A limited rainbow

As promised in my last post here's more, or everything, on my developing wardrobe.

A close up of a former orphan t-shirt (and my red leather jacket)

After you've bought a bouquet of lovely dresses (because they’re easier to fit), a handful of cheap, ill-fitting t-shirts, a few random trousers plus two coats that strangle you - you discover your wardrobe is a kindergarten of orphans!

Great dresses and strangulating coats

What to do?

You experiment and find that a uniform of jersey trousers and fitted t-shirts are great combined with a kimono or a longline cardigan - so far so good. There’s a small problem though - having to return so many things bought online that the extra shipping expenses would buy you several new outfits. What’s wrong? Could it be buying without a plan? Or trouble meeting those fit requirements (as well as problematic feet)?

A selection of returned items

The elements of a buying strategy

First you need some style direction - how do you get that? I have read so many style guides, and unless you see yourself fitting into one of the cliches “Minimalistic”, “Classic”, “Boho” and so on, you’re on your own. Particularly if you love dressing in a riot of colours with lots of gold and glitter on top!

How do you then determine your style?

Anuschka Rees has a post on her blog called “50 ways to break a style rut”. Not doing all 50, I found one in particular was clever: Name your 3 favourite movies (for their visual qualities).

If for example Marie Antoinette (by Sofia Coppola), Memoirs of a Geisha and The Devil wears Prada make your list, you could then identify the elements from each movie that you especially appreciate - like luxurious fabrics of the 1800th century French court, with a good dollop of gold, anything Asian, and how Miranda Priestly always uses layers and looks so polished. These are the elements you translate into your style.

These films are a visual feast to watch!

The dreaded colour palette

Now all style guides will tell you to come up with a limited colour palette based on a couple of neutrals like black, navy or charcoal, and a few additional accent colours ensuring everything in your wardrobe goes together. If you’re a peacock sort of person those neutrals are probably not going to “speak” to you and the accent colours will be too few.

The colours so often recommended by professional stylists

Again, turn to Anuschka Rees! In another blog post she suggests 36 different colour palettes each consisting of nine colours. It may be that none of them are a direct hit. Then how about you then select the nine most common colours from your wardrobe and turn them into your colour palette? Unless of course, you’ve filled your wardrobe with colours that you hate - but how likely is that?  

I'm quite relaxed about matching the colours 100% as long as they still work

With the basics determined it’s time to add the style elements: Brocade, silk and jacquard from one film, Asian flower prints and kimonos from another and maybe more attention to make up and hair in order to look polished or a few tailored jackets, from the third film?

Lovely brocade fabrics

Marriage of style elements and colour palette

The result could then be that you only buy items that are in the colours of your palette, with focus on jersey basics and top layers in luxury fabrics. Step by step you would then build a cohesive wardrobe based on what was already in your closet and hopefully stop waisting money

Most of my wardrobe, without all the dresses though!

The red leather jacket isn't mine, but I was missing a proper photo

Since we all have mood swings you have to leave room for that too. In my wardrobe it’s statement necklaces in natural materials, a well worn denim jacket, and leopard print in not natural colours, that has nothing to do with the style inspiration for the rest of the wardrobe. I’m also dreaming of a pair of combat boots (something to give a good kick when called for).

Fun leopard print in not natural colours

The last check list to go through is the different situations you have to dress for - have you got everything covered? Have you got outfits for all the things you do on a daily basis? Personally I do, however, I know many of the locals think I’m overdressing (I’m really seen as the village idiot by many) in far too many colours with way too much bling. But you know, I couldn’t care less!

Anyway, I feel I’ve come a long way with my new wardrobe. I have given myself buying guidelines for the future and hope to save money and have more options in combining everything.

Later I may try and expand the colour palette, or build another one. I like to see a rainbow when I open my closet doors!

Finally, as I wrote this post I got the sad news of a friend’s death. I dedicate this post to her. 

In loving memory of Karen Palsgaard - a dear friend who fuelled education, personal growth and friendship across continents and cultures, through decades

A spirit who planted a forest of trees for others to walk in

Rest in peace Karen

A whole new wardrobe

Sounds fun, right? Well, not always. Here's why: 

First of all there’s the reason. In my case I had gone up one size due to illness. In fact I was so ill that I first had to buy a lot of loungewear because I was still either in bed or on the sofa with a blanket. 

Going up one size also meant I had to say goodbye to all the lovely things I had collected over the years. At the same time age didn’t place the added kilos quite to my satisfaction! Another annoying experience. 

Then when I did have to leave the house, for appointments with doctors and specialists mostly, I often had to wear clothes that was too small, or some very unflattering panic bought loungewear. That lead to more panic buys. With reduced income in the family due to my illness, my clothes budget was limited, so panic buys that proved an error, felt very expensive. Good thing we learn from our mistakes, right?

What did I find?

Well, even loungewear is important. It’s not uplifting to anyone seeing a bag of potatoes walking past the mirror, not even a pink one! In sheer panic I had bought 6 t-shirts from Evans, that were totally shapeless! They looked alright on the model, but in real life they were a slight A-shape. An absolute disaster on my hourglass figure!

A purple version of the t-shirts from Evans

To be comfortable I bought lose fitting, wide-legged jersey trousers, not Evans this time though. However, not all jersey is a nice, soft cotton or viscose. Some is polyester, and some is a blend. Some of the materials I got were thin and clingy. Thin cotton shows everything, polyester gets static electric and clings. Some materials just don’t last very long. 

There's no telling from the photo how thin the material is

With my top of the body hidden in a pink bubble and every lump and bump showing on my thighs and legs I felt such a failure, spending good money on really bad clothing!

Was I ever going to wear anything nice again? Would I ever be able to go out of the door and not be ashamed of my dressing? 

The solutions

With my illness I also got extremely sensitive skin. It now becomes very irritated with heavier, rigid fabrics like denim and twill as well as fabric that contains wool or linen. Even cotton can be a problem unless it’s a high quality, and light weight. 

It seems the best trousers are ponte knit or heavier jersey in some blend of either viscose, cotton or polyester. With warmer weather I can do a tapered ankle grazing trouser that is everywhere at the moment. For colder months I do need full length. But no slim leg or skinny anything!

The very trousers I wore in my previous post (H&M)

For tops there’s really only a choice of t-shirts and knits. Shell tops rarely fit me properly, but more on that later. A lot of the t-shirts I bought were in 100% cotton, which my skin doesn’t respond that well to. Others were in 100% polyester. That proved to be fine with my skin, however the cheaper ones didn’t last very long and so weren’t worth the money. Viscose knits were like heaven on my skin, but too warm for summer, even this one - the coldest and wettest in 38 years or so!

Anyway, no matter the fabric, any t-shirt and other type of top, needs to be fitted! This is so important because I’ll be visually adding several pounds in a loose or relaxed fit. 

Colourful Viscose knit from Biba, £ 20 on sale

As it turned out the panic buys did teach me something, and so weren’t all waisted. But it did cost - money and tears!

Finally, a shot from May 2017. The joggers, t-shirt and kimono combo has now become my uniform

H&M joggers, M&S t-shirt, New Look kimono and Monies pendant

In the next few posts I'll show you the contents of my new wardrobe, and explain my strategy.

The very best weekend to all of you!