No Repeats

One of the principles that guide  my fashion life is that of consistent inconsistency. I won't wear the same main color two days in a row, I won't wear the same main garment type two days in a row, I won't wear the same shoes two days in a row. Anything that is more noticeable than a basic staple has to have a rest period (varying from a week to a couple months, depending on just how noticeable it is) before I wear it again. If I can remember ever wearing a certain combination of clothes, I really, strongly hesitate to wear them together again. Ever.

Fortunately, I don't have great recall (Usually I struggle to remember what I wore one day prior), so I can happily re-wear a lot of outfits since I forget them in the meantime...but once I blog one of my outfits, it's game over. The photographic evidence is out in public, proving that it's been done before. Which makes me even less likely to forget other non-blogged outfits, featuring the same primary items. Even this usually isn't a problem, because I tend to retire most of my clothes after 2-3 years, so then I don't need to worry about re-wearing them any more. But there are some garments that I am loath to part with.

One example is this blue and white caftan top. It's a funny thing for me to want to keep, as it's not really terribly flattering on my body (tending to accentuate my broad shoulders and make me appear top-heavy), but I just can't resist its inherent versatility! It's got the perfect sleeve style for a transitional-weather-day like today, where it's too cool for summer clothes, but anything too wintry would make me feel stifled. It's loose and breathable, but provides ample coverage against a chill in the still air. And also, I really just like the pattern!

The problem is that since I've had it for 3 summers and some change, I've basically run out of new ways to style it. I've worn it with black leggings; I've worn it with white pants; I've worn it with navy blue pants; I've worn it outside my color comfort zone and paired it with yellow shoes. Since I'm incurably matchy-matchy in my personal style, you know that once I start adding bold accent colors, I'm running out of ideas.

But today I wanted to wear it again. And I needed a novel color pairing for it.

To choose this color, I used a technique that I might as well give a name—we'll call it Stare & Pair.

Stare & Pair—the catchy name for a technique that probably doesn't need one!

Simply take the piece that you want to find a mate for (in this case, it was my blue & white sweater), and set it down as close as possible to the collection of candidates for pairing with it (in this example, my stack of colored skinny jeans). Then allow yourself to take in the whole picture, all the colors and possibilities, and just gaze unfocusedly. At some point, your eyes should be drawn to one candidate in particular. In this example, it was my purple jeans. There's really no difference between this technique and just trying on tons of outfits in sequence, except it takes a lot less time!

So I'd selected a new and untried color of pants to wear with the sweater. Great!

The next step was finding the third piece—the accessory or shoe or jewelry to finish everything off. I used the Stare & Pair method to narrow my options down to a couple pieces of lavender jewelry. That was a rather exciting development, because it introduced a new layer of complexity into my color palette! If I were to wear lavender jewelry, that meant I could also wear lavender shoes, which would be much more interesting than the white or blue I almost always combine with this shirt.

By the time the outfit was completely assembled, I was pretty delighted. Usually my first wear of an article of clothing is also the most inspired, and all my subsequent outfits go downhill from there. But in all the years I've been wearing this caftan top, this new combination of clothing is probably my favorite! Sometimes, refusing to allow yourself an outfit repeat can really have unexpected benefits!