Winter ’18 wardrobe: Outfits!

November 29, 2018 by Karen Templer

For this winter round of Closet Rummy™, I wanted to see if I could come up with 30 combinations I’ve never precisely put together before — always exploring just how endlessly recombinable things can be — and for my own ease of use, this time I organized them by weather. So they sort of go from outfits for really cold weather (with a light sweatshirt/sweater or other long-sleeve top layered under a cardigan, for instance) to moderately cold to not terribly cold, like those times it will be 78 degrees on a random December day. There are definitely some new ideas here — as well as several new or new-to-me garments — but seeing this has me feeling good about my shortlist of things I want to make, and what those will do to change things up a bit! For details on any of the garments pictured, see the closet inventory (not all of which got used here).

Winter ’18 wardrobe: Outfits!

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Faux Fall outfits!

September 26, 2018 by Karen Templer

Faux Fall outfits!

This is 30 days of outfits, fashioned from a total of 27 garments and 5 pair of shoes. (See the closet inventory for details.) There are also probably another 10-15 to be had simply by swapping out, say, one of my other two camisoles for the green one pictured, or a different pair of the wide-leg pants in nearly any scenario. These also range from not really warm at all (fine at the moment) to too warm if there’s really no cooling trend in the next 30 days, but I think I’ve given myself a fair chance of not having to think about getting dressed until the end of October. And with the light layers and sweater vests and closed shoes, and a little bit of sleeve action in there, most of these outfits do give me at least a hint of that Fall feeling. Hopefully that will keep me content until actual sweater weather arrives! (Although I should note that 6 of these involve the faded old jeans that are currently at Indigo Proof, so those combos are fictional until the jeans come home to roost.)

I believe there are only 5 garments here that have not factored into previous rounds of Closet Rummy™, and 2 first-appearance pairs of shoes (although one of those is just a replacement pair of white sneakers, so not exactly a paradigm shift), and yet I think there are only 2 or 3 outfits out of the 30 here that I’ve ever worn in these exact combinations, and then only once. It’s not that I’m averse to repeating outfits within a span of a season or whatever — this summer I’ve basically worn the same five outfits over and over and over again — but this is really the central challenge of a slow-turnover closet for me: forever finding new ways to put the same things together, as I am a person who is easily bored and who also finds joy and creativity in getting dressed.

Faux Fall outfits!

One of my favorite things about this exercise is that, once I have a given set of garments laid out in a grid like I do, I can see things I never would have thought of. Like in the top row up there: a Wiksten Kimono + Fen Top twin set! We’ll see if I ever actually wear it, but it amuses me greatly. And the more I’ve done this, the easier it is to also just glance at the grid and spot combinations without needing to actually spell every one of them out like this.

I’ve had a lot of questions lately about how I do this, and I truly have found it to be the most beneficial thing in understanding my closet and choosing more wisely about what to add and subtract from it, so I’ll dedicate a whole blog post to it during Slow Fashion October.

Faux Fall outfits!

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High summer wardrobe doldrums (er, I mean, uniform)

July 18, 2018 by Karen Templer

High summer wardrobe doldrums (er, I mean, uniform)

I just went back and read what I wrote as we were crossing summer’s threshold, and it’s hard to imagine I ever felt that optimistic about getting dressed for the weather! Here we are now in the worst of the swamp air season, and I’ve settled into a coping uniform. For some reason, despite the suffocating heat and their presence in my closet, I cannot put on a dress. I feel like an absolute imposter, so mentally uncomfortable that on the day I kept a dress on long enough to leave the house and drive to work, I had to go home and change. I was so distracted and bothered I couldn’t concentrate! So I’ve settled into a morning routine that amounts to a modified version of “a t-shirt and jeans,” wherein the “t-shirts” are mostly sleeveless tees and shells I’ve sewn, and the “jeans” are my wide-leg pants, nearly always with a pair of sandals.

I feel cute most days, and it makes getting dressed easy (and almost entirely me-made!), but it’s a little depressing in its monotony — brightened by my orange Everlane sandals, which always bring the cheer. I’m hoping the frock problem is really a shoe problem. I really only like dresses (on me) with boots or booties, with just the right low heel, and I no longer own such a thing. So that’s the only thing I’m in the market for: maybe a clog bootie that would work equally well with wide-legs and jeans when fall rolls around? Meanwhile, I’m contemplating the Summer 10×10 challenge, wondering whether it would be redundant or might inspire me out of my rut. I did learn things from the spring one. Are any of you planning to participate?

(Details on the garments above can be found here.)

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Portugal part 4: What I wore

July 12, 2018 by Karen Templer

Portugal part 4: What I wore

I know a lot of you are like “yeah yeah yarn store spinner blessing blah blah WHATEVER — how did the packing work out??” Well, let me just tell you right off the bat: I did not pack right for this trip. I would have nailed it, had we only been there a week sooner. I’d been watching the forecast for weeks, and you may remember I was packing for this trip and for Squam at the same time because they were so close together as to necessitate two separate piles of clothing. I’d also researched weather norms in Portugal for June. And all indications were that it would be in the 60s to low 70s. (Ok, like SF, was how I was thinking of it.) I’d planned to take a bunch of sleeveless stuff, and threw in my usual silk Eliz Suzann top (with its sort-of sleeves) and my Archer button-up, worried I wasn’t going to be warm enough. By the time I actually zipped up the suitcase the night before, the predicted temps had climbed up into the mid-70s with one day in the low 90s. But by the time we hit the ground, a bonafide heat wave had sent in. It was in the mid-90s every day (and stayed hot all night), and I was both mentally and sartorially unprepared for it.

The one saving grace was that I had thrown in my black linen pants at the last second, wanting them for lounging around and for just-in-case. They wound up being the only thing I could really stand to have on, but I was forced to wear my heavy canvas pants and jeans for at least part of the time. The shirts with sleeves stayed in my suitcase the whole time (the sweatshirt was worn only on the plane, but I was happy to have it for that), and all I wore were my few sleeveless tees over and over, with a rotation of pants. I was a giant sweat ball the whole time.

I did look cute that one evening in Porto, up top, when it was just barely cool enough to wear my beloved denim vest. And I also wore the vest with my pajamas — i.e., the linen pants and a tank top — the day we spent knitting in the breezy living room at the mountaintop hotel (and on my flights to and from). By that point — after the dusty vineyard tour and the running of the sheep and so on — all of my pants felt filthy except for my jeans, which were brutal to wear back in the cobblestone oven of Lisbon, but it was unfortunately unavoidable.

My companions were much smarter and had each brought a dress or two, which they wore on repeat. The star of the trip was definitely Jaime’s red Brome maxi-dress, which you can read all about here. And I was also super envious of Keli‘s two breezy tencel Merchant & Mills Dress Shirt dresses, the black one of which she’s wearing in the group shot above — exactly the sort of loose garb you want at a time like that, and she looked great in them. Amber’s linen Fen dress and my linen pants made me vow to only travel with linen base garments from now on — additional layers to be determined by the weather on a per-trip basis.

So not my best packing outcome — but hey, I lived through it and you can’t tell in the pics how sweaty I am! Or why I’m wearing my pajamas on that drive down from the mountaintop. Below is the full blow-by-blow of what got worn when and how. (Some of these outfits make me sad just looking at them!) For garment details, see the packing list:

Portugal travel guide: What I wore

And there ends my tale. If you missed any of it, you can scroll through the complete set of Portugal posts here, and see the trip in motion in my Instagram Portugal Story. And you can see lots more photos from everyone else’s perspectives on the #portewegal feed. Thank you for indulging me in this voluminous travelogue!

PREVIOUSLY in Portugal: Part 3: Mountains, wool and the sheep blessing

All photos © Anna Dianich

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Early summer outfits: Summer layers

May 24, 2018 by Karen Templer

Early summer outfits: Summer layers

If there’s one thing I’ve learned since moving to a place where summer happens and trying to locate myself in that, it’s that what makes me feel most like myself is layers. And that the onset of summer doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning that entirely. This is, after all, a land of air conditioning. I also have an insanely and thrillingly intense June ahead of me — two patterns due, two big trips to plan (and pack) for, lots of exciting stuff in the pipeline for Fringe Supply Co., an urgent need to compress a whole lot of work into the gaps of an unusual amount of travel, and thus even greater need than ever to not have to think about what to wear as I head into each action-packed workday while I’m home. So my early summer uniform is a necessarily simple formula: sleeveless layers.

Nearly all of the outfits below still work if you peel off the top layer when needed, so there you have my deep summer strategy! You may notice a discrepancy between the first “modeled” outfit up there and the garment lineup just below it. I had a moment with that floral top yesterday and an interesting discussion about it over on Instagram. But the bottom line is: that outfit needed a different top!

This round of Closet Rummy™ is far from exhaustive (and this is only using 24 of the 34 garments), but it’s demonstrative of how my [vest/smock + sleeveless/cami + pants] formula might play out in the coming weeks. For details on all of the garments pictured, see yesterday’s summer closet inventory.

Early summer outfits: Summer layers

And now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go see how many outfits I can make with those orange Everlane shoes I can’t stop thinking about …

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10×10 Challenge: Lessons learned

April 12, 2018 by Karen Templer

10x10 Challenge: Lessons learned

The just-completed Spring 10×10 Challenge, my first time doing one of Lee Vosburgh’s 10x10s, was a little more challenging than I expected — in large part due to the fact that these are almost all the same garments from my personal 20×30 thingy last October, so my extra challenge was to try to find new ways to wear the same old pieces … and not feel bored. I.e., the perennial challenge of a smaller, longer-lasting wardrobe. I did manage to put these pieces together in ways I hadn’t before, and I did also get bored. But here are some things I learned and views I had vividly reinforced along the way—

1. A good pair of shoes is everything. These handmade flats were an investment I made late last year — my birthday gift/holiday bonus to myself — and they made everything here look more current and interesting than would otherwise have been the case. It’s a long-held view of mine that a change of footwear is the easiest way to breathe new life into old clothes, and I think that’s infinitely more important when you’re trying to take a Slow Fashion approach to your wardrobe, and intend to wear things for years, not one season. I also realized how blasé I’ve been at times about how hard I can be on shoes, as I used to buy new ones so very often anyway. Wearing these so many days in a row, I realized just how precious they are to me — I mean, I got to watch Julio make them for me through his Instagram Story — and I want to be thoughtful about wearing them.

10x10 Challenge: Lessons learned

2. Comfort is key. I was right in October when I said prints/patterns matter (having included a stripe, a camo and a snake-print flat in that batch of items). I missed that with these 10 pieces. But even more important, comfort matters so so much to me — meaning easy-to-wear, non-restrictive clothes but also “comfort clothes” in the same sense as “comfort food.” In these 9 garments, I included only one knit, and my two pairs of pants were both jeans. I’m a big believer in knits (and not just sweaters), and even had a rule for ages that if a thing required ironing, it didn’t belong in my closet. This was a disproptionately woven mini-wardrobe for me, and that definitely got on my nerves. Especially since we had some seriously cold, damp and depressing weather along the way, which had me longing to feel comforted by my clothes. The stiff jeans almost felt punitive at one point along the way, so I was happy to have a break from them over the weekend.

3. Layers are always the right idea. During this period, we had a high of 37, a high of 82, and everything in between. Which is part of why the silk smock got 4 times as many wears as the sleeveless top — turns out the smock works nicely under a shirtjacket (awesome to have discovered!), and is warmer (and more comforting) than the sleeveless one. Going into this, I thought I might be overdoing it on top layers, but not at all.

4. Selfies are hard! I took a simple mirror selfie all ten days for my IG Story (they’re saved in my Highlights @karentempler if you’re on IG and want to see them all) and had intended to only do the occasional self-timer outfit-of-the-day situation. But I realized I wanted to try to have all 10 ootd’s in the end, plus I’ve had a general aim for myself to get more comfortable having a camera pointed at me, so I added that to the overall challenge. I managed to take one for all but Day 2 (seen above only as garments), and omg I was so over it by the end! But I’m glad I did it — it was good practice, and I even like a few of them. My husband took the best pic, though, when I cheated on Day 8, below.

10x10 Challenge: Lessons learned

(On the 8th Day, above, I cheated. It was 35 degrees and I also couldn’t face my jeans for going out to dinner, so I wore my denim toddlers and boots with my Eliz Suzann silk smock and coat, and toffee Log Cabin Mitts. I’ll tell you about the cowl in this next pic tomorrow— )

10x10 Challenge: Lessons learned

5. Flexibility, as in life, is a necessity. I had said at the outset that I was only including one pair of shoes in the official count, but expected to have to sub in my rain boots on occasion. That did prove true, along with the emotionally and weatherly mandated Day 8 cheat.

6. I love not having to think about getting dressed! And yet still looking put together day after day. The more Closet Rummy™ I play, the more lost I am without my little outfit grids to consult in the morning. As a small business owner, I am pretty much always on decision overload, and not having to decide what to wear in the morning is a genuine help. (I eat the exact same breakfast every weekday for the same reason.) For the 10×10, I made myself a little set of suggestions and taped them into my mini bullet journal, which kind of cracked me up (so I enshrined it at the end). And even though I did change up a few things along the way, I felt a little bereft the following day when there was no handbook of what to put on!

7. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. This was the biggest surprise. Rather than fixating on (or even thinking about) what new stuff I might like to make or buy, this whole thing left me excited about so many of the beloved clothes in my closet, and the chance to wear them again! Of course, there is still that whole no-sleeves problem, but I’m starting to solve it!

All in all, worth doing. Did you participate, or have you before? What did you get out of it?

. . .

GARMENT COMBOS, IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE:

10x10 Challenge: Lessons learned

The garments represented, by number of wears—

• 7 WEARS: blue jeans (Imogene+Willie)
• 4 WEARS: black silk smock (Elizabeth Suzann 2017, no longer available)
• 3 WEARS: black linen-wool cardigan
• 3 WEARS: army shirtjacket
• 3 WEARS: white smock (State the Label)
• 3 WEARS: natural jeans (Imogene+Willie 2016, no longer available)
• 2 WEARS: ancient denim shirtjacket (J.Crew, c.2003)
• 2 WEARS: blue button-up
• 1 WEAR: black silk gauze shell

And 7 WEARS for the tan flats (Solid State Studios, no longer available), since I wore my rain boots twice and my nice boots out to dinner on freezing day 8.

*Not included in the original 10 pieces

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Deep Winter wardrobe: Outfits!

January 18, 2018 by Karen Templer