I like the idea of simplifying my style and in turn simplifying my life. My job is not fancy and simplicity can be really fucking badass when done correctly. If I had a lot of financial freedom maybe I would donate my entire wardrobe to charity* (excluding exercise and lounge clothes). I would buy a few pairs of dark wash Levis, a bunch of soft v neck T-shirts, some tank tops, some long sleeved T's (I'm thinking Uniqlo for all of this) and any necessary warm weather layers. Good boots, a few pairs of awesome sneakers, and a real leather jacket would be essential to this plan so the sum total would rack up pretty quick. I would buy dresses and shorts and fancy things as I need them as the weather changes and for events and whatnot.
One might argue that I could easily just reduce my current wardrobe down to staple items and donate everything else. For those of you who don't know me, though, the type of style listed above would be a pretty radical departure from my usual habit of being either entirely overdressed for most situations or dressed in a manner that makes me look completely insane. I can't look at what I have and willfully give any of it away. It would have to be everything all at once or else I'd never be able to do it. Furthermore I don't have a lot of sensible basics in my wardrobe that aren't cheap crap from Old Navy that only hold up because I wear them so infrequently. I have about 5 pairs of jeans but none of them are nice enough to build a whole vibe around. The replacement wardrobe would have to be NECESSARY or else I could never rationalize the purchase and I'd end up coming to work in athletic gear every day, which would only work if my co-workers promised to nominate me for What Not To Wear.
Here's the thing: I have a $250 gift card to Macy's that I won at work so I think I could actually pull this off aside from the boots and sneakers. I just don't think I can let my weird little wardrobe go. It's kind of irreplaceable in a discontinued due to lack of popularity kind of way. Then again, nothing I own was particularly expensive or unique. I have some cool designer pieces that I found in thrift stores or on sale but a lot of them are ill-fitting or actually a size too big and I do intend on losing some weight (eventually) so I might as well get rid of them now. My thrift habit has also left me with an annoyingly high ratio of items that are dry-clean only. I've never been to a dry cleaner and I don't intend to start now. Most of these items have a weird smell from the at-home dry cleaning kits I've subjected them to. I wouldn't mind making a point of not owning ANY dry clean only items form here on out. I need to come to terms with the fact that I'm just not fancy enough. A related snag to my plan is that I think it's kind of a dick move to donate dry-clean only items to charity. I would try to sell them to a consignment shop like Second Time Around but...that's where I bought them to begin with and I doubt I'd get much for them.
I typically put off doing my laundry as long as possible so on any given laundry day a solid 85% of my wardrobe is out of commission. Right now my laundromat is literally across the street from my apartment and where I used to sit there with a book for the full 2.5 hour process with my foot on my cart and my eye on the machine, I now go back to my apartment and watch things on Hulu. I'm hoping that one of these days the dryer will catch on fire or my laundry will be accidentally carted off by someone else or that it will be straight up stolen by some rad chick who's been eyeballing' my duds.
*Nina if you're reading this I can't give them to you because then I'll still see them when I come home and it would just be too hard. It's nothing personal. It has to be charity.
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