Plan, Plan, Plan

You know what the best part about this challenge has been so far?  By not shopping this week, my brain is like "Girl, you are crushing this challenge!"  So, I could passively go through a year of not buying clothes and feel good about myself!  BOOM.  But here’s the thing:  looking forward, I'm going to need to do some serious wardrobe consideration.  My jeans are quite a few years old and wearing out in places.  I had a baby a year ago so my body is still changing.  I'm also trying to be more active, so yeah it's going to keep changing.  Plus, I'm rocking the tail end of my 20's, therefore weddings.  Always.  I have three invites for this year alone (one my daughter is going to be a flower girl, exciting!)

Basically, the goal for this week was to sit down and figure a few things out.

1. Define my personal style.
2. What pieces do I need?
3. What pieces do I want?
4. How do I get those pieces?

STEP NUMBER FUN:  Defining personal style.

Ok, straight up, I already did this last year for Me Made May.  I'll link the post here.  But to summarize, a big reason to define your personal style is helps both with buying and purging clothes.  I used The Curated Closet to help with my process as well as the Seamwork Style course and through some looking at my clothes and moodboards, I ended up with the personal style phrase of "Quirky Scandinavian Garden."  Pretty much, I love simple silhouettes and muted colors that are utilitarian in a lot of ways, but I'm a big fan of easy and flowy fabrics that often have either organic patterns or weird edges to them.  Therefore, "Quirky Scandinavian Garden."  BOOM.

STEP NUMBER 2:  What pieces do I need? and

STEP NUMBER 3:  What pieces do I want?

Like I said, defining your personal style is a great starting point to see what pieces you need.  Like I wear jeans and pants most of the time and they're getting worn out, therefore I need a few pairs of pants that look good with the colors in my wardrobe.  I also have a bit of a uniform going on.  I wear sweaters with raglan sleeves and jeans to work like every day.  While trying new things out can be nice, a uniform is good for dashing out the door.  So, more sweaters with raglan sleeves.  A bigger staple of Scandinavian fashion that I love as a long torsoed lady is a long cardigan, and I think it will be a great transitional piece as the weather goes from somewhat chilly to comfortable here in California.  Also as we're moving into spring, I need some tops to layer, both woven and knit fabric, that hopefully will transition from work to play.  Besides lifestyle and weather, events are another important consideration.  Coming up pretty soon, I'm looking at three weddings, one of which is formal, so I need to either shop my closet for a nice dress or get a new one based on how things are fitting. 

In terms of  need and want, let's be honest: the only thing I actually need is the dress for the wedding and possibly the pants.  Everything else is a want, which isn't a bad thing.  What it effectively means is I will devote more time, money and energy to the needs over the wants, but I won't ignore the wants.  In fact, some of the wants are things I am inspired to try and make, and there's a few things that I don't necessarily need for my wardrobe, but I want to try and make like a hoodie.  I probably don't need more hoodies, but I found a pattern I'm kind of obsessed with, and I want to push myself creatively with this challenge as well.  So that needs to be considered as well.  Inspiration should not be ignored.

SUMMARY:

NEED:

1. Dress for formal event
2. Pants for work

WANT:

1. Raglan sweaters
2. Cardigan
3. Tops to transition between seasons, as well as between work and fun

WANT TO TRY:

1. Make a hoodie
2. Make sweats

STEP NUMBER 4: How do I get these pieces?

In terms of how I want to challenge myself, I have pretty much three options for obtaining clothes this year: thrift shop, making it (either by myself or a loved one.  Hi Mom.) or, in case of a major fashion emergency, buying handmade from an ethical independent seller of clothing.  The last one I'm not sure about.  Etsy is an option, or people who manufacture ethically and can document that and there are lots of resources available to learn more about who that could be, but that would be incredibly expensive. Honestly, there's lots of trade offs with these options which I will get into when I start doing them later, but the big thing is right now, how would it be best to take care of each of the needs and wants from Step 3?

The way I approached this question was kind of two fold: what do I already know how to make and what do I want to learn how to make?  In terms of stuff I can make, I'm a competent sewer of both woven and knit fabrics and I've attempted most types of tops. Pants, I've done much less often.  I made one romper last year and shorts a few years before that, but my bottoms tend to be of the skirt variety.  The second part of that question is what to I want to learn.  I don't think I'm ready for jeans yet.  The hardware alone is daunting.  That may be a 2021 idea, but comfy pants that you don't wear often outside the house…I could do that.   I also am quite inspired to make a hoodie because I just really want to feel like I can make that.  Also, to be discussed later, I've tried to make a raglan sweater before and for various reasons, it just didn't work.  So, that's redemption. 

Also, sewing is time consuming, so there's inherent cost there.  I think that's another thing that came up in terms of the trade-offs: cost.  Sewing is cheaper than buying handmade because I don't have to pay myself for labor, but I'll be honest, it's not always cheaper than buying clothes.  And thrifting can have opportunity cost, like I spend my time looking and find nothing, so it's best to go into that realm with an open mind.  I also (GASP) don't love thrift stores…(to be continued…)  So in terms of cost benefit analysis, I sat down and thought about what was the best use of my time and money.  I think that's an important thing to think about when doing the sustainable life thing.  You are a part of the equation, and how much is your time and energy worth.  Basically, sewing a dress or pants for me right now is not worth that time.

TO SUMMARIZE.

1. Pants- thrift, mend
2. Dress - thrift and shop my closet
3. Raglan sweater - sew and thrift
4. Cardigan - sew, thrift, mend
5. Tops - sew and thrift
6. Hoodie - sew
7. Sweats - sew

IN CONCLUSION

I like having a focus with clothing.  I feel less overwhelmed than I usually do at a place like a mall or even a store, and I have some nice organized goals and I have an idea of what my next steps are, which is to start doing research for sewing patterns and thrift stores.  I have my marching orders.  The timeline for a lot of these is flexible, but I need a dress by March.  My plan for my first big clothing thing is to try out an online thrift service and talk about that whole thing.   SPOILERS…I may have made my first order already, just in time to check in about that in my next post…