Clothing Help?

There are a lot of websites and blog posts out in the giant “interweb” that preach on clothes shopping bans and capsule wardrobes.  I love the idea, but here’s the thing… Without really meaning to, I’ve been on an accidental self-imposed clothing shopping ban for years and years…  And I think I need to end it…

I have never been fashionable, (and I think I touched on this when I started my clothing declutter back in December of 2015) but when I first started working after university, I did spend quite a bit of time and money shopping for clothes.  As time went on, my relationship with shopping changed, and now, I really don’t like going clothes shopping much… It feels like a chore.  And so, I’m getting to the point where I have probably been clothes shopping for myself about 3 or 4 times in the last 5 to 6 years… I’ve been relying on the many clothes that I had bought in the years before to keep me going… Unfortunately, it is starting to come to a head… and I’m going to have to do something about it… I would love to try stitch fix if it was available in Canada, but I have a friend who tried a Canadian knock-off of it, and it wasn’t such a success…

In the last 2 months, the last few pairs of jeans that I had been holding on to finally ripped… Yup, I was doing such a good job of sharing the load between my jeans, that pretty much at the same time, they all just sort of gave way… I had to wear track pants out to the store to buy some jeans… Unfortunately, my regular jean store that I used to buy from no longer exists, so I’ve had to experiment with new jeans… So far, this experiment is working, but I’m not totally sold on how they look.  (They feel great, and I don’t have to look at myself, so I can probably just let that slide… Ha ha!)

Then, a couple weeks ago, one of my favourite bras decided to wear out too… (I can’t believe I am talking about my underclothes on the internet…)  When I started to think about the bras that I was using… I only had 2 that I actually liked to wear, and 2 that I wore when the other 2 were in the laundry… And 1 strapless that I only use when required by formal wear… And you want to know the most embarrassing thing?  All of those bras had been with me longer than my husband… Yup, I hadn’t bought a new bra since I’ve known him… Anyway, when one of my favourites broke, I looked at my other favourite and saw it was close to going as well, I decided to splurge and bought myself 5 new bras (same make/model/size as my favourite ones).  Online shopping for the win there!

So, now that I’ve recovered from those clothing disasters, I started looking at some of my other staple pieces, and I’ve come to realize that everything I own is pretty much starting to fall apart (I think I made a comment about this during my clothing declutter – saying I would make a shopping list – but I never did).  I went to wear one of my staple skirts because of the nice weather, and found a hole had worn in one of the seams.  I think I should be able to fix it, but it might require the expertise of my mother, and she’s away on holiday for a few weeks…  One of my go-to t-shirts has a big grease stain from salad dressing on the front that I just can’t seem to get out… So, it has gone from a “nice” shirt, to a “dirty” shirt…

This all might stem from the fact that I’m feeling especially chubby these days (hence the June focus on fitness), so I’m not happy with how my clothes fit, but I think that I’ve had some holes in my wardrobe that I’ve been neglecting and it’s time to make an effort to solve them.  (I think I listed in my honeymoon packing post that I wanted a nice pair of Birkenstocks, and I still haven’t got them… and I still really want them… )

And, why, you might ask, am I telling you all this?  What is the plan?  Well, that’s sort of the point… I’m not totally sure yet, but I think it might be time to revisit my clothing, and actually start working on a capsule wardrobe… Or a targeted shopping list… And so I’m looking for advice… What is the best way to get my clothing situation sorted out?  Do you have any advice on how I can go about fixing my wardrobe while also not breaking the bank by buying all sorts of stuff at once?

Photo Credit: Mari Helin-Tuominen

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