Wednesday 16 September 2015

Minimal Wardrobe (Part 3 of 3)

After finally putting my ideal minimal wardrobe together, I was curious to find out how it aligned with my actual wardrobe.
The first obvious difference is size. While I wanted my ideal minimal wardrobe to be realistic and allow me to create enough outfits for a regular 5-day work week, my actual work wardrobe is not as small as the inspiration. I mean, I do have more than two pairs of trousers!

However, I have been impressed to see how many outfits a well thought small wardrobe can create. Being able to visualize this has made me more willing to downsize even further.

Outerwear, for instance, is an area I'm now thinking about reducing. Even though the last time I bought a coat was three years ago, these items tend to last longer and so, at the moment, only one coat could do with replacing. I haven't figured it out entirely yet but I'm thinking of consolidating this section into a couple of items.

When it comes to colour, I have found that there were a couple of differences. First, my actual wardrobe has one additional main colour (green, mostly military green but also emerald), and one more accent colour (red).


Other than that, my real wardrobe is quite similar to my ideal minimal wardrobe. In fact, I find that the inspiration board is not complete without some green and some red. In terms of ideals, reality beats inspiration in this case.

One thing I've noticed though is that my wardrobe used to have no black at all. Instead, brown was the additional main colour. I have slowly replaced brown with black in the last year but wasn't even aware this was happening until now!

Ahh, the little things that remind me that being mindful is a work in progress...




Finally, style and silhouette in my real wardrobe are pretty similar to the inspiration. Which makes sense as I wanted my ideal minimal wardrobe to capture my style preferences and favourite outfits.

In the whole, it isn't strange that my ideal minimal wardrobe is not that different from reality - after all, the inspiration board is not just an ideal but also a reflection of what I am already happy with.


The best thing about doing this exercise

To consider my wardrobe in a slow-paced, holistic manner. I had never before put time aside to think thoroughly about aspects such as colour, the concept of an uniform, and how these things can work together to create more mindful - functional - minimal wardrobe. Maybe not minimal in size, but definitely less full of items that I never wear.

Added benefit
Seeing my clothing preferences as a whole and creating some pretty cool visual tools that I can use to guide future choices. I no longer have to mentally match a potential blouse with all my trousers to try to imagine if it works with what I have - I can simply refer to my colour palette and pick a colour from there.


Up Next
A side effect of this exercise has been to press pause on everything - from buying to getting rid of things. I next want to tell you about my thoughts on culling and how my year of minimal shopping is going so far.


Have you ever thought of your wardrobe as a whole or did you too find that task a bit overwhelming?And if you ever edited your wardrobe, what kind of tools did you use to guide that process? 

2 comments:

  1. I follow you via Bloglovin. Does that update to your new site? I couldn't find this URL on bloglovin. Nice new layout, anyway!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Kristian! Great to see you here!! It didn't update automatically but I've now gone in and changed my profile - not sure if you still need to follow the blog or if it's enough that you're following me?

      Delete