State of the Closet: December

As I mentioned last week, I'm going back through my closet to collect additional data points on the items I own. Part of that has been collecting data to figure out cost-per-wear (CPW) for items in my closet, figure out what I need to replace, and, just generally, give me a better idea of how I should be shopping.  I'm also planning on starting to track what I add to my closet every month, what I return, and what I get rid of. This does feel extremely slightly dangerous/scary/terrifying. After all, I'm basically baring my shopping habits for everyone to judge see. (I'm also slightly afraid it will inspire Mr. C to write a fairy tale called "The Empress has too many clothes") But, I'm hoping that it will help keep me honest about only keeping things that fit with my shopping philosophy and will help keep me on track with updating my closet catalogue.

Between santa gifts and winterizing my wardrobe, my closet got quite an update during the month of December. In total I added four items of clothing, three pairs of shoes and one jacket (not pictured). I wanted to look at how versatile each item was (in terms of how many seasons I could wear it during and whether I could use it for both work and casual occasions). I also wanted to make sure that each item fit with at least one of the elements of my personal style.

As you can see, the first item, an everlane shirt, and the last items, a pair of oxford shoes, are the most versatile in terms of seasonality and ways to wear them. The best value, from a purely CPW perspective are still my Ash motorcycle boots. After owning these for almost a month, I can report that I'm wearing them as much, if not even more, than I was originally expecting to :)

I will say it was a little difficult to figure out how each item fit with my personal style, especially since I haven't really defined each of these terms. But, I think it will be a good check for me. The one that was actually easiest to categorize in terms of style, was the J.Crew pleated skirt. (I mean that pattern and the pleats, just scream "sweet", right?) I saw this on a mannequin in the store a few months ago and really, really liked it. Even though it has the highest CPW (in part because I'm still not sure how versatile it will be and I skewed conservative on how often I'd wear it), it's also one of the few pleated skirts that I think look good on my figure and don't make me look heavy.

So, there you go! An update on my closet. I'm also working on a Pinterest project that I hope to reveal soon. Hope everyone is staying safe, warm, and dry in this weather!

*Nerd alert: Ideally, I'd like to come up with a metric for weighting each of these factors and coming up with an overall, numerical score for each item I own, but that's a bit down the road . . .