Friday 27 May 2016

The end of the capsule wardrobe challenge

I turned 36 on Monday - this marked the finishing line for the clothes off my back challenge


So it's done.

Finished. 

Kaput.

365 days of living with 35 items of clothing. There have been holidays, changes of jobs, 5 weddings, a hen & a stag, a funeral, a month in India, hundreds of dog walks, dinners and trips to the pub. I haven't had the final total through from Contact a Family yet but there is an amazing £3,527 on the just giving page, plus gift aid (which most of you contributed - well done!), and close to £1000 raised by the close swap which means the grand total is likely to come in well over £5000. Thank you all for that really. Thankyou. That money will make a real difference.


How did it feel to wake up on my birthday with no restrictions at all on what I'd wear?


It was alright - there were a couple of things that were nice:


  • It was really nice to be wearing clothes that don't look worn out.

  • It was really, really nice to have bright colors back.

  • It was really, really, really nice to be able to grab a thermal on my way out without mentally calculating what this meant for my wardrobe for the rest of the year.


And just a bit of a relief - not to feel like I had to wear particular things for someone else's sake. To dress selfishly if you like.



On my birthday. Dressing just for me.


And I'm looking forward to a year of dressing selfishly this year. 


Yes, I've put myself on a shopping ban from the 1st June until mid September. And yes, I've packed away a lot of my wardrobe so I'm limited to 43 items for that period.

But that's for me. It's to get me away from wasting time online researching clothes, and back to enjoying wearing them. Every day I'll get to make the choice of what I'm wearing. And if I break the rules that'll be about me, not you and not fundraising for charity.

And let's face it 43 items isn't going to feel like a hardship. It isn't a hardship - there are loads of clothes there. I could easily have edited down to 30 for the period and been fine - but the 43 I ended up with allowed me some silly choices, a skirt I've owned for 12 years that only goes with 2 other things in the capsule but makes me happy everytime I wear it, my Grandad's gardening shirt, some warmer clothes I probably won't need - but knowing they are there makes me comfortable that if I want to go camping I can. 

And on top of that I haven't counted scarves, or waterproofs and stuff in that, so I can wear any of those I already own - anytime. And I can wear different stuff to weddings etc. I feel like this is an almost dangerous amount of excess. Except then I look in my lovely small wardrobe, that still has loads of space in it and think about how far I've come this year, and realise that this experiment has been a success.

I look at that wardrobe and feel confident in my choices. Last year I made some huge mistakes when choosing what to put in the capsule - but I look at what I've selected for the next 4 months and I feel like they represent me really well. And me now. Not me when I was 18, which is what lots of my shopping choices before seemed to be aimed at (I'm looking at you off the shoulder tops & crocheted belly tops......).


So what now for me? 


It's been really interesting this year to have something to structure my life on. To know that when people asked what I did when I was 35 - I'll have a clear unifying memory of the year to bring my experiences together.

And it's been good to have an excuse to write. I took years off writing for pleasure - in fact I took writing off my list of things I knew how to do. And this year that has changed. I've enjoyed blogging, I've enjoyed thinking about things more deeply in order to allow myself to express them clearly. I've enjoyed having conversations with you guys about this stuff.  It's been helpful. It's made me happy. And I don't want to stop.

I learnt a lot about myself this year, and have got significantly better at making choices that make me happy. And so that's my project for next year - to learn my own personal secrets to happy. And- when I think they'll interest you- to share them with you. So when I look back on 36 - I want to be able to say that it was my happiest year yet. Here's hoping!

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