If you've been following along, you'll know that the purpose of the wardrobe rehab project has been to shrink and clarify my wardrobe, in the face of moving overseas, so I can throw together amazing outfits effortlessly and so that I have no 'tat' in my wardrobe that I don't wear. Through this process I culled my wardrobe (halving its size!), had a go at defining my style, made a list of my wardrobe essentials and I tried to organise my wardrobe (although spent last night packing for HK so obv all the organising went out the window).
A major reason that historically my wardrobe has been a shambles, apart from the sheer size of it, has been my penchant for buying all different random coloured items with no reference to what exists in my wardrobe and what I will wear it with. How do you solve this problem? Firstly, as I mentioned in one of the previous posts, when buying basics and essentials you should probably stick to a neutral palette of black, navy, beige or white (or any other colours you wear alot and think of as your 'base' outfit colour). This is a point I picked up off this post by Dead Fleurette about the secret to french elegance, and I totally agree. If you think about all the amazingly dressed french women you see being photographed by The Satorialist and Tommy Ton, they usually build on neutral basics with lots of navy and beige and black.
But no one wants to wander around all day in only neutral colours, and thats where buying colour wardrobe 'updaters' comes in to play. Once you have a smaller wardrobe with lots of well fitting neutral coloured essentials, you can purchase a few coloured items (from the high street or charity shops) each season to mix with your basics and make them more on trend. An example? I posted recently about loving burnt caramel colour, and this colour has featured alot as the standout piece in my outfits - paired with dark jeans, black pants, skirts, tweed jackets and blazers. I picked up a top and a pair of shorts from a charity shop for nothing and they have been great for mixing with basics. Buying coloured shorts, silk shirts and other smaller items will allow you to mix them in with your neutral basics. Tash from Excessive Consumption has block colour dressing to perfection.
Another style of dressing that I really like is wearing tonal colours, choosing a single colour and wearing items that are different shades of that colour in the one outfit (see a few examples below). I really love this look, but very rarely ever do it - the Anywho girls and Maria from Vanilla Scented get tonal dressing so right! Can go horribly wrong if the shading is off though.
My main piece of advice is to wear what looks good on you. Choosing colours that suit your look and skin tone is much more important than strictly adhering to trend colours or tonal dressing- yes Zara might be pushing washed out blue but if it doesn't suit you don't go for it. Back in the day our grandmas used to go and get their 'colours' done, where someone would sit them down and work out what colours suit them. This may seem a bit archaic but sometimes having an unbiased critique of what colours suit you is the best thing!
Block Colours
tonal dressing
The Style Crusader / Anywho
excessive consumption / image of me by Street Style London / excessive consumption
Vanilla Scented / Anywho / Anywho
Excessive consumption / excessive consumption/ excessive consumption