(Un)Packing My Suitcase

Sooo, I scheduled this post for last week, but for some reason it didn't go up. Better late than never, eh?

I know that I talked a few weeks ago about how I did not use data analytics to pack for my trip . .  . and that was true, but that doesn't mean that I didn't take a little more care with what I packed for this trip.  You see, I don't have the best track record when it comes to packing.  Don't get me wrong, I always start off with the best of intentions and a carefully curated list.  But, somewhere between taking my suitcase out of storage and rolling out of my house for the airport, The Fear kicks in.  Do you know what I'm talking about?  The Fear of having nothing to wear.  (Hint: It's a close second to that dream where you're naked in front of your friends and family . . . )

If you've experienced this, then you know that The Fear is insidious.  It starts with something innocent, like  "maybe I should bring an extra white t-shirt in case I spill ketchup on the first one" (a fully plausible situation) and ends with the ridiculous "What if I meet the Queen and she invites me over for tea" (Yeah, right, 'cause that's going to happen in Puerto Rico, or anywhere).  But, somehow, I've managed to stuff my suitcase to the brim with things that I "might" need and never end up wearing.

Well, this trip I was determined to quiet The Fear.  Part of it was out of practicality (have you tried lifting 40 pounds of luggage into the overhead bin? I don't work out enough for that.) and part of it was for my own sanity.  We were going to be gone for ten days.  In that time, we were going to be attending two weddings, spending 4 days at the beach, and going from San Juan to Tampa.  Assuming that I'd need a day-time and an evening outfit for each day, plus wedding clothes and shoes . . . that's almost 20 outfits before The Fear kicked in.  Unless I wanted to spend a ton of money on baggage fees, I needed to give myself some tough love.

The most important step was to accept that it's ok to repeat items without repeating outfits (obviously without being un-hygenic or gross . . . I wanted to pack less, not lose all my friends).  I decided to focus on items that could be mixed and matched to create different looks and use accessories to jazz things up.  I know, I know.  Pretty basic sounding (In fact, I'm pretty sure I've read this exact advice in Lucky Magazine or Elle), but it's something that's been difficult for me to do in the past.  a) I tend to get bored with my clothes and b) I was never good at that concept of packing around a single color scheme.  The key for me was to pick things that I could have fun with and could easily dress up or dress down depending on the occasion.

This is what I ended up with: 4 t-shirts, two skirts, two sundresses, two maxi dresses, a pair of shorts, two sandals and a pair of flip flops.  

(Note: where possible I tried to find items that I actually owned or things that were very similar in style, brand, and price) 

The t-shirts and shorts were great for exploring Vieques during the day or taking a walk on the beach, but I could also pair them with a fun, graphic skirt for dinner and drinks.  Paired with some heels, the sun dresses got me through most of the wedding events we had to go to (rehearsal dinners etc), but were also perfect for walking around Old San Juan (let's get real here, I really mean drinking Pina Coladas).

It helped a lot that we were in pretty much the same climate the entire time (much easier than the time I went from Panama to St Paul, MN in the winter) And, I even learned that I could have gotten by with less.  For example, I love the striped Madewell skirt above, but I never needed to wear it.  I also barely wore my second maxi dress because it was a little too dressy for the beach. 

Note: In the spirit of full disclosure, there were a couple of other items in my suitcase that aren't pictured.  I brought two dresses for the weddings we attended, a dress for the plane, and a pair of jeans.  AND,  I was not completely immune to The Fear . . . at the last minute I threw in two sweaters "in case I got cold" that I never ended up wearing . . . but it's still progress, right?  

Reality Check

It turns out that it's kind of hard to do this . . . 

when I'm looking at this . . . 

But now I'm back to the view of my office wall reality . . . le sigh.  But, I'm not quite ready to get out of vacation mode, so I thought I'd spend a little bit of time talking about how I tackled packing for a ten day trip that included traveling to three different destinations, attending two weddings, and spending four days at the beach.  Check back later in the week for my "suitcase analysis".

TGIF

Is everyone as excited as I am that it's the weekend? No. Freaking. Way 'cause I'm in Puerto Rico right now, hopefully sipping a mojito at this very moment.  Boom!

I wish I had some clever post about how I used the data on my closet to figure out what to pack for my trip. But I think I was so excited to be heading out of DC for some warmer weather that I pretty much packed every summer thing I own.  You might be tempted to make some comment about that being a stereotypical female problem, but you should see Mr. C's suitcase.  

Before I sign off and go back to working on my tan, I wanted to share this article from NPR.  The article talks about how researchers have been mining books to map emotions across different decades.  It's got nothing at all to do with fashion, but I thought it was pretty exciting example of how we're finding new ways to use data mining (pardon my nerd-gasm moment here).  On that note. . . Happy Friday everyone!

Tops: Working for the Weekend

Since work-tops seem to be the one of the problem areas in my closet, I thought I'd start with a quick look at the types of work tops that I own.

*The items pictured are only examples that I pulled for each category, not necessarily the actual items that I own. 

The first thing that jumps out to me is how many long-sleeved and sweater items I have.  Only 25 percent of my tops could really be counted as "summer tops".  Considering I live in DC, which is a sweltering bog from June through September, that's probably not a good thing . . .  BUT, I don't want to draw any conclusions until will have to take a look and see how many other summer work items I own (dresses etc).  After the last time I jumped to a quick conclusion . . . I'm trying to be a little more prudent. Progress

It gets a little more interesting when I sort these by rating.  I know that I established a 5-point rating system (Hate it, Meh, Like but Don't Love, Wardrobe Staple, Feel Like a Million Bucks). While that is useful to a certain point, I've found that there's a pretty clear divide in my mind between items I love wearing (the wardrobe staples and items that make me fell like a million bucks) and those I don't really get excited about (everything else). When I grouped my work tops that way, this is what I found . . . 

Sooooo . . . good news is, I really like wearing the one long-sleeved work t-shirt I have (Winning!!!)  But, I only like wearing one of my six collared button ups (note to self, maybe don't by anymore of those anytime soon).  Also, apparently I'm not doing so well in the short-sleeved blouse department.   Oops. Hope my coworkers don't mind me wearing the same two sleeveless tops over and over again this summer . . . 

Facing the Facts

Sorry for the lack of posting lately . . . I had some friends in town last week and then got hit by this awful cold/allergies/flu thing.  It seems like sudefed + clariton=writers block. The only positive from all that is that I was able to catch up on the The Americans (totally addicted), which was a good thing because I'd run out of episodes of Nashville.

Anyway, I'm finally on the mend and ready to tackle some of the problem areas that I found last week.  Just to recap:

Fifty-five percent of my tops fall into the casual or dress-up category

That leaves 28 tops for work.

And, apparently, I only really love wearing 10 of those 

Just to put that in context, an initial glance showed me that I have eight work skirts and pants that got a rating of "Wardrobe Staple" or higher.  If my goal is to have roughly two to three tops for every pair of bottoms, then I've clearly got some shopping to do (woohooo!!!), but before I take out my credit card I want to take a closer look and see if there are any common trends in the items that I love wearing and any lessons learned from some of the items I seem to be ambivalent about.