As I mentioned, I have an addiction to shopping for clothes, but what is worse, I am a hoarder of new clothes. I have clothes in my closet that have been in there for years. Seriously, from in-style to out of style to back in-style again. So, I decided to shop my own closet for the trip to Savannah. I decided that my clothing options had to be brand new for me to consider it for the travel wardrobe. I am talking take the tags off of the clothing before sticking them in the bag. I made only a few exceptions to my rule as I was packing-especially in terms of the essentials and a dress or two.
Yes, I have that many clothes that have never even had the tags removed...even some....wait for it....from high school! I know that is sad. What is awesome though is that I can still wear my clothing from high school. So before I started to shop my closet, I wanted to be able to see what I had in my closet store. The first thing that I had to do was reorganize my closet. What I saw when I was finished shocked me.
First, my closet is organized by sections:
- dresses,
- skirts,
- pants,
- capris/shorts,
- tanks,
- short sleeve tops,
- quarter length,
- long sleeve tops,
- cardigans/ jackets ECG that go over something.
- These sections are all color coded, meaning all my blue short sleeve tops are together, or all my black pants are together or all my blue jean shorts. This makes dressing so much easier for me. Now, while I have kept my sections, I went through to pull out all the clothes with tags still on them, then organized them in the same way in their own little designated section in my newly made over closet. I also did the same thing for the clothes that I have worn this year. What was left over, (the clothes I have yet to wear-which is in the center section-shirts only) took up a huge part of my closet. But what was the most shocking was the amount of clothing items that still had tags on them. But this is a good thing for me and my endeavor to shop my closet!
As for packing, I am going to try to only pack what I am going to wear, but I do try to have one of those emergency outfits.
When I pack, I take a look at the schedule and see what types of clothing I am going to need. Is there a possibility of it getting dirty or me getting all hot a sweaty? What kind of shoes do I need? Am I going to do a lot of walking? My rule of thumb is I need two outfits per day, one for the daily activities and one for the evening. It is a double bonus if I can transition from day to night with the correct additions or subtractions. The evening is usually a dress because I like feeling hot and sexy in my dresses. Plus, who wants shorts sticking to you in the hot, humid summer weather.
Okay, so here is how I shopped my closet. I allowed only a couple of pieces that I had worn before. One was a dress that I took to the beach last year with me when I was pregnant. This would be the first time I have ever gotten to wear it while not looking like a beached whale, so I think that I can count that as new. Also, I packed a pair of my favorite jeans. There was only one pair that was still with tags and they were bootcut, so not right for summer. So, I did cheat a little with that a a couple of the cover-ups. But everything else was brand spanking new. Boo-Yah.
Now, you can imagine that if I love to shop, I probably also love to pack. In Jamaica, I had at least 3-5 clothing changes a day. Yes, I packed that much, there was no laundry doing on my va-kay.
So, here is how I got this ball rolling.
I chose my basics first. These were things that I knew I could use and rotate easily between other items in my travel wardrobe. So, I went with my favorite skinny jeans, a pair of black shorts, a black and white top (exact same style), a denim shirt and a white dress (although this one has flowers on it).
Then, I added the fun stuff. I tried to stick with a color theme. The way I did it was I laid out one cardigan (a coral one) and one statement necklace (a teal one).
The fun clothing items had to match or they didn't make the cut into the travel wardrobe. I ended up choosing a blue, white and black tie neck top, a strapless color pop top, a teal skirt...
and a few dresses (a tropical cotton one, the stripped grey and coral one, and a tiger print dress with fun edges and the green and black one that my husband liked (one of the ones that I have had on once or twice before......
I know that this trip is going to have a formal night. I chose two dresses, one slightly fancier than the other. One is a white one shoulder (sort of) with some kind of applique down the side, while the other is a full out prom looking pink dress with no back that I love which I didn't take a picture of.
In terms of accessories, I always take way too many which ends up bad because they all get tangled and messy and then I want to heave them in the trash because I have to take time out to sort them out again. So, this time, I am going to pair way down. Usually, accessories is the last thing that I look at but this time, I used the necklace to help me decide what clothes to take. So, I only need one. However, I have decided to take a coral one too, just for interest, (I am new to this I don't need 2 suitcases full packing thing) and a fanciful one for the formal evening (so 3 necklaces total). I also picked only one bathing suit-usually I have 3-4 in my bag. I also picked out a big floppy black Ralph Lauren Hat, Black clutch, a cute crossbody that will double as a clutch if I need it too, and 4 pairs of shoes-one formal, one wedge, one comfy, and one flipflop-that I wore).
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