New Year’s resolution - Buy less, Style more
I’ve gone through a few phases of clothing in my adult (working) life. I had the “style uniform” period, when I bought ~30 silk button down shirts from Equipment and wore them with jeans every single day. Then came the pandemic, which ushered in the loungewear and cashmere period. The last year was my “rebuilding” period, where I realized I didn’t want to go back to uniform dressing, but still needed clothes that weren’t sweatpants.
This last period involved a ton of experimentation and self analysis. Is she the minimalist girl who wears shades of brown? Or is she the quirky embellished girl who’s not afraid to wear bold colors?
The answer? Still figuring it out 🙂 What I do know is that I have most of the core ingredients - I just need to spend more time styling, experimenting, and failing (or succeeding). But standing in front of the mirror, trying on outfits is… hard! It’s so much easier to spend that free time on the couch, with a glass of wine, binging Netflix while shopping online for that “missing piece.” But I started to realize that this was becoming a chasing-the-end-of-the-rainbow exercise - somehow there’s always that perfect missing piece just ahead of you that, if you just had in your collection, would magically fix all of your styling problems.
My mantra for this year: Buy less, style more. I love the pieces I’ve collected - but I know I don’t wear them all as much as I should, or could. It takes commitment to the process of styling.
We often talk about buying pieces that we’ll “wear forever” - and the trick to wearing forever is in finding ways to invent and then reinvent the same jacket, skirt, shirt, sweater, in new, fresh ways.
One of my more successful attempts at styling the same skirt in new ways:
As I’ve reflected on the things I want to do to uphold my 2024 resolution , there are a few things I’ve learned about myself :
I love wearing my favorite things, but get bored of wearing them in the same way. On the flip side, nothing makes me happier than wearing the same jacket / skirt / sweater over and over again, but in new and fresh ways.
I purchase “practical pieces” rather than risky, fun, or fashiony pieces. This can make me feel like my wardrobe is missing those elements that make it feel styled.
I will only wear comfortable things. If something is too fussy, itchy, uncomfortable I will not gravitate toward it and it will sit in the back of my closet.
I have too many pointed toe black pumps that I never wear. Why do I keep buying them?
Will I live by these words in 2024? Only time will tell! ;)
