Sewingplums

This wardrobe plan scores the highest number of suggested things I would never wear. Fascinating. I first read this plan a year ago and it’s still seared into my memory.

The plan is on the Wardrobe Oxygen site

1. black tailored pant suit in seasonless fabric
2. black seasonless trousers
If anyone tells me to wear black or a tailored blazer, I run screaming to the hills. I look very ill and really ugly in black, did even when young. When I was a very successful professional I didn’t wear tailored or structured clothes or a notched lapel jacket. I don’t feel comfortable or myself when I put them on.

3. jeans
4. dressy jeans
Well, I love practical denim and try to find it in other colours, but indigo blue is not flattering on me.

5. black heeled boots
6. black leather pumps
High heels – thank goodness we don’t have to wear them anymore (though I’ve got a fabulous pair of navy boots I’ve never been able to part with). Pumps I do wear on formal occasions. But black ones would be very unflattering to my leg skin tone.

7. not so little black dress
I’ve never owned anything at all like a ‘little black dress’ – wow, how have I managed to get through life without going to a cocktail party. Let’s see, I look terrible in black, sheath dresses are unflattering on me and a hassle to fit, strappy dresses slide straight off my sloping shoulders. . .

8. silver hoop earrings
My skin has yellow tones so silver is not good on me. I’ve got a long neck so could wear long earrings, but I’m old enough now for my crepey neck to be a feature it’s best not to draw attention to.

9. black or grey merino V-neck sweater
12. slim v-neck sweater in signature colour
V-necks – ah well, I have a long neck and long head, so if I wear a v-neck I look like a giraffe. That is also true of a jewel neckline. Wider slightly curved necks are good on me. V-necks can look discordant on people with rounded or square jawlines.
I actually have got some non-V-neck merino sweaters in my signature colour.

10. trendy skirt
11. trendy jacket/ blazer
I do like ‘trendy jackets’ – something a bit unusual as I don’t feel or look good in the classic shapes, but no sort of jacket fits well into my current lifestyle.
And a trendy skirt ? well my knees have always been ugly (family heirloom) and my ankles now aren’t much better, so short skirts have never been good on me.

13. signature accessory
Hurrah – I’m a handbag freak. Beware having a closet full of them 😀

14. sparkly evening shell or top
Ah well, I’m not really a shiny sparkly sequin sort of person. Lace and embroidery are my favourite embellishments.

15. the perfect tee – or two
Oh dear, tees. I have a small bust cup, and it’s best not to wear anything tight. I prefer to keep that fact about myself a bit disguised !

16. well fitting winter wool coat
Again, classic tailored shapes are not good on me. I have some cosy stylish padded jackets.

17. great fitting bras
Yes indeed – several thousand percent of agreement with this, even though I’ve got too small a bust to wear a bra often myself.

18. panty line free underwear
Absolutely, there should be a law about this, and about bra lines too.

19. a pashmina or wrap
I used to have fun wearing a poncho, but generally find the shape of a shawl is inconvenient and uncomfortable.

20. clutch purse
Very fashionable at the moment, but what a hassle to have to remember all the time to keep hold of it.

21. daily purse
Of course, except mine is a basket and I don’t think that is what she has in mind !

22. sexy shoes that can be worn for at least five hours
See heels above. I’ve never owned a ‘sexy’ pair of shoes, not my style. But yes, every pair of shoes I own must get through a day of being walked in without harming my feet in any way.

23. sunglasses
Yes indeed, but do take great care in choosing them. Never buy without a mirror to see yourself. A pair that complements your face shape is much more important than fashion. I have a large head and look silly in the currently fashionable small lenses.

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Of course there are many people who will love this list, find it very helpful, and want everything on it. But it doesn’t match everyone’s best colours, body shape, lifestyle, or personal style. Me, I just get to wear undies with my sunglasses and purse 😀

My own wardrobe staple is a white shirt. I’ve got embarrassing numbers of them. But they get no mention on this list. I know there are people who look as bad in white as I do in black, and people who are unhappy in a shirt. How dull life would be if everyone wore a white shirt and a black suit 😀

Finally I realise I get confused by advice on wardrobe planning because most of it doesn’t apply easily to me. After a year of learning a lot from following the wardrobe planning strand at Stitchers Guild, I’ve been doing some ‘revision’.

Nearly every wardrobe plan I have looked at starts with a structured jacket – pants combination, and builds up from that by adding other pieces. Twenty years ago, in the early days of styling books, it was a matched jacket-skirt combination.

But I just don’t wear them. I didn’t even for the last decades of my working life. For work I often did wear a jacket + skirt or pants, but always separates. I only wore a matching suit for rare very formal occasions.

This is one of the reasons why I feel more at home with Janet Wallach’s Working Wardrobe. Although she doesn’t explicitly say so, she has categories of garments – bottoms, tops, layering pieces. And in her examples, when she pulls something out from someone’s closet as the starting point for building a wardrobe, the items are of good quality in flattering colours, but they rarely make a matching suit.

Also the example clothes in wardrobe books are always classic ‘urban’ styles for an hourglass figure (and in black – aargh). That is of course inevitable, for simplicity. But none of that is ‘me’. It’s not what I’m comfortable with or what I aspire to. And it makes things more difficult for someone with a tendency to be literal minded like me. I have to do a lot of mental re-imagining to get the suggestions to seem at all relevant to me.

I now realise it is more helpful to work out what I actually wear, and use that as the basis of my wardrobe plan – as a guide to which types of clothes I need to collect and coordinate better versions of. It’s relevant to mention :
– I’m retired and am happiest in casual clothes
– I almost always wear pants, except for very special occasions. I love swirling in skirts, but they’re just not practical for my lifestyle.
– I live in a moderate climate and feel the cold.

My tops are :

summer : shirt indoors, unstructured jacket outdoors.
spring-autumn : add tunic and/or sweater indoors, raincoat with hood outdoors.
winter : add padded vest indoors, padded coat with hood outdoors.
Signature accessory : basket

So I shouldn’t have just one tunic and one padded vest, because they’re never mentioned in capsule wardrobes. I should have lots of them !

And because I do so much layering, my wardrobe needs to be very top heavy, not to have an equal number of tops and bottoms with just one jacket. That approach only works for people who live in warm climates. My best minimum capsule might be :
2 pants
2 shirts
2 thin sweaters
2 warm tunics or sweaters
2 padded vests.
All coordinating of course.

Not much resemblance to any suggested wardrobe capsule I’ve ever seen !

Well, that also clarifies why most wardrobe patterns, which focus on jackets and dresses, have no resonance for me !

So, once I can get away from the very blinkered vision I’ve got from reading too many wardrobe advice books, and trying to force myself to want to wear a jacket, I discover that there are quite a lot of tunic – pants patterns available, particularly among Very Easy Vogue sportswear, and some in Butterick sportswear. So perhaps finding a good wardrobe for me is not as difficult as I thought. . .

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