one was a mermaid skirt which I love, but have never used for any formal event, and it sits looking pretty but unused in my closet, and I don't think I would ever pick it over anything else in my dressy capsule. The others were pencil skirts in colors I no longer favor.

14 dresses - this number surprised me. However,Reasons for removal had to do with being worn out, style (not keeping anything off the shoulder) overly frilly, hard to wear because of requiring special bra, white dresses, 100% linen dresses because they wrinkle too much for my polished taste, and then gingham. Why do I have gingham dresses? Ugh! I do not like Gingham! It reminds me of 1950's sitcom's.

5 blazers - mostly this was due collar style but also to color, two were white.

2 vests - Both white/whitish. One shearling and one linen

3 pairs of shorts - mid rise and wrong color

3 leather handbags - wrong color and or too small to hold everything.
4 pairs of shoes (I still need to do shoes, the pairs removed were obviously non-functional because of fit, or they were sneakers that can still be used for a non-runner, but are no longer good on the road for a runner.)
5 pairs of boot - dated, color, wrong style
9 leather belts - wrong color. These were hanging and taking up a lot of space

6 pairs of old glasses frames that have been on a shelf in my closet (from 3-4 years ago)
19 pieces of costume jewelry including wide bangles, bulky statement necklaces, and a couple pairs of earrings.
2 swim wraps - neither of which did a good job of protecting me from the sun.