Angie challenged us to a closet edit last month. LaPed challenged us to shop our closets this month. I thought I had done a thorough closet edit and was looking forward to shopping my closet.
Then, 2 days ago, I came in from work and only wanted to reach for one particular outfit. The same outfit I've been wanting to wear for weeks and weeks and weeks now. See finds: grey moto leggings from h&m + grey tunic from zulily. I stood there half-nekkid, scratching my head as I stared at all the clothes in my closet, wondering why I didn't want to wear them. They're obviously what I consider worthy, since they survived the closet edit last month.
The very next day, I came home reaching for an outfit that I've been wanting to reach for on cooler days for a while now. Eggplant tunic from zulily, moto leggings from target (finds).
I was ignoring everything else in my closet except for these 2 tunics and 2 pairs of leggings. I came to the conclusion that there is still crap in my closet that probably shouldn't be there. In my defense, I did just go through a job search and preparation for a clothing retail job, so there are pieces in there that were acquired with that in mind. I loved them for that context, but that context doesn't fit what my life wound up being. So there's some stuff in there that likely needs to go. Why it didn't go in the closet edit is beyond me.
Wide leg khakis? That's a good basic to have, right? Except I avoid wide legs like the plague (I'm so graceful I literally trip over all that fabric in wide leg pants). Pink button up oversized shirt? A good item to have in a dippin dots wardrobe. Except I pretty much hate button up shirts (poison eye that developed when I couldn't find button up shirts that didn't gap in front and boa-constrictor my arms). Metallic silver skinny pants (find)? You know as well as I do that those will make my a$$ look like a disco ball, which makes their divine comfort level absolutely irrelevant. I could go on, but I think we get the point There's a lot of stuff in there that I like, I just don't want to wear it after a day at work. I also apparently don't want to wear it on my days off, because I haven't reached for any of them in the last 3 weeks.
Thank heaven I'm under a no-buy AND just joined a gym for the first time in my life. Otherwise, I'd probably be shopping for all the tunics and all the moto leggings. Because I'm kind of tired of the act of getting dressed ending up leaving my closet looking like a war zone.
I'm not going to get rid of any of my summer-weight garments just yet, because historically I do like what's in my closet for hot weather. For now, I'll be shopping my closet with an editor's eye. There will be days when my closet just looks like a war zone (the weather is, well, transitional, right now), but it won't be every day, and the frequency of the skirmishes should decrease as I continue to weed out what doesn't work for me. On days when I don't work at all, I'll be finding out what I truly love, because I won't be tired and I'll have the energy to be creative with my stuff.
I did wear something today that WASN'T moto leggings and a tunic. Navy blue Vince knit top, slightly loose but not oversized; AG skinny jeans in a pale silver-grey color, and my new Nine West OTK boots that I got for the opening day of deer-hunting season (I get a new pair of shoes every year just because he stays out in the woods so much during deer season LOL).
I have a funny feeling that I'm going to wind up with a pretty small, tight wardrobe for my off duty hours, and it's going to be only things that I truly love. When I say "pretty small, tight wardrobe", I mean fairly minimalist in both number and aesthetic.
These closet challenges are challenging, y'all! However, I'm grateful, because they're really helping me hone in on what I love love love.
P.S. I'm on the fence about the disco ball pants, because they're really that comfortable. Should I do a try-on/outfit lab with them before I send them down the road?