Category: Sarah’s Real Closet

Winter What to Wear Update No. 1

As you know, I recently re-started my uber-organized-choose-what-to-wear-with-notecards-system. Maybe I should come up with a more succinct name for this thing? Any ideas?

Normally, one card lasts me a week, but since my dressing habits were a bit altered during exam week(s), I spent more than a week drawing inspiration from my last card. My items were:

The outfits below should look familiar to you . . . I’ve worn all of these in the past couple weeks.

20121218-094629.jpgI did some shopping last month and wore a few new things for the first time. It was nice to have my little card to give me some ideas of old stuff to pair with the newbies. For example, I might have just thrown a cardigan over my new LOFT dress (upper right), but I tried a turtleneck instead, which I think was a lot more unique. And it was nice to bust out the old bubble necklace after giving it a long break. The color looked so nice with the minimalistic black and white sweater.

See these original outfit posts if you missed them: (clockwise from top left)

one // two // three // four // five

What to Wear: Fall/Winter Edition!

Waaaay back in the stone ages (a.k.a. 5+ months ago), I did a post called “What to Wear?” in which I showed you one way I pick out outfits and challenge myself to remix my closet and wear pieces in different ways. I gave you some updates along the way, but I haven’t done that in a while. I recently updated my cards (this will make sense in a minute) for the winter, and I have a lot of new readers now, so I figured this was a good time for a “what to wear” comeback.

In case you don’t want to go back and read the original, here’s a quick review:

I take 4 index cards, one for each week of the month. Then I pick a category (for example: tops, shoes, or jewelry) and on the first line of each card, I write down something in that category. It could be something specific or something more general.

20121116-162017.jpg

This time around, I picked 6 categories:

  • Shoes
  • Bottoms
  • Sweaters
  • Necklaces
  • Accessories (non-jewelry)
  • Wild card (just any other item I wanted to add)

20121116-162028.jpgSo what’s the point of all this? Glad you asked.

I use a card as a jumping off point each day that week when I’m deciding what to wear. Alternatively, I might already have a basic outfit in mind but I’ll use the card to think of an unexpected piece to add. When I pick my items, I try to pick a combination of old and new, basic and unique. That way, I remember to not neglect my older clothes, and to mix them with newer things.

If you decide to try out my little scheme, just remember that you make the rules! You can be as strict or as flexible with your cards as you like. You could make more than 4 cards if you don’t want to cycle through so fast. You can put more or fewer items on each card.

If you’d like to see past posts on this topic, just see here (original), here (1st update), here (2nd update), and here (3rd update).

I’d love to hear how you guys decide what to wear! Picking outfits is pretty much the most entertaining thing I do on a regular basis, so I have an abnormal amount of fun thinking of ways to challenge myself to mix up my wardrobe and keep wearing something different everyday! (I’ve always been a little weird.)