Curated Closet

So I read the book The Curated Closet while I was driving with Leo on our weekend getaway in September.  I had watched a class on planning your wardrobe and found it really helpful a couple of years ago--mostly because it suggested choosing two neutrals to build your wardrobe around.  I chose Navy and Cognac, with accent colors of red, bright blues and turquoise, fuchsia, and Kelly and emerald green.  And now everything pretty much matches in my closet with no random outliers that match nothing.  It made shopping so much easier because if it doesn't have those colors, I just ignore it even if it is a fabulous sale--my downfall from before.  Anyway, I wanted to expand upon that because it's made me so happy to have clothes I actually LOVE rather than just clothes that are hand-me-downs, or were okay but not my fave, or on sale.  I really like the idea of just buying clothes that I LOVE and that's super helpful *except* I would only buy dresses and skirts and statement pieces. So I was hoping this would help me balance it a bit.  And it did!  Following the suggestions in the book, I named my style and made a mood board and made a list of items that would fill in some gaps.  It also suggested breaking down your wardrobe in percentages of what you where the most and making sure you buy according to those percentages.  I'm terrible at that because like I said, I would only buy skirts and dresses, when 80% of the time I wear t-shirts.  SO now I am on a strict only buying what's on my list shopping moratorium. And I already bought a few things that were on it, like a tan belt--see above picture--and it helps so much in making an outfit look complete.  I love it.  Maybe I shouldn't care this much about my wardrobe, but I feel like since half my clothes were ruined when my roommates had bedbugs in college, that I've never really had clothes that *I* chose or wanted since--most of my twenties and thirties I wore hand-me-downs from Amy, which was awesome, but not my slightly boho bright colored me.  She wears navy and baby blue and grey, and that's it--I love red and Kelly green.  Anyway, it really does make me happy to have a coordinated closet with clothes I chose.  

This was my mood board.  I named my style "Grace Kelly goes ethnic camping" or "Sundance meets Boden"

This is how I feel about taking selfies.  I really stink at it.  But for the sake of documentation like the author suggested I did it anyway.  The reason why she suggested taking pictures, by the way, is because seeing the outfits in a picture distances yourself a bit and allows you to see what you might need to add or subtract to make it look complete. 

Like this--needs a necklace maybe?  Different shoes I think too.

This is a hand-me-down dress from Amy--one I really like!  But needs different shoes?