Capsule Wardrobe Part 2: The Purge

Well, so far this whole "cleaning out my closet and switching to a minimalist wardrobe in order to simplify my life and improve my mental health" thing is going, hmm, OKAY!

I haven't cried... not over the clothes, anyway. If you saw me sobbing in the middle of a pile of shirts it's probably because I was listening to Carly Simon sing about Jesse, not because I had to get rid of the shirts.

Honestly, it's felt SO good letting go of these clothes. I'm gonna be honest... what I have left in my closet right now is *SHOCKING*. There's hardly anything there. And it's because I'm still in the purge phase, and I have *barely* started to buy my "staple" items for the closet. So right now, I've got a nearly empty closet, and a HUGE list of items I want to get.

Does it make no sense to you that I'm getting rid of a bunch of clothes, yet I'm still going out and buying more? The process can be a little backwards at first. I often buy impulsively, and so my closet has not been filled with a coherent mind considering new purchases in the context of my other clothes - now I'm going to go out and shop for my ENTIRE WARDROBE with the intention that MOST of my pieces will work together.

Neutral pants that fit like a dream, a dark pair, a light pair, a cropped pair - and then a few neutral shirts of various cuts, a few jackets, and some solid, classy shoes - what more does a girl need? If they all go together, it's likely I'll end up with more possible (and good-looking!) outfit combinations than I had when my closet was filled with the thoughtless offspring of many outlet stores.

So, voila, here's what the purge process looked like for me... it took many, many hours, and lots of input from my mom on those "I can't deciiiiiide" pieces. Honestly, though, it felt SO GOOD to chuck most of this stuff!

From the monstrous clothes monster to a nice little farm of fabric piles.

I piled all clothes by type ("shirt" "skirts" etc.) and then pared down to my favorite few of each!

I later decided to part with this delightful pink purse... 

Slowly my "get rid of" pile grew....

.....and grew.....

And then finally, I put back in the close my few staple pieces that I wanted to keep.

I wasn't left with much, but it's all the cream of the crop!

My next step is to start the process of hunting for those classic items I still need - youuu know, like pants (literally only kept two pairs of pants and one of them I got chocolate on tonight. Grr!) Stay tuned for my next installment, hopefully I find some cute stuff to help beef my closet back up after this little crash diet!