A quick catch up post for yesterday, with a longer one to follow later today on the closet purge.
So, I'm fascinated by everyone's comments (if you haven't read through them, do!) and wanted to note some highlights:
1. Almost everyone loathes shopping, at least in bricks and mortar stores, but is also pretty happy to purge.
2. Melinda and others who could pinpoint your exact clothing purchases last year from Quicken: I'm very impressed. Those of you who track purchases that well -- is there a target clothing budget ( not a Target clothing budget, that's something else entirely) or do you just get what you want/need and see where you are at the end of the year?
3. Strong pro and con feelings about used clothing - see Gay's comment about the dead skin cells. Blech. See Carroll's comments on the pro side. Also on the pro side, my friend confessed offline that she just clipped a coupon for a thrift store. Awesome.
4. Dinner guest #1 last night reported that she had just gone to some very high end stores with a friend, has seen what's available at that price point/quality/style, and she wants in! (DG#1 is also not eating sugar right now and finds this easier than not buying clothes. The causal direction between these preferences and her impressive physique is not clear to me...)
5. Dinner guest #2: Her husband buys a lot of her nice clothes for her. Wow. He knows her sizes, shops at places with excellent salespeople who can help assemble outfits, etc. She does end up returning a lot of it, but still. Wow. DG#2's husband discussed his suit shopping habits a bit: He goes to the same place here in Philly, works with the same salesman each time. This salesman actually contacts him when new designs are available that he might like. DG#2 and I agreed that this kind of "push" sales strategy would not appeal to us. At. all.
6. New J.Jill catalog arrived yesterday. Thanks to Erin for interesting info about J.Jill president supporting W -- I didn't know that. Dinner guest #1 thought J. Jill was or is owned by Talbots? (I'll do some research).
6.Here's a game I play on my way into work, covering most of the length of Locust Walk, the main pedestrian thoroughfare @ Penn: I try to scope out each female walking towards me, and quickly decide if there is anything she is wearing that I would happily trade for something I am wearing. The decision has to be fast enough that I can keep track of the numerator and the denominator, i.e., 6 of the 19 women I just passed were wearing something I liked better than what I had on. Note that this game is best played wearing sunglasses for maximum social acceptability.
Yesterday's outfit: My favorite peacock blue Gap stretch cable knit sweater. (Great sweater, though I recently saw a picture of myself wearing it and frankly my boobs looked like birthday party balloons. Ack). Black velvet jeans by New York & Company -- I'm pretty true to their sizing, so I can usually pick these up on eBay (as I did these), but these don't fit so well. And it was too hot.).
Question for you:
If you were packing tomorrow for a long weekend away (normal weekend - no mountain climbing, pig wrestling, or black tie affairs), which three items in your wardrobe would have 100% probability of getting packed? How quickly could you identify those items just now? Are you wearing them? Are they already dirty because you wore them yesterday?
Thanks for all the enthusiasm -- keep posting and feel free to send the link to friends!
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First, let me say that I'm quite jealous that your walk to work is down Locust Walk. I miss that. Three of my four years there, I lived on the west end of campus (three years in High Rise East (I think it's since been given a name, but can't recall) and one year off-campus on the 4000 block of Spruce). Being an astro major, most of my classes tended to be in DRL on the far eastern end of campus, so I spent lots of time on Locust Walk (including the time that I ran into the professor whose class I'd just cut in order to get a paper for another class in on time...oops).
ReplyDeleteAnywho, back to the topic of the day. My three items would be:
1) My new Monterey Bay jeans (in both blue and white) that are my first truly successful Internet jeans purchase. And yes, I wore them yesterday. Will probably be wearing the others today.
2) One or more of my MBT shoes (yes, I too splurged on these...never before had I spent so much on shoes, but I wear them almost exclusively...I have the white/pink "sneakers" (what an odd word), black sandals, brown "dress casuals," and hiking boots. Former knee discomfort disappeared (and reappears when I wear other shoes for a lot of walking).
3) Other than the obvious understuff, there isn't another guaranteed specific item, but rather a guaranteed type. My latest thing is the layered look, so I bought a number of different colored tank tops and have several casual button-front shirts to go over them. Favorite is probably the dark pink tank with the light pink 3/4 sleeve shirt.
I used to be able to pull up stuff in Quicken, but finally weaned myself off of the compulsive financial data-gathering that was taking more time than it was worth (though I could probably tell you what I spent on clothes (or anything else) for the years 1987 through 2007).
My "dress" exercise pants, fleece jacket, a plain colored T-shirt. I'm wearing a version of that uniform now, but have several sets, so would have no trouble pulling out a clean one. Whatever I wear, it will sooner or later be covered in peanut butter, milk, dirt, crumbs of pineapple cake and whatever else my toddler might have on his hands over the course of the day. It's not glamorous, but sometimes one person's wardrobe is another person's napkin!
ReplyDeleteTara
Wow, I love it when salespeople agressively help out (when they know what they are doing). My big splurge purchase is an amazing pair of designer jeans every 2.5 to 3 years. This place A.B.fits in San Francisco, you walk in, they inform you of your measurements by looking at you (?) and select things for you that are super flattering. One stop, twenty minutes, no agony of endless looking, putting your best backside forward for the next 3+ years? Totally worth the price. JN
ReplyDeleteI do confess to having a general sense of our budget going through my head. It's good of you to ask though so I could doublecheck and see if I was doing the head math well. Turns out our annual budget for clothing is as follows: $1500 clothing grownup; $1000 clothing children (which for some reason my husband has categorized as childcare expenses but whatever). I believe the amount I reported to you yesterday was in about this ballpark give or take 10%? That's not bad I think for my mental math...
ReplyDeleteThree items:
ReplyDelete1. chunky black sweater
2. jean jacket
3. once excellent pair of earrings in case you have to go out