Blazers: Breaking It down (Part 1) and Coming Back From Break

Oh helloooo world!!!! It's really nice to see you again. I know I kind of dropped off the planet, but somewhere in between the last snow storm and trying to get a bunch of projects done before spring break, I went into serious hibernation mode. Then, I spent 10 lovely days with Mr. C, exploring New York's irish bar scene (you have never celebrated St Patty's day until you've spent it with a Cullen boy). 

Since then, I'm slowly re-emerging into the land of the living . . . which means tackling another part of my closet: blazers.  Well, until I actually counted them and realized how many I owned. Nine. That seems like a lot, right?!?!? How did I miss this in the three closet clean-outs I've gone through in the last year? And, if I own so many, why do I keep adding new, brightly colored blazers to my Zara and Nordstrom shopping carts?

I blame the nine blazers on the fact that when I started my career in DC, I was constantly being mistaken for an intern. So, I stocked up on a lot of suits before realizing a) that my office definitely skewed more on the "casual" side of "business casual". And, b) I still got mistaken for an intern. Over time, I got rid of different parts of those suits (there was one particularly tragic coffee spill that took out some khaki trousers), but kept the jackets and started pairing them with separates. I just hadn't realized how many I had or how long I'd hung on to them. Even Mr. C didn't believe how old some of them were until I walked him through the timeline (the ratings are in parentheses):

As you can see, six of the nine are more than four years old. And, with the exception of my tweed blazer, which I still love and is in mint condition (from the days J.Crew paid more attention to quality), my older jackets tend to have lower ratings . . . either because they don't fit with either with my changing style, my new work/school environment, or they're just really worn out. For instance, I used to love that 2007-Velvet blazer, but it's looking a little  more like the velveteen rabbit at this point and less like a jacket these days . . . This helped pair down the list a little bit:

This leaves me with six blazers, which still feels kind of like a lot (and yes, for now, I do actually need two black blazers. I promise they're different). But, I still feel like something is missing . . . there's a lot of black in there and there's a floral jacket at Zara that seems to have my name on it. But, before I indulged myself, I wanted to take another look at my blazer situation and make sure that a) I really needed many more another jacket and b) I was buying the right things. Check back Wednesday for Part II!