No Buy January - A Mid-Month Check-in
And the trick that is helping me the most right now
January. January. January. How many days until spring?
I have quite the case of the winter blues. I miss being able to push all my kids outside when things are getting crazy without having to spend 20+ minutes bundling everyone up, tracking down all the socks/mittens/hats/scarves/etc and finally getting out the door to only have enough stamina left to make it outside for a few minutes.
I miss being on maternity leave. While on the one hand, it feels good to be back at work, I feel more conflicted about being away from my kids than I have ever felt before. I started a new project this month (my first project since I came back from maternity leave) - I’m working on something that I’m excited about, that is interesting, substantial, and challenging, but the pace is an adjustment! While I’ve slowly been acclimating to being back at work for the past month or so, and have that routine down, it is another adjustment to have a lot of work on my plate. My focus needs work. My productivity needs work. My ability to compartmentalize needs work. I’m still burning off the postpartum fog. Or, at least I hope I am, because I am still foggy!
Starting a new project with a new client means aiming to overdeliver and exceed expectations at every step of the way. Building a relationship with a new team, and getting to know co-workers that I haven’t partnered with before. Many deposits in the “trust bank.” The types of things that get a project off on the right foot and set the groundwork for success. And - I have kids, a household that I co-run with my husband, personal needs, some other family things going on that I need to make time and space for. Plus, I would also like to have/find/create time and space to do things for myself (which includes writing this newsletter, as well as indulging in my love for online browsing and curating cool, interesting and fun style finds, getting exercise and reading, amongst other things). This isn’t meant to turn into a burn book of all the things in my life that are challenging me right now, but I say it because it is challenging to navigate. I am figuring it out as I go, step by step, day by day (sometimes hour by hour!) But the number of times that I have been struck in the past few weeks by how siloed corporate America is from the educational system (won’t even get into childcare) and from what actually living a good life looks like was…many times. If you, too, have something challenging you are dealing with right now, then - I hope you know you’re not alone!
Some Observations from the halfway point of no-buy January
I’ve also been spending a lot of time thinking about getting dressed. In a good way! Challenging myself to shop from my closet has been like getting into an exercise routine - it starts off hard, and then once you’re through the initial adjustment period, not only does it feel so good to get that exercise in, you also don’t want to miss it and maybe you want to even add another workout in every week - you know?
The Role of the Uniform / Recipes / Formulas
One of my biggest goals - for myself and through this newsletter is to share ideas that make getting dressed easier and more fun.
One of the best ways that I know to make it easier is through uniforms / recipes / formulas for getting dressed. (I’ve written about them several times before - here and here are good places to start!). It’s probably no surprise that have been leaning on my uniforms over the past couple weeks. Partially because it’s winter, it’s been very cold and we’ve had a lot of weather so thick sweaters, layers, jeans and boots make a lot of sense.
For me, uniformizing or formulizing isn’t about not thinking about clothes or getting dressed (although I think many people gravitate towards a uniform or handful of recipes because they don’t want to think about getting dressed at all). I, on the other hand, I LOVE thinking about those things. I could quite literally (I mean, it’s the dream actually), spend hours browsing new arrivals, flipping through magazines, shopping in person, imagining interesting ways of putting things together. Having the uniform/recipe/formula to follow doesn’t make it something I don’t think about - it makes getting dressed something I don’t stress about (or, at least I don’t stress about it all the time - I won’t lie and say that I don’t have feels like I have nothing to wear or I hate everything I own from time to time!)
In the few minutes I have each morning to pull something together - I am following the formulas to quickly and confidently (there is little time to waffle back and forth about things when I’m getting dressed for work) select the pieces that I am going to wear, and because I know the uniform, I know which piece to look at next and more or less the pieces I am going to put together. (I’ll show the formulas I’ve been leveraging below!)
The need for ease, but also fun
On a day-to-day basis, my wardrobe needs to be easy. That is the reality of life right now - my time to think and dream up an outfit is either happening in my imagination (big fan of falling asleep while thinking about what I’m going to wear the next day, or for something special I might have coming up) or in the seconds it takes for me to walk up two flights of stairs to my bedroom when I’m heading to get ready.
I don’t always like the term capsule, because, to me, capsule tends to connote a ton of rules and a muted, neutral color palette. (I know that I associate a capsule wardrobe with an extremely modern, minimal aesthetic - even though it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way). BUT - the concept of mixing and matching and having things that can be worn together in many different ways IS what I want and need daily. It’s more of the idea behind a collection from a designer - I don’t want all my pieces to come from a single store or brand, but I want to have the cohesion that comes when a group of pieces *make sense* together.
The good news is that I have a lot of pieces that fit this bill. As I think about what to add in the future, I would love to build in a little more color (carefully) and pieces that feel special (eg: interesting or special details) but are extremely wearable for everyday. I could use a little more fun in the pieces I wear during the week & during casual weekend days. I think about brands like Doen, Sezane, Veronica Beard, La Ligne, even Rixo, Boden, Ann Taylor, and ba&sh, for pieces that are super wearable but also special (there are so many other brands that do this, but just naming a few!). I love crewneck sweaters and have many, but wearing them everyday is feeling a little boring!
I think this will happen if I shop more with my gut/intuition and focus on pieces that make me feel a certain way. It’s also something that will take time - - some of the best pieces are the best because they have a story or memory associated with them that makes them extra special. I recently saw a video from Julia’s Roberts’ Vogue shoot where she was flipping through an album of her past looks - she could remember every outfit, every event, every lead-up and prep work involved. I loved that - your clothes tell a story about who you are, and part of the story is how or why you came to have the pieces themselves!
More Femininity
Feminine is one of the words I use to describe my style and what I’m wearing when I feel my best. I talked about this a little here - but I am struggling to find ways to incorporate femininity into my pieces in a season where I don’t wear that many dresses. Both because it’s winter, and because I’m nursing/pumping - the overlap of seasonally appropriate and nursing-friendly dresses is very limited. I won’t pump forever, but I’ll probably live in New England forever so its something for me to think about — where are the feminine pieces or details that I can bring into my wardrobe but also wear as separates. I see this as closely intermingled with the observation above, - the need for more fun in the pieces and things I reach for everyday.
And the #1 thing that has made getting dressed easier…
Is wearing something that I wore the day (or couple days) before. Thanks to
for articulating this idea for me! The functionality of having pieces that make sense together can really be seen if you start to think about this tip, because more of my outfits are just one or two steps away from what I wore the day before or the day before that. I’ve regularly been taking the pants I wore on Monday and wearing them with a different top the next day, and then taking that top and layering it with something different and adding different pants. It eliminates the question of “where do I start!?” (which is key for me in the mornings).So, what have I been wearing?
You can catch everything on instagram (I’ve been posting daily about my outfits and little tidbits from my brain onto your screen). I’m having a hard time keeping up with TikTok, but there are some videos there too!
Here are a few of my favorites:
No surprise, the Donni Rib Kick Flare Pants are hero pants. I would love to get these in a different color and I know it would be a killer add to my closet. Is the next color espresso? Maybe! The fit is just so good. The wearability so high. They’re all I want to wear on the weekends. I wore them with boots this week, and loved the way they looked - this was the perfect outfit for a family day, but I would also wear this to work from home, out to brunch or lunch, or just for any casual occasion.
Here’s the “wear something you wore the day before” trick at play - maybe it was a couple days before, I can’t quite remember - but I took the boots and the sunglasses and wore them with jeans and a button down. Jeans and a button-down is such a workhorse for me - I’m noticing I could probably add some more unique or more feminine button-downs/blouses and get a lot of wear out of them, and potentially add some more feminine pieces to my closet.
Taking my own advice and experimenting with different ways of wearing a sweater as anything but a sweater. I think we’re calling this the sweater backpack, and I sort of love it! Plus, jeans I recently wore!
I really liked this outfit - my inspiration here was stirrup leggings that both remind me of pants my mom used to wear to aerobics classes when I was growing up and look so stylish on others when styled the right way. I pulled a pair of ponte pants from my closet and paired them with a favorite navy blazer (proving that navy and black WORK GREAT). I wore this to work from home, but could easily wear this into my office as well.
It’s crazy that we’re over halfway through the month. TIME. You wild crazy beast! We’re headed somewhere warm in February, and even a plan for no shopping right now won’t keep me away from browsing some of the resort & pre-spring collections that are coming out to at the very least gather some inspiration for our trip. It’s fun to give my eyeballs a little shopping escape even if my credit card isn’t indulging in the joy ride…until February 1, at least.
Thank you for reading!
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YES I'm such a huge advocate for personal style "uniforms" :) Exercises like doing a no spend are a great way to assess what you already have, and notice if you gravitate towards certain patterns of dressing to help find your uniform!
"Big fan of falling asleep while thinking about what I’m going to wear the next day, or for something special I might have coming up" - YES, me too! I'm doing a No Buy Year so i really love reading about other women's experiences and I can't say how much I've liked this post 💖