So I went onto eBay and bought a black pencil skirt for 99p. Now the above photo is how it was displayed and frankly not that inspiring. But I figured for 99p it was worth a punt and a black skirt is a black skirt, right? If it was terrible I could just donate it. Luckily it's a fab wee skirt with a bit of stretch and I've already worn it to work with a black polo neck jumper, thick black tights, black knee length boots and the pink cardigan. That's pretty much my standard work uniform in the winter. In Spring it tends to be dress/cardigan/boots and summer is dress and sandals.
But it got me thinking about how much I'm prepared to pay for stuff. Would I have paid £30 for that skirt? Actually, no. And what about other clothes? I need new clothes for work but don't want to pay lots of dosh. And I want to look nice!
I had a good look round Pinterest looking for inspiration, searching for teacher's outfits on a teacher's budget and found lots of good ideas (incidentally I think here in the UK teachers are better paid than in the US)
This is pretty much my style once the weather warms up. But although I love the mustard cardigan I know on me it would look better in deep pink or red. So I started looking at colour analysis and discovered that I have been naturally making the 'right' choices for my colouring. With my pale skin, hazel eyes and dark/greying hair I am a 'cool winter' and should wear these colours:
How cool is that!! Looking through my wardrobe I've realised that the clothes I don't wear are the ones where the colour doesn't 'feel' right. Weird!
So armed with this new-to-me information I'm working on streamlining my wardrobe. I have 3 types of clothing - work, casual and exercise. I no longer need evening dresses so have 1 simple little black dress that covers all eventualities. Like everyone else in blogland I've discovered Marie Kondo's decluttering methods. I'm still reading her book on my Kindle but have seen Frugal Queen and Elaine over at Mortgage Free's results and am inspired to get cracking.
Maybe if I start with the clothes then I can move onto other areas and can achieve my desire for less stuff :-)
What a great bargain buy skirt. I think that I have so few clothes because a) I will not pay an enormous amount for one item and b) I no longer buy clothes 'just because I need them', they have to make me feel comfortable wearing them too! Looking at your colour chart I can see that I tend to wear the cool colour palette too but perhaps I should move towards Light Cool now that my hair is almost totally grey. Good luck with de-cluttering x
ReplyDeleteBrilliant buy with the black skirt. It's so hard to know what an item will be like when it's photographed 'flat' on eBay isn't it, you were very lucky.
ReplyDeleteAll of our clothes are 'preloved', coming from car boot sales. This makes a teacher's wage go so much further and saves money ready to be spent on travelling!
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