Part the Third—and final! (Part 1 and Part 2.)
Today: Tops/Blazers.
I did not buy any new shirts, per se.
But I did buy a new sweater. And replaced an old blazer with one I like better. (See: thrift upgrade.)
The Harvé Benard blazer from my winter capsule wardrobe video? It looked chic but also kind of stiff…too corporate with most of my less-serious stuff. For example:
What are those sassy top & skirt doing with that starched blazer?? So I found something with more give, more softness—oh, and the ability to move my shoulders with complete freedom instead of feeling like Tommy Boy: 
It’s wool, it’s knit, and I need to remove a few pills. Perfect! It just looks more comfortable, more friendly, no? 
Definitely more me. I figured this out by thinking about what I love about my other go-to blazer, the one for which I actually reach on a regular basis:
Soft, has give, feels good on.
Glad that upgrade has been thrifted. Sorry, Harvé Benard. It wasn’t you….okay, well, it was. Maybe next time.
I haven’t been as jazzed about the blue/grey/coral/white sweater as I thought I would. I sort of make myself put it on like you eat All Bran—because it’s good for you. The pattern is fun and they are good colors but it doesn’t feel very dynamic with non-jean work pants.
Here, me and sweater in happier days:
Really I’m just not in love with any of my sweaters except my grey leopard print.
So I nabbed this one whilst heading to the cash register at the Goodwill with a few houseware-related purchases:
Wearing the pants I just ambivalized in yesterday’s post…
Not in love with this sweater either but slightly more excited to wear it.
What I’m learning here is that I SHOULD NOT BUY SOMETHING UNLESS I LOVE IT.
Because eventually mediocre attraction to a piece of clothing will out, and you’ll find yourself thrust right back into the cycle of “I need something BETTER in my closet”—the very merry-go-round from which I was trying to disembark in the first place.
DO NOT BUY UNLESS YOU LOVE sounds so simple, and really is the whole point of a capsule wardrobe. So you’d think I would’ve avoided this problem in the beginning by following my own capsule-building rules.
But I think I was worried about having enough—enough tops/pants, enough combinations, enough variety. Surely two skirts will exponentially multiply the versatility of my capsule wardrobe??
Living with an attitude of scarcity over abundance never leads to happiness in other areas of my life; rationalizing and catering to all my fears about “enough” leaves me dissatisfied in a way that loving (smaller amounts of) what I have doesn’t.
So maybe in the next week or two I will try an experiment in radical wardrobe love and get rid of every winter item I don’t THRILL to put on. I’ll just embrace the feeling of sartorial (hopefully not actual) nakedness and, I bet, discover I can live just fine with only things I love.
What about you? Do you have tips for/stories about stepping off the cliff and only owning what you LOVE? Scroll down to comment!
