Wardrobe Planning 2014: Garments

As mentioned in the previous post, here's the "layout" I've made to base my Spring & Summer wardrobe purchases on. It was originally quite a bit different, but considering I don't have tons of spending money for new purchases (my clothing and beauty budget for the year is slightly less than $500), but do already own plenty of perfectly good items, I cut it down from a very ambitious, having to purchase new nearly everything, to a more realistic, making use of what I already had list. Obviously, that's going to fit a lot better into my Eco-friendly and Fiscally Responsible criteria: zero resources to be used and zero dollars to be spent can't be beat!

Anyway. Going by the commonalities I noticed when I compiled my outfit inspirations from Pinterest, as well as really trying to assess the needs I have for my clothes, I came up with some basic guidelines for my wardrobe:

• Dress Code: Business casual interchangeable with everyday.
• Keywords: Sophisticated, feminine and classic.
• Colors:  Navy, black/charcoal grey and white neutrals with pink, red or brown accents.
• Focus: High quality additions (when I buy something new, I have to know it's going to get plenty of use for a long time), interchangeability between seasons (I want to use what I have throughout the year as much as possible so that I can buy less overall), utilizing tailoring more often to make pieces fit just right (in other words, I want to be able to alter nice pieces I find in thrift/consignments stores that would otherwise be too big).

And here's how that translates into the actual pieces I plan to buy:

Hello & Goodbye: February / March 2014

i / ii / iii / iv

Like every blogger ever, I have the best intentions of updating regularly, but...Well, you know how it is. I have this whole life that is not the least bit concerned with how often I make new posts - totally selfish of it, I know, but part of it also happens to give me money, so I've learned to deal. Still, I was pretty surprised when it t was already the second week of April before I realized I had meant to consider my purchases/purges for the previous month ... of February. Looks like March will be included in that, too!

I can say already that taking the time to think about a piece of clothing or beauty product both before and after I buy it has taught me a lot about the thoughts behind my purchasing habits. I won't get into that too much now, as I'm sure that could be a very word count heavy post in itself, but I will say it's made quite a difference in the way I've been approaching shopping lately. I still enjoy it very much (and don't foresee myself ever not), but it's been a different kind of enjoyment that has almost as much to do with saying no to an item as saying yes.

Now, with that vague statement made, here's a look at what I purchased and disposed of in the last two months: