while you're ahead…

I’ve made it through to the end of the 10×10 winter experiment.  10 Items to be worn for 10 days in different combination.  10 only.  Including shoes.  (Obvs not including underwear, pjs, accessories or working out gear or coats).

You can see what I had selected here.  And here are is what I wore; only nine outfits because I repeated one of the days, what can I say, I’m a rebel.  A lazy rebel.

 

 

 

The items were:

1. pair of jeans (Anthropologie)
2. pair of corduroy trousers (Oska)
3. black dress, knee length, wool (Hush)
4. striped dress (Marimekko)
5. beige cardigan (Toast)
6. russet jumper (Toast)
7. navy jumper (Jigsaw)
8. white button down shirt (Madewell)
9. brown lace up boots (Cheaney)
10. black tall boots (Frye) which I swapped from my initial black shoes choice

This was a very interesting experiment and I don’t want to get too deep about it because… well they’re just clothes right?  Having said that…

On the plus side it made the last ten days made me realise we don’t really need THAT many clothes.  Of course I knew that before, we all know that… but this was an eye opener.  It is possible to combine what we have in different ways that make items feel new.  Who would have thought… next I’ll discover hot water or sliced bread… geehs…  As they say ‘boredom is the greatest spark for creativity’… I would have never thought to wear a white shirt under the black woollen dress but I was bored with wearing it under jumpers that I tried it and loved the way it looks!  There you go… a different ‘outfit’ I didn’t know I had.  Or why not wear a cardigan over the marimekko dress, a little bit kookie but very comfortable and warm.  Or the dress over denim… there isn’t a law against it, right?   This also opened my eyes to the myriad of possibilities waiting for me in the wardrobe, I kept thinking ‘oh when this is finished I can try wearing this with that or even with that…’

Another positive was that having only 10 items to choose from made deciding what to wear in the morning a total breeze.  Never a moment of ‘uh… what should I wear’ or surprisingly, never a thought of ‘I’ve got nothing to wear’, which is something I would have expected frankly.  I’ve been to the theatre and to lunch with friends, I’ve walked on beaches (is it cheating that I wore wellies there?) and went shopping.  Less choice made it quicker.  Another earth shuttering discovery.

On the negative side I got a little bored towards the end.   A capsule wardrobe style is not for me, definitively not.  I can see how it make sense, how it would be the right thing to do in this day and age of wastefulness and over-consumption… but it’s not me.  I need a little bit more variety, and I like clothes there’s nothing wrong with that right?

Another good consequence of this is that I’ve through my clothes and got rid of quite a few things that just weren’t working.  Old things kept ‘just in case’, mistakes clothes, too tight clothes, ‘maybe I’ll get one more wear out of this’ clothes… Out out out… eBay or charity shops.  And breathe a little better.

So maybe the trick is not so much a capsule, minimalist wardrobe but a wardrobe filled with things  that… don’t make me say… ‘spark joy’… in us… There I said it.

Sigh.

Am I glad I tried this experiment?  Yes I am.

Am I glad the ten days are over?  Yes I am.

It’s been really interesting to check out what other people (on instagram, #winter10x10) chose to wear, how the mixed and matched.  From what I gather most peeps went for simplicity… then added accessories or not… bust simple shape and not too much colour variety seem to be the norm.  This brings to the fore the concept of ‘uniform’; quite a few people instead of referring to their own style spoke of ‘uniform’… I dont’ want to have a uniform!  I want to have style!  Maybe I want to wear yellow one day and russet another… maybe a short dress and then a long dress… I do put things on according to what mood I’m in… don’t you?

Does that negate a ‘style’… ?  Oh well if it does… be it.

I just like to be me.

(But now I know that really I don’t need quite so many things to be me.  Win win.)