What this garden has been missing: a chair to sit in and read.
Today is the 1-year anniversary of the start of my Wool& 100-Day Dress Challenge, recorded in this photo album. My little Camellia dress served me well through a fiction-writing residency and the completion of my forthcoming novel, then the trek to take my children to college, as well as hikes, gardening, and all the demands of daily life. She's looking a little rough around the edges at this point, but she's still a trooper.
Why was this dress challenge such a big deal?
*It taught me the ease, comfort, and versatility of dresses as a wardrobe staple: getting dressed every day has never been more of a no-brainer.
*It taught me that people weren't scrutinizing my appearance nearly as much as I thought they were. My self-consciousness was just that.
*It taught me to love merino wool and, by extension, other high-performing natural fibers (and not to settle for synthetics in my clothing choices).
*It taught me that a wardrobe of much ---- fewer but better-selected pieces working in harmony with each other --- is better than a wardrobe of many. As I've said many times before, I'm not a minimalist, and I don't really believe in capsule wardrobes as such (though I make them for traveling), but I'd still rather have a closet honed down to things I really like and like to wear, out of which I can create an infinite array of outfits for every occasion. There's a massive sense of security connected to knowing that whatever arises, you have something to wear for it. I had been blogging about my clothes before I began this challenge, a year ago today. But something really came together for me in the course of blogging that challenge, and has continued to do so in all the days since: a heightened sense of my own style, integrated with who I am as a person. I began to learn, and continue to learn, how to show up as myself.
I began to learn to feel truly better about myself as a whole person, in a way that I hadn't been able to do in 56 years --- it sounds silly, maybe, but the integration of my inner self, my personality, my psyche, with my outward and physical self, my body and face, was something that had always eluded me. I looked in the mirror a lot, not to admire (though sometimes I did), but to try to figure out what I really looked like, and who what I looked like meant that I was.
That's been one useful function of the daily-selfie habit. Again, it sounds so dumb. Everybody loves to hate on the selfie reflex. But photos show you yourself in a way that the mirror does not. Whereas the whole effect of the mirror is to make you say, This is myself, a photograph grants you a measure of separation, dis-identification, non-self-recognition, that allows you to make some kind of judgment or assessment of what you see. This sounds paradoxical: you have to fail to recognize yourself in order to recognize yourself more truly. But that's how it seems to work.
Granted, if your lifelong habit has been to dislike yourself, you have to learn to view the image in the photograph with some charity, which isn't a bad discipline to cultivate. If you can learn not to say, Look at that fat woman, look at that ugly woman, look at that dork, about yourself, then it stands to reason that you won't be so reflexively fast to say it about anyone else, either.
Love your neighbor as yourself --- there's one half of the whole law of God. Where we fall down, all too often, is in loving our neighbor exactly as much as we love ourselves, which is to say: not at all.
Meanwhile, I'd thought I might wear something else to Mass, just to save myself more swing-dress slots in this week's July 4/3 Challenge, but how I could I not celebrate my Camellia dress today?
Wearing her with at least one item I don't wear often: this vintage kimono, which I've had since childhood. It's a light, cool layer on a hot summer day, and it has the added advantate of covering up tiny holes, mended spots, and pilling, all of which this dress has sustained in a year of wear. I know the flaws are there, but all you see is a lovely column of light blue, framed by the brighter floral print.
This will make the first time this year that I've worn this kimono. It's not exactly an everyday item, but I think it is a good example of why I just don't reach for it isn't a reason to get rid of something. No, I don't reach for this kimono much (though I really could reach for it more --- to wear over jeans, shorts, all kinds of things when I want to elevate an outfit). But when I do reach for it, it's because I really want to wear it, and it's the right thing at the right moment. I don't want to hang onto things I don't like or feel good in, but I do want to hang onto things that, on very specific occasions, are exactly what I want and make me feel great.
I guess technically it would be better if the kimono hem were not so close to the dress hem, but whatever. Can't have everything. They really aren't the exact same length, so don't create one solid line, though in these photos it sort of looks as though they do. I could add a belt to break that up, but I think that might feel like one thing too many. When I've worn this dress + kimono combo before, I have worn a longer necklace, which I think helped with that effect. Today my necklaces were all tangled up, and I didn't feel like sorting them out, so here we are. Maybe it's not an absolutely perfect outfit, but I feel breezy and summery and perfectly happy with it all.
Tan sandals for contrast and comfort. Later I'll just slip off the kimono and wear the dress for afternoon lounging, walking, cooking, and whatever else I might do.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON:
Back home, and back inside after sitting out in that garden chair reading, until it just got too hot to stand. I'm already looking forward to golden fall days among the last flowers, with my coffee and my book, since the golden summer days aren't making this quite the sustainable experience I might have hoped for.
Still wearing my lovely Camellia, who still needs mending. Maybe when I take her off tonight I'll work on the new little hole.
I'm almost to the 200-day mark in my No-Buy 2022 year and have been pondering, yet again, what this "no-buy" business means.
*It clearly hasn't meant that I've bought absolutely nothing. I have bought a dress and shoes, plus a lot of underwear (NO REGRETS there, let me tell you --- I needed it, and I like what I bought better than I've ever liked any underwear in my life). It also hasn't meant that I haven't THOUGHT about buying things. I certainly think about buying things.
*I wonder if it would be better and more accurate to call this a "SLOW-Buy Year." Because that's really what it is. I mean, if I didn't call it "NO-Buy," then I'd probably be pushing the envelope even more than I already do, but in point of fact, the effect of this rule I've made for myself has simply slowed down, not stopped, my rate of acquisition.
But believe me, I'm not saying it like that's a bad thing. If I'm going to embrace "slow fashion," then what's going to be meaningful for me on a regular basis is that my acquisition of clothing items has to slow down. Yes, it's about where the clothes come from and what they're made of, but it's also just: I'm not in a hurry. I don't have to have things right now. I might have a list of stuff I think I want --- and there's nothing wrong with having a big list of stuff I think I want --- but it's good for me to slow down, let it sit, and come back to it, to see more clearly what I really want. I spend less money that way, and/or I spend the money I have to spend more mindfully and purposefully, with fewer misfires and regrets.
This has also meant that whereas I have learned in the past to crave the dompanine hit of shopping (at Goodwill, but still: shopping), or of ordering things and anticipating a package in the mail, what I'm learning now is to find dopamine hits in my own closet. The dress challenge last year taught me a lot about making outfits --- some, believe me, I'd never wear again, but a lot of those outfit ideas I still like. The July 4/3 Challenge I've come up with for this month is pushing me the same way: I'm not required to fast from clothes I really like (which was part of what made the 100-day challenge challenging), but three days a week I do have to make some different outfit out of elements that aren't my default mode. And that's fun. It's led me to rediscover a lot of things, and to consider how I can put items together in new ways. The whole routine of choosing the clothes, putting them on, taking a picture, and posting about them: weirdly, that's kind of a dopamine hit.
I don't have to have new stuff. There's nothing wrong with wanting new stuff, and eventually I will acquire some new stuff, but I don't have to have it, at least not right now. Meanwhile, what's in my closet offers itself as something new, all the time. I have enough that I can surprise myself with combinations I hadn't thought of before. I have enough that I can like how I look every day. I have enough that I really don't have to get tired of anything.
I also have enough that I can continue to winnow carefully and condense. I've outboxed one skirt in the past week, and I don't think I'll miss it. If I do miss it, I can get it back out again, because the outbox isn't going anywhere for awhile, but truly, I think I'm not going to pine for that skirt. I have enough skirts. At least: I have enough skirts of that particular type, and that one wasn't doing much for me, no matter how I tried to make it do more. I also have dresses that, especially in colder weather, will masquerade as skirts with shirts and sweaters over them.
It's fun to think about all this. It's at least as fun to think about all this as it is to think about buying things. Yes, when I'm ready, I will enjoy buying things I want, and I will anticipate their arrival with breathless excitement, and all of that will be a dopamine hit. It will be fun fun fun. But in the meantime, really, my own closet is a great place to go shopping, where all the colors are just right, and the fabrics are increasingly exactly what I want . . .
I have much. For now at any rate, I can do perfectly well without more. And if "no-buy" is kind of a misnomer, because what I'm really doing this year, day by day --- 198 and counting ---- is slow-buying, well, okay.
*** Already thinking about what to wear tomorrow, since I need to take a "non-swing-dress" day. I don't know that I love being so absorbed by my clothing, but on the other hand, again, it's kind of fun to shop in my mind among things I already have.
-The weather this week isn't quite so hot, but it's still hot enough that I know I don't want to wear long pants. So jeans and trousers are out.
-Not really feeling a skirt or other dress tomorrow, though of course that could change. But I'm thinking shorts again, probably. I do like my green shorts a lot, and I'm glad to be making myself wear them.
-Could go with a repeat of this outfit, which I liked the last time I wore it. The gauze top is cotton, but it's . . . gauze. So it dries pretty fast when you sweat. And I like the funky boho Indian look with the tailored shorts.
-Could wear this gauze top. Again, I think it would make a nice contrast with the shorts. I just have to consider how much I want to wear a camisole layer under it. That's one thing I don't have in bamboo: an actual camisole. Bralettes and crop tops, yes, and I get an enormous amount of wear out of those, but not a cami. I could possibly wear my bamboo full slip, though, and just tuck it in. That would possibly be better than a cotton cami. But again . . . do I want a second layer at all? And I'm not sure what the gauze fabric is, but I'm thinking it's a synthetic. Need to get up and go check the label. I have contemplated outboxing this top, because as much as I want to like it, there are some solid reasons why I haven't been wearing it. It feels like less a case of I don't reach for it than I don't reach for it BECAUSE [actual reasons]. We'll see. If I'm slow to buy, I'm also slow to purge.
-Could try a merino tee with those shorts, like maybe my pink microstripe one. It has the most graceful, feminine cut of all my wool tees, though I'm not sure it's quite enough to balance out the uber-structured shorts in a way that will be flattering. The pink with the sage green would be nice, though. I'll need to play with things a bit, I think, but I should at least try that before I decide it won't work.
-This isn't a good photo, but I do have these soft cotton trousers, which I haven't worn since the end of January. I kind of forget I have them, to be honest. They're not super heavy or hot, just a nice cotton knit. It might be worth giving them a whirl to see how I'm feeling about them.
-There's also my rose-brown jumpsuit.* I don't love that fabric in the summer, but maybe? If it's not too insanely hot? It does have the advantage of being another easy one-piece affair.
Obviously I'm spoiled for choices here. I'd been feeling out of sorts about having to pick something that's not a swing dress, but now that I'm thinking about it, maybe that's not such a bad deal after all.
*I see that Wool& is coming out with a jumpsuit, and that one of the choices is Redwood. The other choice is black. I'm wondering whether in real life Redwood is anything like the pinky-brown of my current jumpsuit, because if it is, I might put this new jumpsuit on my wishlist. Otherwise I'll wait and see if they ever make it in something like Marine Blue or Washed Navy. These ruddy browns are so hard to judge . . . it could be a really good color for me, or really NOT a good color at all. Putting the photos side by side, it seems really close to this color that I know is good. I could get excited about a wool jumpsuit and will definitely watch the Facebook group to see who buys it and how it looks on them.