Ladies, my life is so busy with 2 small kids and both myself and my spouse working, I have been almost exclusively shopping online which is NOT my natural preference. It's so easy to make shopping mistakes, and the return process is often cumbersome and sometimes expensive...
I had an aha moment that is working out really well and I wanted to share:
I realized that my items typically fall into a few categories that I like. I decided to write them out and classify my existing garments, sort of capsule-like. Then, I decided what ratio of each style I wanted represented. I compared my current state to that ideal ratio to figure out which types of items I should target. This gave me something to look for, within some loose guidelines, rather than just browsing willy nilly and buying on impulse....the impulse strategy usually ends with lots of duplicate items and sometimes orphans.
My (very subjective) capsule categories are:
(16%) 80's Chic - e.g. slick, sharp styles with drama, rocker chic, high contrast
(20%) Feminine Drama - e.g. ruffles, dramatic sleeves, tiny buttons and pleats, sheer items, floral prints
(20%) 70's Dressy - e.g. tall suede boots, midi skirts, sweater vests, bow blouses, plaid trousers, brown shoes, flare leg trousers
(22%) Minimal Refined - e.g. solid colored cashmere sweaters, sheer pleated skirts, opalescent silk dress
(8%) Earthy Girl - linen mini shirtdress with chunky buttons, cozy oversized cardigan, birkenstocks, long oversized cardigan in a chunky, thick knit
(15%) Basic - white shirts, blue shirts, solid tees, plain simple cardigans
The Earthy Girl element is new to me and it is distinctly different from "boho" which I think of as more decorative. My take on this is casual loose styles with lots of texture and earthy colors, but relatively simple in style.
ETA: I think another moniker for "Earthy Girl" would be Berliner Hippy (-;
From this exercise I have decided to target two more Feminine Drama blouses, three more 70's Dressy items, one of which is likely to be woolen blazer, and one more Basic, probably a plain long gray cardigan.
I even found this lovely lavender blouse on sale which I hope will pair nicely with my emerald green boden "suit" among other things! So I've already checked off one Feminine Drama item. I'm thinking the NAS will be a good place to find a basic cardigan or some of my 70's Dressy items.
With NAS on the horizon I found this very helpful to give me some guidelines on what to look at and what to pass over despite it's appeal.
