My Winter Capsule Collection

Winter Collection (January February March):

1.Green Adidas Nora sneakers

2.Black platform Adidas Gazelles

3.Purple boots

4.Black boots

5.Black low booties with white rubber soles

6.Black stack-heel booties

7.Black pouch boots

8.White jeans

9.Winter white skinny jeans

10.Black jeans

11.Teal jeans

12.Green jeans

14.Navy pants

15.Silver-coated pants

16.Black-and-silver skirt

17.Black-and-white plaid skirt

18.Blue boucle ankle-length skirt

19.Dark green sweater

20. Black turtleneck

21.Navy cashmere V neck sweater

22.Dark blue-and-black striped sweater

23.Royal blue cotton V neck sweater

24.Purple marled sweater

25.Raspberry-color sweater

26.Black cashmere V neck sweater

27.Red-white-and-black sweater

28.Black matte sweater

29.Black sweater with red polka dots.

30.Purple sweater dress

31.Pink blazer

32.Turquoise green wool jacket

33.Black long-sleeve tee shirt .

34.Pink long-sleeve tee shirt

35.Pink striped blouse

36.Dark blue long cardigan

37.Black long cardigan

38. Francesco Risso Uniqlo tee shirt

39. Striped Globe Uniqlo tee shirt

Project 333 Clothes Encounters

After reading Project 333 I thought long and hard about when we should welcome discomfort versus when it’s better to feel confident.

Ultimately feeling good in our clothes is what we should strive for. Thinking about using a capsule wardrobe I realized that each of us should dress to please ourselves. We don’t need to step out in clothing trends or outlandish outfits.

Dressing in clothes that are ill-fitting, make you appear sick or tired, or that you’re simply not comfortable in is a mistake. It’s the surefire way to feel miserable all day.

Breaking the fashion rules and other rules can be fun and is often necessary. Isn’t it likely that other people expect us to conform to how they think we should behave precisely because they have their own insecurities they can’t live with. They want us to be company in their misery.

Courtney Carver frowns on thinking you have to do things perfectly.

No—I didn’t follow the guidelines to the letter. You can revise how you execute Project 333. My collection is geared to 39 to 44 items so technically you could call it Project 339 or 344.

Plus there are about ten or eleven items of clothing that I don’t wear that I haven’t discarded or donated. They don’t get in the way of reaching for the ones that I want to wear. So they stay for now.

My jewelry items are listed separately and Courtney said that’s OK. Nor do I count hats tote bags coats pocketbooks or bandannas.

In the summer I list under one item number each my black and white tee shirts. Since they are basics and I own three or four of each color. Those tee shirts get worn-out fast so it’s fine to rotate wearing more than one. Then list in the 33 only one white tee and one black tee when you actually use more.

The alternative is to wear only one white and one black tee shirt. Discard them at the end of the season when they get grubby. Then buy one new tee each summer.

Again Courtney Carver wrote that you don’t have to do this in a perfect way or follow her 33 guideline to the letter.

Coming up my winter capsule wardrobe.

Project 333 Guidelines

Minimalist maestro Courtney Carver created Project 333 to better manage her health by using a capsule wardrobe of 33 seasonal items worn for 3 months.

Following the Project 333 system makes sense to me. Especially for those of us who have a hard time getting dressed in the morning. Pulling clothes off hangers, throwing on the bed the discards, and finally arriving at the outfit to wear.

Sound familiar? In a future blog entry I’ll go into detail about making our lives easier with other strategies in addition to creating a capsule wardrobe.

Here’s what to include in the 33:

Clothing

Accessories

Jewelry

Shoes (one pair counts as one item)

What not to count in the 33:

Wedding ring or one other sentimental piece of jewelry that you never take off.

Underwear

Sleepwear

In-home loungewear

Workout clothing (when you use the gear to exercise – wearing yoga pants to run errands in town is part of the 33)

Coming up how I created my own capsule wardrobe.

Life-Changing Book

This month I read a life-changing book: Project 333: The Minimalist Fashion Challenge that Proves Less Really is So Much More.

In January I talk about this challenge in detail and how it played out in my life. For me the better part of the guide was when the author talked about life topics like being creative and breaking rules. (Hint: Creative people live longer.)

To get followers to buy the book I’ll quote from it. The single most useful advice was asking readers what other rules we could break along with fashion rules.

To wit:

We should break written and unwritten rules such as “The rules and expectations that other people have quietly (or not so quietly) set for you.”

Isn’t that how it goes that other people think they know what’s best for us. We fall in line and sink into doing what they say. Then we get ill conforming to this false version of ourselves.

It’s time to take back our lives. To trust ourselves to know what’s right for us in terms of how we should think feel live act love and dress.

Our uniqueness and our differentness are gifts we give each other.

Let’s not allow those “minders” to impact how we feel about ourselves.

Lastly: author Courtney Carver gets this imperative stance right too:

“Just because things are crazy around you doesn’t mean things have to be crazy within you.”