State of the Closet, Summer 2018

It’s been a while since I formally took stock of my closet, and since it’s the mid-point of the year already (how?), I thought it might be a good time for an update. Keeping up with Stylebook hasn’t been much of a priority lately, so I am going to try reconstruct a picture of the year to date from the Google Docs spreadsheet for recent purchases which I still update regularly.

First, the current content stats:

Tops – 30

Knits – 32

Blazers – 28

Trousers/jeans – 30

Skirts – 10

Work & casual dresses – 13

Special occasion dresses – 8

Outerwear – 17

Shoes – 43

Bags – 30

This illustrates pretty well my current preference for trousers over skirts. I am also in a transitional phase with dresses, where I’ve purged a lot of old favourites whose style/cut was no longer in line with my aesthetic, but I am still working on defining what styles do fit it. As a result, I’ve bought only a few dresses this year, most of them casual. This is the category where I struggle the most to break with my old Anthro-heavy vibe, so I am taking it slow. The Sarah Pacini dress I showed you the other day is a good example of something that works, but it’s the kind of piece that doesn’t turn up in thrift stores all that often.

My outerwear game is going strong, thanks to thrifting success, which has paid off handsomely this spring/summer. I now have coats for every occasion, outfit and weather condition, and I find that helps tremendously in feeling “pulled together” when I’m commuting to work.

Over the last few months, I have been slowly editing my shoe collection. The numbers have remained more or less consistent, but I have been adding new pieces (mostly boots and loafers) while purging my heels. Because one can never have too many reminders of one’s age and mortality (sarcasm font engaged), I have been experiencing a lot more aches and pains in my foot joints than before. Not surprisingly, this has significantly increased the appeal of flats to me; luckily, I feel that my new style lends itself nicely to flats, so not all is lost.

On the bag front, I don’t have anything too exciting to report. I thrifted a bunch of Marc Jacobs purses of various shapes lately, which I adore and use on constant rotation, and have largely ignored the rest of my collection. I’m not planning any major purchases (thrift finds excluded), and I find that I am moving away from using large and/or high-end designer bags. Part of that has to do with my (casual) work environment, and part of it is just practical reality; I am frequently commuting with a backpack now, because I carry my laptop with me, and if I’m going to carry a purse, it has to be something small, relatively casual, and easy to carry. A Louis Vuitton or Chanel bag would just look ridiculous. With that said, I am not in a rush to declutter my collection; who knows how things might change, and what my style/lifestyle needs might look like in the future. I’ve learned my lesson, which is not to part with any bag that would cost most to repurchase than what I originally paid for it. Since most of my designer bags were (not literal) steals, I’m hanging on to them for the time being. If nothing else, my daughter – who is proving to be a budding fashionista – will have something to play with in another 5-10 years.

As far as other numbers go, I’ve spent $1,340 on clothes and accessories so far this year; if it stays on the same track to the end of the year, then my 2018 spending will be lower than last year’s, continuing a 4-year decreasing trend. With the exception of 7 items (all but one of them being accessories), everything I purchased this year came either from thrift or consignment stores. On average, I paid just 5.5% of the retail value of my purchased items. Overall, approximately 85% of my working wardrobe is now thrifted. I’m pretty happy with those numbers.