I’m fresh back from vacation, and while away I took the time to write up the summer wardrobe challenge I set myself. It’s not done yet, but the results won’t change at this point. So, time to share! Warning: this is long.

The thing I wanted to get a handle on: the sheer volume of my summer clothes. I knew I had too many, I just felt somewhat paralyzed about how to deal with it. Many of my tops are new(ish), and ones I like, so motivation to get rid of them for fit/style/wearing out issues were not there. I just knew I’d totally overshot how many I needed. And while I like variety, it has become overwhelming.

I’d played games with numbers… if I want to wear x, y times, how many x’s do I need… all it told me was what I knew. I have too much. Nor did it help me figure out what the excess was, what didn't really fit in, what could go.

But then I hit on an idea, that has really worked for me. And the weather somewhat cooperated as well.

Summer arrived at the end of June. We went from spring (closed toe shoes, toppers or light sweaters) to “high summer” (temps in the 30’s, high humidity), overnight. Totally skipped "early summer", when I wear cage sandals and short sleeved sweaters, and went directly to open sandals, sleeveless, natural fabrics. Even my culottes seemed too confining, all I wanted to wear were dresses and lose things.

So, I decided to apply my challenge just to my “high summer” clothes, which have been worn over eight work weeks so far, and looks like could easily continue for 2-3.

So, my challenge:

  1. This is for work clothes only.
  2. I need to love everything I wear. Both the pieces AND the outfit.
  3. Everything needs to be worn either three times, or can be worn three different ways.
  4. What this means, is that a dress (for example) needs to be enjoyed enough that I’m happy wearing it three times. Or a particular outfit that doesn’t mix and match well needs to be worn three times.
  5. If I wear top A with bottom N, then top A also needs to have a bottom O and P (which I also love) to be worn with. Bottom O,
    which obviously goes with top A, also needs top B and C. And so on. After a few weeks, the circle began to close. And my perfect summer wardrobe began to form. Not everything WAS worn three times, but at least I knew all the pieces worked well enough in the system that they could. OK, writing this out seems a bit over the top, but I did it all in Stylebook, so had the visuals.

None of this was really about final numbers, but was rather a great way to see what I really did want to wear, and wouldn’t get tired of. Yes, there are some tops still unworn. I’m going to take a look at these once summer is over, to see if they would have been worn if there had been more time (ie still met the love to wear, goes with 3 things criteria), or not.

I’ve already identified a couple of dresses and 5-6 tops that have been set aside for Dress for Success. Yes, I may like them, they may fit, but I did not reach for them, either physically, or virtually, to add to this capsule. This feels good. I may whittle things down further, but this
has been fun, and really helpful.

Here is an illustration of how I did it.

Photo 1: A black skirt, and 5 tops, I wore, or could wear, with it.

Photo 2: One of those tops, with 3 bottoms

Photo 3: One of those bottoms, with 6 tops that I wore, or could wear, with them.

Photo 4: Full circle with one of these tops going with the original black skirt.

Thanks for reading!

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