I’m working on creating a capsule wardrobe using mostly what I already have so each item gets worn often. The challenge of creating different looks with a minimalist approach is kind of fun and I love having space between the hangers even in my small closet. I sometimes wonder if people notice that I wear the same few basic pieces often, but I figure that if I don’t track what others wear they probably don’t track what I wear.
Until quite recently my kids (and myself) have had almost exclusively second (or third...fourth...) hand clothing. The most expensive items in my daughters’ closet for the past 8 years have been their dance costumes, each worn once for the recital. I’ve gotten used to it, but for the first few years that thought gave me a mild anxiety attack ;-).
I don’t intentionally do that but there are a few things I tend to wear a lot so I really should go through my closets and drawers and just ditch what I virtually never wear.
The problem is, here in NYS, you need to have a summer and winter wardrobe with enough between seasons clothes, that being really frugal with the amount of clothes you have is more difficult.
Let me tell you a story
I grew up in a home of fashionable women, had my own WWD subscription at age 14. Enjoyed fashion and had very nice, sometimes hand tailored clothes.
Once I left home I really didn’t look much at clothing, back to the land, then worked in business, then a mom.
I had to go back to work in the early 2000’s. So I bought a wardrobe and went back into the work world. But everyone was wearing black...during the day!
Now when I was growing up, only the help and shopwomen wore black before cocktail hour. And now I was faced with all these high powered women, all wearing black, and unbeknownst to them, looking like housekeepers to me.
Took me a couple of weeks to get my head around it.
Then I noticed that my young neighbor, in her late thirties always had bed-head. And her blouse was always untucked, shirt tails all the time. I thought that she was just becoming a bit undone and sloppy with the three children and all.
We had no TV.
About 5 or 6 years later I say some picture of some daytime tv person named Ellen. She had the same look. Then I realized that my neighbor, and the other poor women were all in the height of trendy styles, mussy hair and shirt tails and all.
I was such a doofus. Still am.