BLOG: Life

Wendi here. Wearing purple!

I introduced The Wardrobe Project here (with Jo’s intro here).

Today I have my first step towards a solution. It’s kind of lame that it involves a purchase instead of making something, but this was actually a really good place to start.

For those who haven’t read the original post, my main problem is that I have very few clothes to wear, and I end up wearing the same black yoga pants, black tank top, and black cardigan every single day.

Snooze.

I bought some clothes! Colorful clothes! That (mostly) checked all my boxes.

• They’re (mostly) comfortable.
• I can wear them in layers.
• They’re colorful, but not clownish.
• They seem to be well made? I’ve had them for a few months now and I always hang to dry, but one shoulder seam on one dress is already popping open. It was easy enough to repair, and hopefully it’s a fluke.
• They’re mix and matchable.

I did a TON of Google searching and eventually ended shopping at Gudrun Sjödén.

When I did the overview of what’s in my closet, I realized I owned NO dresses. None. Since I don’t like things to be tight around my waist, that seemed like a huge missed opportunity – so I deliberately went looking for dresses! I was hoping to find a dress I would like as is, with bonus points if it was a style that would be simple enough for me to copy – or at least to use as a guide when sewing my own.

I’ve tried sewing my own clothes before and it’s sooooo frustrating to spend all that time and money and end up with something that just doesn’t look good! Which you don’t really know until you’re finished. 😩

I thought if I could start with a ready-made dress I like, I could at least say, “I like this length. I like this much ease in the bust. I like this much ease around my hips. I like this kind of neckline.”

I also don’t like to have bare legs, so I was looking for pants or leggings to wear with those dresses.

I LOVE the Gudrun prints, but a lot of the garments I tried just didn’t look good on me. The knits were soft and comfy, but I didn’t like how they looked without a bra, and they tended to cling to each other when I tried layering them. The cotton dress I tried felt flimsy and kind of cheap – but the linen! The linen dresses were great! They were light and cool enough for summer, and layerable for cooler weather.

I bought two! One blue and one purple. And I bought leggings and linen pants in purple and blue too, so I could mix and match a bit.

You can see the purple dress and leggings in the top photo.

And look! The purple linen pants look great with the long purple cardigan I already had! (Plus one of my many identical black tank tops.) Yay for making something I already own more wearable!

And here’s the blue dress with the blue linen pants.

I love the look of the pants with the dress, but right now the leggings are more comfortable. (Leggings are usually too tight to be really comfortable for me, but these aren’t bad at all.)

The pants would be better if the elastic waistband was just a little bit larger. The band is stitched through a few times – which is great to keep the elastic from twisting, but not great if I want to unpick it to replace with slightly longer elastic. 🫤 I’ll probably do it for these that I already have, but I don’t think I’ll order more in the future. They’re also a little wider in the leg than I’d choose, so I probably won’t try to copy them.

But the purple dress is simple enough that I think I can copy it!

That will be for another day and another post. 😁

For now – mission accomplished.

I have a problem. 

My closet is a mess. 

But wait! There’s more!

I have too many clothes that I don’t wear. On a normal day, I wear something like this. 

A graphic tee and black pants. It’s cool, comfortable, and casual. It’s also a little basic. But I have SO MUCH other clothing. It clutters up my whole closet. Right now, I don’t have enough hangers to hang up everything that I have. 

I have a few goals for my closet. I want to clear out everything that I don’t wear. If I haven’t worn it in the past year, it needs to be assessed in some way. Why haven’t I worn it? If it doesn’t fit well, can I alter it? If I don’t like the color, can I dye it? If it fits well, but it’s boring, can I embellish it? If I look at it, and I don’t think I can change it to fit my style, it’s time for it to go. 

Everything red has to go, regardless of fit or comfort. I like red as a color, but if I wear it, I look sunburnt. Also, it clashes with the whole black and neon green thing I have going on. 

Once I clear everything out, I want to start adding in new pieces. I want to have a mix of interest pieces and basics. 

For interest pieces, I want more things like this…

Here’s the back…

I LOVE this coat! I wear it all the time, and I always get compliments on it. I want more pieces that make people stop me on the street. 

But I also need more basics, like the black pants that I was wearing in the first picture. I love those pants. They’re pretty much the only pants I wear, and I dread the day that they finally wear out. 

A different, but slightly related goal for this year is to not buy any new clothing. What I mean by that is no clothing from a place like Target or Gap or anything like that. Something that I make or something that I thrift is totally fine. I want to be more intentional and mindful of where my clothing is coming from. I want to be modifying clothing to suit my body and my aesthetic so that I can have a truly unique wardrobe. 

Here’s what’s on my wardrobe wishlist: 

• Shorts or skirts for the summer. I am ALWAYS too warm, but I have a hard time finding shorts that I like. 
• Interest pieces! Not everything can be neon, but I’d like to have a handful of things that can go with my basics and add a pop of color. I love neon green, but I’m not opposed to purple or blue. I’d love to add to plain black clothing with bright embroidery, beadwork, applique, or something else! 
• This isn’t exactly a specific item, but I’d like to make sure that everything in my closet goes with everything else. I hate having a shirt that I can ONLY wear with one specific pair of pants. It makes it super unlikely that I’ll ever reach for it. I want my closet to be easy to wear, and easy to style. I really don’t want to be putting too much work into my outfits, but I still want to look cool. 

I went on a MAJOR thrift run recently, and got a lot of cool clothing that I’m planning to modify and embellish. I’m super excited to get into it. (As soon as I clear out my closet.) I’ll be posting lots of before and afters, and sharing tutorials. It’s going to be so fun! 

Folks – I have a problem.

If you look at my designs, you’d probably guess that I like bright colors and whimsy. I do!

But this is what I wear.

Every. Single. Day.

Black yoga pants. Black tank top. Black cardigan.

It’s very comfortable, but I’m bored out of my mind!

If I’m leaving the house I wear this.

Black stretchy trousers. Black tank top. One of four (I’m not kidding) identical shirts. I have it in that dark green you see in the photo, two light blues, and one light purple.

In fact, here is a list of everything in my closet.

• Those four identical buttondown shirts (which I have been wearing in rotation for TEN YEARS). I’m sick to death of them.
• Three soccer jerseys for wearing to games (Asheville City SC, Portland Thorns, Portland Timbers) – all uncomfortably small.
• One very ratty corduroy shirt to wear for messy outdoor work.
• A loose, flowered tank top that I hardly ever wear. It’s pretty, but I have to wear a bra with it.
• One handmade crinkle gauze kimono jacket – too small.
• One dark purple linen kimono jacket (also handmade) which I love.
• One colorful purchased kantha jacket which I love, but have no idea what to wear it with.
• One hoodie printed with the doors from Monsters, Inc. It looks awful on me, but I won’t get rid of it because it was expensive and I love the print.
• One lightweight black linen buttondown shirt which I wear in the summer as a jacket to keep the sun off my arms.
• One handmade patchwork A-line skirt which I love, but is now too small.
• One handmade green Estuary Skirt which I love, but I have no idea what to wear with it.
• Six Pranayama wraps from Athleta (two black, one lavender, one teal, one pine green, and one long one in dark purple) – this is what I’m wearing in the top photo. I love them, so I have them in a bunch of colors, but I don’t wear them out of the house in winter because they’re all way longer than my coat and look weird sticking out the bottom.
• Seven identical black tank tops from Target. I don’t like to wear a bra, so I wear these every single day.
• One outfit for the gym – pants, T-shirt, zip-up hoodie jacket.
• Eleven cute graphic T-shirts – all too small for me. Like, way too small.
• Four long-sleeved T-shirts (one black, one green, one blue, one purple) – I think I will layer them under my buttondown shirt when I have to leave the house on cold days, but I don’t because then there’s too much fabric around my arms and it bugs me when I bend my elbows.
• Two identical pairs of lightweight cargo pants (one black, one olive green) that are too tight, but I won’t get rid of them because they’re very thin and I think I can wear them on really hot days, but I don’t.
• Two identical pairs of very lightweight capri pants (one black, one lavender). Capri-length looks terrible on me, but I keep them because I think I might layer them under a dress or skirt on a hot day. But I don’t own any dresses, and they don’t look good under the one skirt I own.
• One pair of patchwork linen baggy pants that I wear on the hottest days of summer. They’re definitely the most interesting thing I own, but they’re a lotta look, bordering on clownish.
• One pair of black yoga pants from Target that I’ve been wearing almost every day for probably fifteen years. It’s a miracle they’ve lasted this long, but at some point they will wear out, and then I will have an even worse problem than I have now.
• One pair of gray pajama pants printed with lavender pine trees that I wear on laundry days when I can’t wear my black yoga pants. Then I wear my lavender cardigan instead of one of my black ones, so it looks like an actual outfit instead of laundry day leftovers.

That’s it!

No shirts that I love. Twelve shirts that are ok (seven of which are identical black tank tops). Twenty shirts that don’t fit/don’t work with anything else/have some other problem.

Eight jackets/cardigans that I love (mostly identical), one that’s ok, and one that doesn’t fit.

Two skirts that don’t fit or that I have no shirts to wear with them.

One pair of pants that I love but won’t leave the house in, two that are just ok, and four that don’t fit or don’t look good.

About twenty years ago my mother-in-law came to visit a new house we had just moved into. When she saw our closet, she asked where my clothes were. We had to tell her that small closet held both our clothes. 😂

Not much has changed! I still don’t have a lot of clothes – but that’s not the problem. I don’t need a lot of clothes.

The problem is that I have mostly stuff that looks bad/doesn’t fit anymore, a few things that are fine/boring, and a handful of things I love, but don’t have anything to go with them to make an actual outfit.

I don’t have a single outfit that I love. Not one.

Heck – I don’t even have a single outfit that I like!

I’ve resolved to fix my wardrobe in the past, but I never actually follow through on it. This year is going to be different.

It really is!

I know it’s going to be different because I’ve made a list, and once I make a list – watch out! 😂

(Also – I’ve already made some progress. I wrote this post when I was at rock bottom, but I waited to post it after I had already made a few steps forward – so more posts coming soon!)

Here’s my wardrobe wishlist:

• Comfortable clothes. Nothing too tight, especially around my waist and arms. And nothing that requires me to wear a bra.
• Layers! I’m the annoying person who’s always cold – unless I’m having a hot flash. So I need layers that I can add and remove as needed.
• Color! But not clownish. I like monochrome looks with a lot of texture and maybe on occasional pop of a brighter, contrasting color, so I’m going to try to make that work.
• Well-made, durable clothes. I don’t love to hand wash, but I’m happy to hang things to dry if it will help them last longer. I can do simple alterations and mending, and I’d love to make a lot of my own pieces if I can find the right patterns and fabric.
• Mix and matchable pieces. I don’t need a huge wardrobe (obviously) but I want to love every piece in it, and be able to wear most everything with most everything else so I can stop looking the same every day.

That seems doable, right?

Like I said, I’ve already made some progress, but I still have a LONG way to go! And before I share the first of my successful baby steps, Jo’s going to introduce her wardrobe problem and wishlist.

Our fixes will be a mix of buying, upcycling, and making – something for everyone! You’ll be able to follow both our posts with the new “clothing” tag, and the new “Life” category in the top menu bar. That tab will drop down to Food, Clothing, and Books – everything you need for a Shiny Happy Life. 😄