Lately, I have not been entirely satisfied with my wardrobe. My main concerns are that I am missing some items for specific types of weather, my wardrobe is too skewed towards office clothes, and I don't feel like my clothing represents my personality. I have lived in the D.C. area for over a year and found countless times that I was not prepared for the weather. Sometimes, that was not being prepared for rain, but other times, it was anticipating temperature but not humidity. Either way, I want to more accurately select an outfit based on the weather hence the year-long experiment that I want to embark on. In addition, I want to determine the types of clothing I prefer to solve concerns number two and three.
Instead of filling in the gaps as they arise, I want to create capsule wardrobes with the clothes I already have. As such, I will try not to buy new clothes this year and instead focus on the aspects of my current wardrobe that work and do not work. While completing my experiment, I also plan to research and learn about different theories related to fashion and creating a wardrobe. Some posts I plan on creating include different color theories, body type theories, capsule wardrobes, etc.
Now, to get on to the year-long experiment I've been talking about. I first started with four seasons, but in the DC area, the beginning of those three months is vastly different from the end of the season. Thus, I broke each season into two time segments (approximately 6.5 weeks or 45 days). I then broke these half-seasons into 11 and 34 days and started an approach based on the two different capsule wardrobe challenges, the 10x10 Challenge and Project 333. If you are unfamiliar with a capsule wardrobe, it is a technique optimized to try to adopt a more minimalist wardrobe. However, a capsule wardrobe can be whatever you want it to be, with as many pieces of clothing as you want, but the main constraint is that all the pieces should be mixed and matched with other pieces in your capsule.
The 10x10 Challenge was created by Lee Vosburg from Style Bee in 2015. The general instructions for the challenge are: select 10 clothing items (including shoes, but not smaller accessories like belts or bags) and create 10 different looks for 10 days. I did not do the challenge exactly but used the numbers as a guideline. By excluding all accessories, including shoes, I gained back 2 more clothing items. Over the 11 days, the plan is to track outfits and weather daily. I also want to note if there are issues with the outfit compared to the weather.
Project 333 was created by Courtney in 2010 and was meant to help create a capsule wardrobe for a season or 3 months with 33 items. Again, I didn't actually do the challenge, but I used the numbers as a jumping-off point. Unlike the 10x10 (or it would be more of a 10x15), during the other 34 days, I do not intend to track every outfit or the weather. Instead, I aim to create a seasonal capsule wardrobe that I can freely use for a month. Since I don't know the seasonal climates here well enough, I chose to do a smaller section of time (34 days) instead of a full season. During this time, instead of focusing on the smaller details, I want to create a functional wardrobe and identify items that don't work well for me and vice versa. Ideally, I would still be tracking outfits during this point, but I will likely forget.
With this schedule, I will create 16 capsule wardrobes, 8 10x15s and 8 30x30s. To get the largest variables of temperatures, the 10x15s will be at the transitions between seasons and the middle of the seasons. The 30x30s are then created for the early and late parts of each season.
References:
10x10 Challenge: https://stylebee.ca/10-x-10-challenge/
Project 333: https://bemorewithless.com/minimalist-fashion-project-333-begins/
Comments
Post a Comment