A wardrobe revisited

On Friday, last week, I performed necessary reduction surgery on the contents of my closet and dresser drawers. I was assisted in this endeavor by Tanit-Isis, my daughter, who was visiting, and who has a very good eye for colour, style, and most importantly in this case, FIT! I tried on virtually every piece of clothing I own (excluding socks, tights & underwear) and we assessed its suitability for my lifestyle, its fit, its compatibility with the rest of my wardrobe, and did I love it or could I let it go. Almost all the items worked together, colour-wise, and most of the textures worked together, but the fit was sometimes the sticking point. The bulk of my wardrobe is thrifted, and so these were commercially created garments, with some of the same fitting issues as those currently in the shops. (But sometimes,whether purchasing new, or thrifting, one feels slightly desperate, and acquires some items that may not be perfect, but ‘will do’.) To make a long story short, I had nine bags (plastic grocery, not garbage, size) to take in to Value Village the next day. I am now down to 16 little fitted jackets, and I did manage to cull at least four pairs of boots.

Since then, I have been musing about my personal style, and after reading Sal’s  Already Prettypoll:Sticking Points post, I am starting to get analytical. I dress fairly traditionally, with a bit of edge. I live in jeans, preferably dark-wash, straight-leg, or skinny, with no ‘whiskering’, fake-fading on thighs or butt, slashes or holes, and no excessive back pockets w/ flaps, sequins, etc. (Although I still have the jeans pocket that I embroidered as a university student, back in my ‘hippie-wannabe’ days. It was a purple cow, grazing on the prairie, after a nursery rhyme quoted by my mother. “I never saw a purple cow, I never hope to see one. But I can tell you, anyhow, I’d rather see than be one.”) I am more of a t-shirt girl, than a button-front, collared shirt type, although I may try to change that, as I have acquired c couple of patterns for button-front shirts. I have a few skirts; a couple of (not much) above-the-knee, A-lines (a black stretch-denim and a brown wool tweed), a dark-brown, wool pencil model, and a denim, not-quite-mini, that is just short enough to show a hint of the ‘Welsh-dragon tattoo’ on my right thigh (closer to my knee than my hip). I have a couple of longer, ‘chiffon-over-lining w/ handkerchief hem’ skirts in brown/gold/black prints, for those (very few) elegant evenings. I generally pair these, jeans and skirts, with a camisole or t-shirt and a little fitted jacket, or, a cardigan sweater (wool in winter, cotton in summer). I adore boots (generally the tall-shaft variety) and vintage jewellery, and have been playing around with re-fashioning unusable necklaces and earrings. I am experimenting with layering multiple necklaces, and mixing -and-matching earrings. (For some reason, I haven’t got into wearing bracelets, although I do have quite a number of them.)

I feel like I should be recording, in some fashion, my ‘outfits’, so that, when faced with an occasion such as a banquet, I know what items of clothing I can pair with what. And if I can be somewhat systematic about it, it will show me what items I need to add to my wardrobe (like a summer-weight, dressy little jacket). (Oh joy, more shopping! As an aside, after purging my boot collection, I discovered a pair of ‘Acme’ ladies cowboy boots, reddish-brown, w/ very tall, inlaid, shafts, at my favourite thrift shop. Hardly worn, they fit me perfectly, and at $18.00, they had to come home with me!)

There is lots of scope here for future blogs. Now, if I can just locate the battery-charger for my camera batteries, I could have pictures to illustrate my musings. But Easter, Income-tax, and a Genealogy Conference (this next week-end) are all conspiring against me. I keep thinking that life will slow down, and then I will have time to do things I want to do. But I must realize that this IS life, so I had better accept it (although I am sure that there used to be more hours in a day, and more days in a week, than there are now!)

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