If you’ve been keeping up with my seasonal wardrobe planning posts, you are likely familiar with the color palettes I like to find to use as inspiration. Over the winter break I planned a big closet purge to rid myself of the clutter, have an easier time figuring out what to wear and maybe just maybe find a universal color palette.
Have you ever seen Mere_berry’s instagram? Meredith has an impeccable wardrobe palette. She knows her colors and that translates to the cutest knits and sewing makes. Somehow Meredith is a friend of mine and when I revealed my plan to knuckle down a palette of my own she was so encouraging. In the words of Ina Garten, “How lucky was that?”
I looked at all of my Pinterest boards for seasonal making and created another board with all of the color palettes I had pinned. Then spent way too long narrowing down to the seven that felt the most cohesive and realistic. Because I did notice there were several that were more aspirational colors than the reality of what I like to wear.
From there I “narrowed” down to twelve colors including cream and gray neutrals.
Then back to the closet I went for another pass of taking out clothes that didn’t totally fit and I didn’t have something else that could take its place.
Let’s be realistic here. We all need the kind of ugly but charming t-shirts that we wear when we don’t feel well or schlep around the house. We can’t buy or make a whole new perfect wardrobe because we hyper focused on colors for an hour.
But a lot of what I already own fits into these colors. Which great for me! We can keep on going with this new level of focus and see where we end up in a year.
Also, I have a “real” person closet. It is not perfectly constructed and I share half of it with my husband. I did make him scrape the popcorn ceilings off the ceiling when we renovated but I didn’t repaint the closet walls. There is a horrible florescent light fixture in here that I need to change at some point.
I have no idea what to do with the knits I don’t reach for so I just put them…out of reach.
There you have it. I cleaned out my closet and we have a new focus for making/purchasing going forward. That might make the making plans posts a little less exciting? I am not sure. But I hope it helps work towards the ever illusive goal of having a cohesive closet that I actually like.
what about the yarn?
I did look through the cabinet and there were some glaring “Jackie, there is probably a reason you haven’t used this yet” skeins that moved into the de-stash pile, I felt pretty solid with what’s in there. That might change in a few months.
till next week.
This is really inspirational! I would love to/should probably try to do this myself this year. As my clothes have worn out, I haven’t been replacing them if I don’t wear them often. As my closet feels leaner than ever, this also means I do not own a single pair of “work” pants. I think this could help me decide where to put my energy rather than eternal waffling when I need to make a purchase. Thank you, as always, for sharing!