The way my world looks these days, it's all about saving money and living fully. In the recent past, I budgeted very little money for extra, out of necessity. Currently, S and I our very interested in saving, which turns my monthly budget into a quest, by which I put absolutely every bit of extra I think I can into my savings account each paycheck and then try to find ways to trick myself into living off even less than I thought I could each month. The rewards for this are self-discipline, appreciation of simple things, and ultimately, maybe some more in savings each month.
As I learn to save, I am proactive and reactive. I plan ahead to save, but I still need to control the urge to spend when it arises. I wean myself off bad habits little by little but try to make bigger sacrifices too. One such sacrifice is a pledge not to buy any new clothes this year. In a way, this is an easy choice, because I have more than enough clothing to wear. In another way, it feels sad, because clothes are a fun, functional art form.
Enter inspiration via fashion bloggers, who are everywhere online. A ton of them are committed to "remixing" clothes already in one's closet or shopping on a dime. And they all look fabulous doing it. So while I am no fashion blogger, I wanted to challenge myself to write a fashion post this past week, in order to get my creative closet juices going.
It was harder than I thought. Pre-planning outfits has always been a haphazard experience for me. I would much rather wake up with plenty of time to spare, have dozens of clean, pretty clothing options hung up in my humungous closet (read: this is pure fantasy) on any given day, and be able to grab something quickly that looks great and feels nice on. That never happens. Most days, realistically, I look for what is clean and "matches" as best as possible. I try to not create fashion blunders rather than thinking about what I like to wear.
When I had to pick outfits out this week, I was stressed by the extra time it took, and even more stressed about documenting it. But it also put me in a pulled-together vibe, allowed me to enjoy wearing articles of clothing that I typically think are not that great, and got me to love my clothes rather than merely need them for societal participation. Don't get me wrong, I've never thought of clothes as just something to cover the body, but on a typical work week, I prefer 15 minutes of extra sleep to an awesome look. The following certainly represent a well-worth-it collective 105 minutes less sleep:
On Sunday I decided I was going to plan and document the following week's outfits. I inaugurated the process by adding a belt to the outfit I was wearing at the time and pretty much called it a day. Later on, I redid my hair for the look, which you can see in the upper right-hand corner of the panel.
On Monday I experimented with wearing a summer dress under a year-round skirt and loved the outfit. The cardigan was kind of a necessity of the season, but it was an added benefit that my Gramma's cocktail ring looked nice with everything.
On Tuesday I wore a blazer I don't usually like and actually really loved it for the first time. The casual underpinnings of my outfit helped me feel less stuffy.
On Wednesday I had to pry myself out of my sweats, as I was working at home that day and had no other reason than this challenge to get dressed. While I don't think I'll wear this combination of items together again, I needed bright colors for this snow day.
On Thursday I had to bring my outfit to work in a tote bag. Digging out my car in the morning required that I wear my jammies and snowboarding pants in to work, so as to handle the freezing manual labor and necessitating the at-work change. I wore a very easy outfit – a pretty summer dress gifted from my mom, plus old field hockey leggings, a fitted cardigan (different from Sunday's, but the exact same color from the exact same store) and my boots. After the morning's grungy affairs, I felt pretty disgusting the entire day, but I would have felt heinous had I not be wearing something so starkly different from the aforementioned snow pants.
On Friday I wanted to be casual, comfortable, but not sloppy looking. Save the cuff, the items I wore were all super-basics in color, texture, everything. They are all items that could be background pieces to a more creative outfit, but for Friday, I liked them plain and simple, just as they were, without a standout piece.
On Saturday I didn't put too much thought into it. I added a costume necklace onto an otherwise boring outfit. Being myself on Saturday is really too tempting.
So there is my week in clothes, whereupon I learned to appreciate and maybe even revel in what I'll be wearing for the next 11 months. This experience gave me a new vision for old items that I can use to accomplish my goals and to flex my creative muscles. Thanks blog world, for teaching me a little more this week than I would have known otherwise, for being so vast and imaginative.
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