What Would Your Basic Wardrobe Be?

I've been on a (mostly mental) kick this year to clean and downsize everything in my house.  While I have been successful in some fields and have thrown away quite a bit and organized my basement, bathroom, craft room, linen closet, etc., I have not been very successful in downsizing my wardrobe.  I have posted about cleaning out my closet before and I did get rid of a lot then, and I regularly am pulling pieces from my wardrobe that don't fit how they should anymore, or that I never wear, but I really need to do a wardrobe overhaul.

To give you an idea of what I mean, I only have to do laundry about once a month.  And that is only because I run out of clean socks and underwear.  My dresser and closet are still bursting at the seams at that point.  I obviously don't need as many clothes as I have.  So, I have been asking myself a lot lately, what would constitute as a basic wardrobe for a woman?  There are so many factors that make this a difficult question to answer.  Especially for someone like myself that has mixed working environments (warehouse and business dress standards), lives in an area with varied seasons (snow half the year and hot, hot, hot the other half).  Those 4 differences alone mean that my wardrobe needs to be at least twice as big as the average Jane that has a more consistent work environment and lives in a steady climate.  So what does a gal need and when does it become too much?

I scoured Pinterest for advice and inspiration and that definitely did not narrow down the options too much.  There are boards for as many different circumstances as you can image: Fall/Winter Wardrobe, Spring/Summer Wardrobe, The Audrey Hepburn Wardrobe, The "Basic" Wardrobe (of which there are dozens of different pins/solutions), 12-14 Essential Pieces, 50 Classics for your Closet, The French Wardrobe, Wardrobe Staples, and the list goes on, and on, and on, and on, and you get the point.

After pinning and searching Pinterest for an undisclosed amount of time, I decided I should just make my own Wardrobe Essentials list and turned to Polyvore to make a photo guide for this.  The problem I encountered here, is that I had specific pieces in mind but had a hard time finding photos that matched the images I had in my head so that didn't prove to be as helpful of a solution as I had hoped but I did come up with a very minimal wardrobe guide:

Like I said, very minimal.  But in all honesty, you could get by with even less than this.  I however, don't know if I can cut my wardrobe down that far.  I was thinking I'd cut down to 5's, 10's, and 20's of each category with some combinations.  20 bottoms.  20 casual tops/sweaters.  10 work/formal tops. 10 shoes. 5 dresses.  5 jackets.  Etc.  I don't even know if I can cut it down that far!  This is going to be a real challenge but I am super excited to have a closet that I can find things in.  How great would it be to pull something out of the drawer every day and not debate about whether or not I felt like wearing it?  You should be excited about every piece of clothing you have.  If you are hesitant, and don't need it (i.e., work uniform) get rid of it.

I'm at the age where I want to narrow down and develop a classic wardrobe of quality pieces that will last me through the years.  No more impulse Forever21 purchases (be strong girl!), more quality (natural) fibers and less synthetics (except in exercise wear, swimwear, etc).

What would (or does if you are ahead of the game) your basic wardrobe look like?  Do you have a signature style?  How many pieces of your wardrobe are actually essential and what's extra?  What piece/pieces can you not live without?

Pictures and progress updates to come....

Be sure to follow me on Polyvore, Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram :)  Username for most is: AnUntraditionalFashionista.  The only exception is Pinterest: UntradFashion (they limit the character amount for names).

Change of Weather Means Time to Clean

I don't know what it is but whenever the weather changes from either cold to hot or hot to cold, it feels like it's time to clean and organize to get ready for the coming seasons.  Temperatures have been dropping and leaves are changing color so I think it's time to go back to closet and wardrobe organization.  I'm going to be reaching for sweaters and long dresses rather than light blouses and short skirts.  It should be easy to find the things that I will want to wear.

And this is always a good time to get rid of clothes that aren't getting worn and probably won't show much show time in the future.  It can however be difficult to part with clothes, no matter how insignificant they are.  We, especially women, have a hard time parting with clothing.  Maybe it's because of memories of how we look in it, something that happened when we were wearing it, we love the color.  There are thousands of reasons that we trick ourselves into keeping things that we honestly aren't wearing and probably won't again.  We feel like if we toss out clothes from a certain decade or time that maybe we're losing a small part of who we are but really we're just hanging on to baggage.  We all do it.  I know I do.

In scouring the internet for suggestions on how to better deal with the closet clean up, there are several sites with recommendations, tips, tricks, etc.  Don't over complicate things, keep it simple and find what works for you.

This flow chart from Edge Magazine is a good, easy starting point to wardrobe editing.



If you were to follow this chart honestly, you should be able to make significant progress in cleaning your closet.  I think this will be my project for the weekend.

Good luck to anyone else that is going to do the same thing!

Cleaning Out My Closets

So, my big theme for this year is to get organized.  I don't consider myself super messy but there is definitely room for improvement.  I haven't gotten my house organized as quickly as I intended but I've really been working on figuring out solutions and hope that in the next month or so, things will be clean and organized and beautiful at all times.  Part of my problem with de-cluttering and getting organized is that I have a small house with literally no storage.  I have a little linen closet with 3 drawers under it, and closets in the bedroom but that's it.  So, I have no room for food storage, camping gear, holiday stuff, etc.  But I've been buying cabinets to stick places so that will all change.  But all of that is irrelevant to this post, so pardon my rant.  What I am going to talk about is cleaning out my closet and sorting through clothes.  Super fun project!!

I wish my closet was organized and looked something like this:

(or even better - in my fantasies - something more like this:)

or:

But in reality, it is something more like this:

I was going to take before and after pictures of my actual closet but I didn't and am not currently at home so maybe another day.

The initial sweep through of my clothes was a piece of cake.  I just went through my wardrobe and pulled out the pieces I didn't wear anymore, knew I wouldn't wear, was too small, too big, etc.  I ended up with a decent sized pile, not as big as it probably should have been but still a decent sized pile.  Half of it I took to work for a girl that is smaller than me and could fit into my clothes that I've shrank in the wash or have grown out of, and the other half is in a pile for good will.

Now, there are other pieces that I wasn't so sure about.  I don't know why it is that we, or at least I, get attached to articles of clothing, but it happens.  So, I've decided that I am going to wear every item in my closet (season appropriate anyway) and if I am not excited about it, don't love it, it doesn't fit, etc, it's going out the door.  I'm only a couple days into it and have already gotten rid of a couple items of clothes so I think it's going to work.  And then I'll have to repeat the process in the winter to take care of the other half of my wardrobe that I'm not sure about.

I think this is a good challenge for anyone out there that reads this, take a week and clean out your closet, dresser, etc.  It helps to not feel cluttered, it's easier to find the pieces you actually do like and want to wear, and maybe you'll end up with enough space that you can buy more clothes ;)