Thursday, July 13, 2006

More restrictions! Yay!

Because I love these self-imposed rules!

Rethinking my wardrobe
I am chucking 7/8's of my clothes.

Why am I doing this? Well, I joined Wardrobe Refashion a while back because I've always been interested in DIY fashion and thrift (usually out of necessity), committed myself to a six month long abstinence from new clothing purchases, and then became really lame. I did not refashion anything - I just went on as usual. The reason I went on as usual is because the Wardrobe Refashion rules aren't very different from what I already do, so I wasn't very motivated.

However, I was watching what other people were doing. On fiftyRX3 I learned about the Little Brown Dress Project, an anti-fashion performance project wherein a woman wore the same little brown dress for 365 consecutive days. This really got me thinking, esp. since she went straight from that to wearing only things she has made herself, right down to her shoes. All this combined with Andrea Zittel's Uniforms really stirred me up out of my cubicle and got the little gray cells working. I scurried home to implement The Plan.

The Plan
My hope is to have 80% of my clothing be self-made and the remaining organic/fair trade by the New Year's Eve.

I have started by creating a foundation wardrobe. I weeded out all non-essentials, leaving about a week's worth of clothing that can be mixed and matched practically in the dark since they are all brown, gray, black or white. I am keeping a cardigan, my jogging clothes, a nightgown, a pair of PJ's, my socks and underwear, my shoes, and anything I have already made by hand.

Over the next couple months I am going to enhance and replace this foundation wardrobe with pieces that I have either knit, crocheted, or fabricated from recycled clothing or organic/fair trade materials. I am allowed to buy underwear, but only organic/fair trade.

Fun, eh? And motivational. I've already altered a long skirt to become a summer dress.

2 comments:

wenders said...

Wow. I know I couldn't do that. I MIGHT be able to try the diet thing, but this...no way. I am tres impressed.

Carrie K said...

Does it count if I tend to rotate clothes every couple of days? That sounds one step away from a uniform, something I've always thought has always gotten a bad rap. There's something to be said for not having to decide what to wear.