My working wardrobe capsule

I was thinking about trying out the 30 fro 30 challenge (30 items of clothing for 30 days) and have decided that it is probably too big a challenge for me at the moment. I love my bright colours and have pinks, corals and myriad shades of blue in my closet which would make it quite difficult to come up with the basic pieces that will mix and match well. Also I am not scared to admit that I think I will probably get bored with my wardrobe very soon if I had to limit it like this.

Instead I decided to try something similar on only my work cloths. I have a semi-uniform for work; Neutral colours, pants, a shirt and flat shoes. Work is casual enough that I can wear jeans and although I could get away with wearing T-shirts I prefer to wear a shirt with a collar as I find this an easy way to look professional and make a divide between my work and my home cloths. As a child I always went to a school with uniforms (most schools here in SA) and I’ve continued to change when I get home ever since. I find coming home from work, taking a shower and then putting on my home cloths the easiest way for me to separate my thoughts and to keep my mind from dwelling on work issues after hours.

So I thought since I already have a uniform it wouldn’t be too hard to limit myself here. I choose only 12 items, things that are already staples in my work life. I tried to make sure that everything went with everything else for maximum flexibility.

My work items:
1 x Jeans (bootleg)
1 x Black pants
1 x Purple pants
1 x white ¾ shirt
1 x black satin shirt
1 x Short sleeved white shirt
1 x coral shirt
1 x navy Cardigan
1 x grey jumper
1 x blue-grey handbag
1 pair black moccasin flats
1 pair grey leather trainers

 

Almost all of above is black, white or grey. However I included my purple pants and a coral shirt for some colour and they go quite well with the purple glasses I wear while at work (I find my contacts irritate me when I am doing lots of work on the PC). I realise a black bag would probably be a better match with the items I choose but since I don’t own one this blue has become my working standard, luckily since I spend all day in the office it is only visible on the way to and from the office so I am not too worried that it doesn’t match my black items. I apologise for poor pic quality, the cable for my better camera has been temporarily misplaced what with so many people having stayed  in our flat moving stuff around it’s a mission to find anything! I will try this out for a month to see how it goes.

Monday I wore my jeans, white ¾ shirt and my black moccasins. Tuesday was the same except I swapped out the jeans for the purple pants. Hoping this will simplify my mornings a bit.

Things Ive noticed purging my wardrobe

I’ve been purging my closet every now and then since August and find new stuff to chuck each time. I am also starting to notice more which items I consistently wear and what I don’t.

What I’ve noticed;

·         I love skirts but never seem to wear them! I must have had about 20 pairs, I’ve streamlined this down to two and I am still considering this a lot. Lesson learned: Stop buying skirts!

·         Instead of skirts I wear cropped pants. Not shorts! In fact I seem to avoid wearing anything that falls over the knee (I think I have horribly knobbly knees and prefer to always keep them covered). So I will stop buying shorts as well, but keep a select number of cropped pants (I have a blue, black, white and grey pair so I am quite covered).

·         Do not buy heels more than 4cm high. I have purged almost all my high heels, they are mostly uncomfortable, difficult to drive in and my DH doesn’t like the fact that they make me the same height (or taller!) as him. I did keep one pair of purple studded heels though (because every girl should have at least one pair of killer heels right?)

·         Most of the clothing I wear a lot seems to be in similar shades. The colours I wear a lot: Navy, Fushia, Purple and various shades of blue (a smidge of coral also crept in last summer). I have decided to make these colours the focus of my wardrobe and stop buying items that vary from this standard (besides for black and white). Hopefully simplifying my colour palette will enable me to move towards a more capsule like wardrobe where everything suits everything else.

·         I like slightly puffed out sleeves on T-shirts, wide necks and most Ts I wear a lot are solid colours. I have one or two printed Ts but seem to avoid patterns on my cloths.

·         My style seems to be classic cut but fairly bright (I do love some colour!). I feel most comfortable in modest clothing (not for me plunging necklines and short skirts!) but do not mind wearing tight figure revealing stuff as long as my skin is covered.

Knowing all this it should be easier in future to decide what I need and what I should rather leave in the shop. Maybe I can even split up my colours into a winter and summer palette. My coral for ie are all summer items, whereas most of my purple items translate well to winter outfits.

Purchasing errors

I know everyone occasionally buys stuff they regret later. I have about 3-4 clothing blunders every year. It’s a lot less than during my student days but still way more than I would like. Purging my wardrobe the first time in August got rid of a lot of the older purchases but still left me with a few regrets.

My single biggest recent mistake was buying these:

 

A pair of wedge sneakers in Tan. I think they are very pretty but they are wrong for me on numerous levels;

1.       I don’t own any tan/beige/brown clothing that would match. I can only get them to work with my jeans and two other pairs of pants.

2.       Their ankle height means you need a skinny pant under or something shorter (I never wear skirts)

3.       I find them to be big and clumpy and quite heavy on my feet

4.       I almost never wear heels

5.       Lastly I feel awkward in them, they are supposed to be very in and trendy (or were when I bought them) but when I put them on I get the feeling I’m not wearing the right stuff with them. I almost feel like they are too fashion forward for me and the rest of my outfit feels frumpy in comparison.

They are practically brand new, I wore them 2-3 times when I first bought them and then packed them away and haven’t taken them out since. What do you do with something like this? Part of me wants to continue ignoring them rather than admit the mistake (after all they weren’t cheap either), part of me feels I should make an effort to wear them and the rest feels they should go.

I also wish I was hip enough to pull these off. I’ve learnt that some of my mistake purchases are when I buy items to fit a lifestyle I would like to have rather than my current one. Examples such as this one (I am a hip young trend setter), sky high polished business pumps and tailored black pants (a successful corporate CEO), 2 beach dresses (why, oh why?).

I also often get suckered into the ‘buy the second one at half price’ ads which is why I have some items numerous times just in different colours. I am looking at you Urban for always getting me here!

I am hoping this no-buying stuff for a year and the 30 for 30 project (more on this later) will teach me to think better before I purchase items and help avoid making future blunders

My Garden

So here’s a pic of my new little garden! I am quite pleased at how it is looking and especially chuffed that I put in the wooden stepping stones (which allow me access everywhere without always having to stand in the dirt, perfect for harvesting something quickly while already dressed for dinner). It is also sloped so I’ve taken care to put rock ridges up to make flattish terraces. Hopefully this will keep the soil from running downhill.

I’ve planted seedlings:
Fennel, Parsley, Oregano, Wild Rocket, Red Basil, Lettuce, Sage, Basil, Coriander, Mint, Thyme
 
Seeds;
Spinach, Water cress, Sunflowers and more basil. Im looking forward to when they pop out and fill in the garden a bit more. Scan the soil everymorning for the first buds!

And discovered some other herbs in the garden (my downstairs neighbour took me around to point them all out): Lavender, Lemon Thyme, Wild rocket (this one really just looks like a weed to me!) and Rosemary.

We have so many herbs in the garden now! I will have to start looking at recipes to use them all. Some I will have to wait awhile to use since the plants are still too small for harvesting, but others like the rosemary and wild rocket are already very established and we can use at will.

I must still find a way to make some name tags. At the moment I am just using bits of cardboard so that I can remember what’s what (since I can’t recognize herbs yet). Will need to move to something more permanent but don’t want to buy anything. Must make a plan.

The outdoors

Last night was the last night with my sister and her husband staying with us. Now everyone is out the house and I am looking forward to having the house uncluttered and just to us and the cat again.

We had dinner outside. I think we should try and stay outside as much as possible throughout the coming summer now. It is pleasant to sit outside and look at the garden and just chat away from any distractions like the computers or TV. She has also organized us an organic vegetable packet every other week. I can go pick-up the first one tomorrow and I am quite curious what will be in it. Me and my husband usually eat a lot of take-away (thank goodness eating out is fairly cheap in SA!), like 4-5 times a week! We’ve been saying for a while that we should cook at home more often and maybe this veggie packet will be a way to stimulate that.

I also went through my closet again and piled up another bunch of cloths. My sister had said she desperately needed new clothing and would take anything I didn’t want any more so that motivated a second purge. I found quite a bit, more actually than I thought I would after my initial purge at the start of August. I also haven’t bought any new clothing items since end July (so on month 4 of my no-buying year!). Proud of myself but dodging my husband at the mo who has said I really ought to buy some new pyjamas. I am currently using my yoga pants with an old T-shirt or a cute set with Hello Kitty (which I think is adorable but he thinks no-one over 16 should be wearing). So I might have to make one exception.

Moving outdoors

Well, finally life is starting to settle down a bit. Enough that I can relax with my new husband and start to let being married sink-in. The last two weeks have been an absolute whirlwind of activity and we have had family around non-stop. We even had people staying in our flat (in the living room since we have no guest rooms) and it served as a holding space for luggage for everyone coming and going. Laundry was done almost every day and the living room was crowded with so much stuff. It has been an exercise in patience for me as well. Everywhere I looked in the house it was a mess, but I couldn’t clean as most stuff wasn’t ours. There was stuff everywhere and I saw all the de-cluttering I’d been doing totally undone. *sigh*

 

The only way to escape the madness inside over which I had no control was to open-up the back door and roll outside. We recently bought garden furniture (before the minimalism thing) and we had the table and chairs out almost constantly, we could sit outside in the calm and have a meal not staring at all the clear-up work that still needed doing. That was a saviour. My sister, who’s turned into an avid gardener and grows a lot of her own vegetables, helped me to convert a small plot by our back door into a herb garden. Now we can sit outside and have the garden to look at. It is very pretty and makes me happy. We should have done this long ago but it was the initial effort needed that always seemed too much. Now my sister’s husband prepped the soil while we went shopping for the plants and then we spent a couple of hours decided on the layout and where to put stuff that was quite enjoyable. That night I used some of our wedding jars with candles to place around the garden and having dinner outside was great. My husband, who didn’t seem very keen on gardening before, was talking about the watering system he could set-up and seemed very excited as well.

Bonus, last night we had a braai for the building tenants (this is a first for our building but it nice that everyone seems to get on and we have some interesting neighbours) and everyone seemed really impressed and motivated as well. Now there’s talk of getting a worm farm and extending the gardening efforts to adjoining plots. It is motivating that other people are so excited as well. It’s a very different response than I had to the minimizing though.

New mantra 'after the wedding'

Moving into minimalism for me seems to be in ups and downs. At the moment we are in a down. We are less than three weeks out to the wedding and I alternate between being stressed and passive. On one hand I suddenly think of something I’ve forgotten and then on the other I figure it all doesn’t really matter, no matter what happens it will still be our wedding and we will be surrounded by loved ones. The final preparations have also seen more stuff coming into the flat than leaving. There are boxes of wine stacked in the lounge and bits of coloured decor paper everywhere. Glass jars, Consular paperwork and ceremony programs. I am finding it all a bit grim and at this point just want to have it be the day already; this waiting is driving me nuts and just gives me time to think of more stuff to do.

The itch to still shed more stuff is still there, there are a few cupboards I still want to get too but I seem to have neither the energy nor motivation to get to them at the moment. Right now my mantra is ‘after the wedding’, my life will continue after the wedding, until then everything else seems on hold even the things that I deem important like friends and going out. Right now our evenings are mostly fully booked, final details cake last night, DJ tomorrow, hair and make-up trial on Friday (which they say will take upwards of 2 hours!), dress-fittings, coffee vendors and payments.

Things I’ve moved to ‘after the wedding’:

·         Starting a small herb garden and getting an indoor potted plant

·         Having dinner with a new couple we’ve met who seem pretty cool

·         Moving onto chemical free shampoo and conditioner (luckily I still have lots of the home-made body wash or else I might have slid back to commercial stuff here too)

·         Organizing a braai for our friends

·         Going back to the gym (I used to go twice a week but have been too exhausted last few months so kept putting it off)

So even though the wedding was the catalyst that had me yearning for a more simple lifestyle it is unfortunately getting in the way of a lot of the things I want to do to simplify. At first I wanted to power through and just heap the decluttering and new lifestyle on top of my other commitments. I have learned though that I need to be kinder to myself and take things more as a step by step process that I don’t need to complete in record time. So it too is for ‘after the wedding’.