Before the Sales

Chicago by Rachel Smith

Soon we will all be engrossed in them - January sales. Do you wait for them all year long like I do? Well, admittedly, these days, with the recession and all, sales seem to happen all year round with pre-Christmas sales making us spend all our saved pennies before Christmas is over so that we have nothing left to spend on January sales. 

But in keeping with tradition, January sales always attract crowds and we all fall for the illusion that we shall find that long-aspired-for garment or accessory to complete our wardrobe forever and ever. Most of us will take stock of what we buy after the sales and just shove it all in the with rest. Come spring time we will probably just remove half of it all, give it away or swap it, and the vicious circle goes on and on.

So, hey you must be wondering why on earth I'm harping on about January sales when we're still so many days away from Christmas. That's just because this is the perfect time of year to prepare ourselves for a successful January sale-mania-affair.

Vintage New Wave by Rachel Smith

Taking stock of what's in our wardrobe before we embark on any more shopping expeditions does make sense. If anything, it will help us to think out of the box, in full cognition of what we possess and what we might possibly wish for. 

My way of doing it is this....Get hold of all your usual favourites, get them out of the wardrobe and out of sight. They're your favourites, you wear them enough, you don't need to find new ways of wearing them and they generally would appreciate a good rest.

Then consider what you have left. This will include clothes you rarely wear and clothes you never wear. This may be for varied reasons, including the fact that some of them might not fit you anymore. The non-fitting category is as useless as having to wear a wig when you already have a full head of hair. What doesn't fit today, may possibly fit tomorrow, but hey, don't keep hoarding non-fitting clothes because you will end up with a wardrobe of useless items. 

Then there are the clothes you think you cannot wear or clothes you believe are too boring to be worn anymore. It is often surprising what we can do with clothes from this category and here is how it's done.

Prepare yourself to spend at least one solid hour trying to match up items from this lot. That pair of trousers which you never wore after that one party… you might find that it actually matches very well with that jacket your sister swapped with you some time back. Try on, take off, change the ensemble until you find something that seems to come alive when put together.

Once you figure out whether you can wear some new combinations with your un-favourite items, get out the accessories and mix and match those along too. Chances are you will find that you will be able to mix and match one item with more than one other item, and this is how you will start building up some new outfits for the new year. 

And.. the good thing is that this exercise will be an eye-opener. You will realise that you really must have a new black handbag because the one you do have is crying out for a retirement scheme; it will dawn on you that you really do not need any more red belts because you have three of those already; you will come to the conclusion that you can afford to give away at least three of those seven black skirts because you really will never wear them all.  Don't rely on mental notes because these can soon be forgotten in the enthusiasm of so many well-priced goodies. Make a written list of what you really need to look out for and carry it with you so whenever you chance upon what seems to be perfect - you'll know for sure that it is.

Read more about wardrobe organisation here, here and here.
Thanks goes to Rachel Smith on Etsy for these gorgeous images.

Going back to colours

It's officially colour-time again. As spring-time is well and truly here, I can't but help feeling excited about wearing real colours again. Now you might ask... what's to stop her from wearing colours even in winter? Why does winter always have to be about wearing boring, staid, depressing colour?

Have tried to shake off the feeling of un-enthusiasm where winter clothes are concerned, and I honestly need to find a way and a means to do that come next season. Perhaps it's because shops seem to automatically switch to 'winter' colours leaving behind the fund and the joy of pure colour fun to spring and summer.

Today, I found some time to re-shuffle my wardrobe contents and I must admit that the experiment which took place last season where I had decided to organise my hanging clothes by item rather than by colour, has well and truly failed to inspire me.

So, I have re-shuffled blacks with blacks, blues with blues, purples with purples, reds with reds, etc, etc and already my wardrobe contents are making real sense.

At a glance I could pick out three or four outfits ready to be ironed and pressed for wearing during the coming weekend.

Now I am starting to re-evaluate what I have ready to wear for summer and am eager to get myself some new stuff. I have been eyeing Etsy shops to get inspiration and boy, is there a lot out there!!

De-Clutter

A McCall Homemaking magazine cover 1942

Everybody used to call it spring cleaning. Now the hip word is de-clutter. 

Twice a year, when I have to change all the ingredients of my wardrobe, pack up the wintry clothes or the summery clothes and replace with the summery clothes or the wintry clothes, it's my time to take stock of what I have accumulated over the past season.

I find that more often than not I have loads of items which I need to keep but also quite a handful of items which need to be removed as they are either 'mistakes' that never got used, things which are simply not being used for a variety of reasons, and others which are simply obsolete - soiled, torn, mis-shapen, completely boring according to my current frame of mind.

Does it happen to you also that one thing which seemed to be so very special when you bought it, is something you wouldn't look twice at today?

Over the years, I've learnt to gauge better what I buy and very rarely make impulse buys.

Then again, since I love to add a dash of vintage to my stock of clothes, the vintage must be just so because it's not something that can be found easily and neither is it something that can be used easily, unless you plan for it properly or unless it just happens to fall on your lap as a blessing.

Every time I go through this exercise I remind myself of how much I would really desire to have a walk-in wardrobe.

It's been the dream of my home for years on end but never materialised so far. It's not like we havent' got the space....

It would be the perfect place to have an all-round dressing experience without having to go to another room to get my larger coats or jackets, without having to ferret in trunks and drawers to get at my bags and without having to hop downstairs to try on the shoes with the outfit.

Sigh.....!