First I want to thank everyone who participated in this challenge and everyone who cheered me on. Your feedback was very valuable and appreciated. I found challenge very helpful, it made me think more about my outfit choices, my preferences and my wardrobe as a whole. I have split my observations into several categories.
Amount. I must say I am very happy with amount of clothes that I have. You have seen everything that I own for fall winter and even some items from my spring collection. Couple of items I wore more than once. It seems that I wear and love everything almost equally, there are no orphans and most of my items are easy to mix and match and I can create almost indefinite number of combinations. I have pointed out couple of items that I have issues with like too deep V-necks or too tight pants so I will pay attention how I feel about those in the future. Regarding number of wears, if I wear everything at least once a month, which I do, even strictly one season items will get 6 wears in a year at the minimum, and if I keep my clothes for average 5 years, everything will reach 30 wears easily. So I will definitely continue to keep up with my strict one in one out rule, since this is just right amount for my variety needs, number of wears and storage capacity. Only problem is, if I still love and wear everything- how to decide what should go?
Colors. I love colors, and I am very consistent in the colors I like - red, yellow, orange, turquoise, pink and bright green. My neutrals are navy and white/cream. Sometimes I do experiment with new colors, recently it was burgundy, soft green, beiges and taupe, after years of resisting more earthy colors. My favorite outfits are those that are following 3 colors rule. In my case I like it to be one dark neutral, one light neutral and one bright color. I don’t like wearing dark neutral with only bright colors, contrast seems to harsh to me, so I like how light neutral softens the look. But I am ok with bright colors plus light neutrals only. Also I am not afraid of all color outfits, with tonal matching or clashing. For this year I would like to add some bright green, in very specific shade that I like. When I add new color I don’t need many items in it, sometimes just one right item is enough to fulfill my desire for new color. I am trying to be less matchy matchy so I will not necessarily need accessories in the same accent color.
Pattern. At the moment, I am much more preferring solids than patterns and enjoy more color blocking than busy patterns. I tire of patterns quickly but have identified patterns that are better than the others. Patterns that I find easiest to work with are those that contain my two main neutrals navy and white either on their own or with additional colors from my color palette. If there is only one of my neutrals and colors from my palette could also be fine, but it is less versatile. And I struggle with patterns that don’t have my neutrals in it. So that is something I need to keep in mind in the future.
Silhouette. This is a major issue for me. I am late adopter of new silhouettes and some I have never adopted, like leggings and skinny jeans, long over lean, tunics, minis, oversized and architectural shapes. I prefer classic shapes and would feel completely like me in bright pink classic pant suit, but would feel self conscious in oversized neutral blazer. But on the other hand, after few years of seeing new silhouettes I start feeling too stale and crave little change myself. So this is the area where I would like to experiment more, and be more open. I would like to have more interesting and unique items to shake things up a little.
Essentials. This is another revelation that came from my challenge, but it seems I need to revisit my essentials. During the whole month, except coats, shoes, bags and accessories, I haven’t worn anything more than twice. I always thought that navy pants and navy footwear are my essentials, but recently I had to retire 2 pairs of navy pants that I haven’t replaced yet, and I realized that I haven’t missed them at all. And that my navy footwear doesn’t get that much wear either. I definitely prefer lighter color footwear, find it easier to match with different navy shades in my wardrobe and look better with my hair.
Accessorizing. Another area where I can improve. I have nice bag collection, lot of jewelry and different accessories, but unlike constantly mix and matching my wardrobe items, I keep wearing the same bag, accessories and minimal jewelry. My belts are sitting unworn. Not sure why is that.
Preferences. There is one very obvious preference that I have discovered during the February, and that is that I prefer midi length coats by far. Even though for the sake of variety, I did wear couple of my shorter coats, I didn’t feel so good in them even when worn with pants. And they were completely out of question with my midi skirts and dresses. Even knee length feels too short. Longer coats just feel more elegant and more modern. This is something I will keep in mind in the future.
Grooming. Huge area for improvement. I don’t like my hair at the moment, but not sure what I would like to do with it, so postponing decision for spring. I am currently on a very strict ant inflammatory diet ( no gluten, dairy, soy, corn, nuts, sugar, eggs, processed food etc.) and I am taking tons of supplements and have noticed great improvements related to my hair. It is not falling out that much anymore, I have lot of new growth, dandruff is completely gone and even my chin hair has disappeared. But on the other hand, my nails are still disaster, splitting, and breaking, and looking unhealthy, so I cut them very short and having break from nail polish. I am trying to improve my skincare routine, but my makeup routine is almost non existent. I never learned how to properly apply makeup and on best days it is tinted moisturizer, few coats of mascara and colored lip balm. I would like to up my game and learn how to do it better.
One last thing that I have to keep in mind for any future shopping and planning is that I am not sure what will happen with my weight. I am currently up 6 kg since started on medications, which requires new size, but I am trying to hold on for a little while longer. Just started reducing my meds this week since they were pushing me in the direction of under active thyroid, so I hope this adjustment will affect also my metabolism in few weeks and slow down or even reverse my weight gain. As I mentioned before, I am already on a very strict diet and can’t do much to prevent or control it, and I am fine with it, just uncertainty of this is making planning and shopping very hard
and frustrating.
Apologies for such a long post, and thank you if you read it all. All comments are welcome and appreciated.