Mindfulism = A Seasonal Wardrobe

It began as a typical Sunday morning.  We slept in late, and then Mr. B decided to make French Toast for breakfast.  After some time eating and chatting, we went our separate ways to begin the day.  Then the electricity went out.  We waited a few minutes for it to come back on, but it didn't.  Since most of my plans involved electricity for vacuuming, sewing, or blogging, I had to think of something else to make sure I had a productive day off.  I suddenly realized that we were over half way through autumn and I hadn't put away any of my summer things and had really only brought out a few fall items.  Well, taking down/putting away clothes and getting out/hanging up others is something I don't need electricity for, so I set to work.  I suddenly realized that I hadn't really been keeping up with my Changing of the Garb challenge that I set myself last year, so I thought we would revisit it in this post.  

I've been watching a lot of minimalism videos to help me through my No-Spending Challenge and there is something I have noticed.  Minimalist wardrobes: some of them are stylish, but all of them are super boring.  Yes, it's easy to decide what to wear when you only have 5 things in your closet and they're all beige or white, but seriously, does that bring you joy?  If it does then keep it up and I really don't care, but it wouldn't work for me at all.  I need colors, I need options and I need more than just 5 things in my closet unless it's a survival situation.  And even then,  I might have my leaf dress for summer and a nice deer skin for autumn.  I kid of course, but it does  nicely segue way into the topic of this post.  Mindfulism means having a seasonal wardrobe on rotation.  

Unlike Minimalism in which you have only a few pieces of clothing and then layer or de-layer depending on the season, and unlike Maximalism in which you just have all your stuff all the time and more affluent maximalists even have entire rooms devoted to their wardrobes, Mindfulism means having a selection of pieces that you rotate out every few months as I have just done on this rustic, electricity free Sunday morning and just in time for the spring season.  

I believe it was last year that I began a little experiment which I called "The Changing of the Garb."  I decided that for a whole year I would rotate my wardrobe every three months in order to get the most wear out of everything.  How did it turn out?  Well, the results were mixed.  Everything was going along just fine until two things happened:  First, during a particularly hot week of the summer, a gas can full to the brim expanded in the heat to the point that it exploded in the storage shed where I keep all my off-season clothes.  Gasoline spilled all over the floor and fumes filled the air for a week at least before we realized what had happened.  By that time the fumes had permeated almost all my storage tubs making everything smell like gasoline.   

Thankfully nothing was ruined, but it did mean that every time I wanted to rotate my clothes I would have to launder everything or else walk around smelling like a Quik-Stop.  So that was one thing.  The other thing was that I began taking classes and working two extra jobs at the beginning of the year so I no longer had the free time each week to go through my closet, take out the old, fold it up, stow it away, and bring out/launder/hang up the new. 

During the summer, I completed a massive clothing clean-out, which made it loads easier to maneuver around my storage shed and find what I am looking for, but I am far from done with my work out there.  To be honest, I could probably stand to give away double what I have already if I truly wanted to get down to just the basics, but I don't want just the basics.  I want my lovely, amazing wardrobe, just as it is right now, which is to say, only containing my favorites even if that is still a lot.  However, I don't really need anything more, not for a very long time, and I have begun the one-in/one-out policy to keep from having an over-abundance ever again.  So, now that I have done all this wardrobe weeding, I have decided to go back to my wardrobe rotation.

Keeping my wardrobe on a seasonal rotation helps to maximize wear from all my pieces and keep me from getting bored with my clothes and wanting to buy more.  I look forward to all my lovely clothes each season, just like seeing old friends come back for a visit.  A seasonal wardrobe doesn't have to be large and you don't have to keep everything.  If you wear something for three months straight you may find that it is worn out and ready to rotate for something new, and that's perfectly fine.  The point is that you use what you have and have only what you love and will use.  That's Mindfulism to a T.

Outfit Info:  Yorkshire Soft Corset and Yorkshire Day Dress from Selkie Collection.  Quipid Heels from ModCloth are so incredibly old.