Autumn's Thrift Season update

Since February this year I've been a part of the wardrobe Project333. The current season is special, for I've chosen every item (apart from shoes and my laptop bag) from thrift shops and charity shops.

The benefits of a thrift season have been great. I've been longing for a wardrobe which I would not be so emotionally attached to, and choosing items from thrift stores has helped with this a lot. And it hasn't killed my budget, even if I've renewed nearly everything in my wardrobe within a month. I think the most expensive item in the capsule at the moment is the teal scarf, which cost 5 euros (about 6 american dollars). I have to say, to my defense, that the town where I live in is a thrift shop paradise, and it has been really easy to just walk in and choose what one needs, just like I would go to an ordinary clothes shop. Buying a hat for winter last week stopped me thinking for half an hour, for the single thrift shop I went into (off about 10 in town) had at least 50 hats to choose from.

I've reviewed most of the thrift season items before HERE so I'll only add photos of the items I've found after starting the season.

What I needed to add to the original items were an autumn coat (on the right) and a winter coat (on the left), and it took some time from the end of August for them to appear on the charity shops' collections, so I had to wait to get them. But I'm actually really happy - I haven't had a decent autumn coat for the past year, and finding the one on the right was just perfect for the working mornings. The winter coat on the other hand has received such amazing comments, it's really pretty and warm enough for Finland's cold late autumn. People have asked me where I've bought it and claimed it must have been really expensive, and it's been fun to see the looks on their faces when I've told them it's a thrift store find for 4,50€ :)

Accessory-wise I've tried to keep things small and practical (for once). I'm a scarf and legwarmer -kind of a girl, and I usually have at least four scarves to choose from per season. This time I've stuck to two - a cooler scarf for the warmer weather, and a wool scarf for the colder times. They are both pretty, and go well with both coats. The ones I chose are also fairly wide, so I can use them as shawls or wrap them around my head if it's cold and I'm missing my hat.

The count comes, all in all, to this;

I have

3 pairs of leggings

3 skirts

2 sleeveless tops (to go sometimes under, sometimes over longer sleeves)

3 teeshirts (which can also be worn as underwear or overwear)

3 tunics

2 half-sleeve shirts

2 long sleeve shirts

2 cardigans

2 coats

2 pairs of shoes (which are my own, not from charity shops)

and for the accessories

1 hat

2 scarves

2 bags (a laptop bag for work and a purse-type for times off work)

1 pair of legwarmers and 

2 pairs for the hands (one of mittens and one of gloves)

I still have one item left, so I'm down to 32.

If I'd be missing something, it would be leggings that would be made of some warmer material. The synthetic ones I've found from second hand shops are quite cold now that it's snowing (at times) and the temperature's dropped. But as I've mentioned before, the leggings have been the hardest to find.

So I'm a pretty happy girl. There are definitely things I will want to keep for the future, like the winter coat and the denim skirt (although I was worried of it's length, it is shorter than anything I've ever used, but I'm loving it for it's easy use underneath tunics and with cardigans), and the white knitted tunic shown above. And it feels like it won't be so hard to let go of items that have not worked their full magic for me.

I have a month left of this autumn season, and I have plenty to choose from for the coming months of winter. When the next season begins, I'll be editing and culling both my current thrift wardrobe and my "ordinary" wardrobe (which is in a box upstairs waiting) and will most certainly be crediting to the local thrift stores and giving them back some of the goodness I've found from them in the past few months.

Clothes are no longer memories and history and something to cling on to. They are items to be used to keep us warm and to brighten up a day. And while it's good to make good use of the items that one has chosen to live with, it's also ok to sometimes experiment and have fun a bit. I'll be sure to use more of the second hand shops of my area in the future, although I've always been a bit of a thrift shop girl.

21 of 33

I promised to show pictures of the items I have found so far for the Autumn Season of Project333. I have a total of 21 pieces of clothing and accessories, so there's a bit missing, but it's slowly coming together.

The first two pairs of leggings. I don't like trousers, and I love wearing skirts. But skirts and tunics in the autumn require something warm underneath. These will do. It was pretty hard to find leggings from flea markets. I suppose people buy them and completely wear them out, so there are none left for the thrift aisles.

Third pair of leggings (these are 3/4 length) and a denim skirt. I never wear jeans, but for the past 12 years there's always been a denim skirt in the closet :) This one is SO short I'm not sure how I'll cope, but I promised to challenge myself and not take the easy way out, so we'll see how this will go. 

The two last skirts. I like my skirts flat around the hips and flary towards the bottom. And I LOVE skirts. For nearly all my life I've lived in a world where ballet tights and tracky bottoms were the way to go and skirts have just been too inconvenient for wearing. But now that I only need gym stuff twice a week, I love to wear skirts and be a bit more girly.

One strappy top and one tank are always in order. Besides, the tank was the first item I found, and I loved the pattern.

Teeshirts turned out to be grey. And the one on the right was so funny I had to choose it over a bucketful of other teeshirts in market. Turquoise pointe shoes?! How fitting for a dance wear shop owner :)

The tunic on the left was so pretty it had to be chosen. Brown has traditionally my basic colour, so it was an easy choice. And the turquoise details fitted well with the whole teal-navy-turquoise thing that seems to be happening. And when it comes to the checkered thing on the right, I had to grow into it. I never thought it would fit me or suit me, but now that I've tried it on plenty of times before the season's start, I've grown to like it. And there's another one along the same lines coming.

Half sleeve tops are a must at work. The one on the left was pretty and just my kind of a colour, but the grey and sparkly thing was a trial. The cut is nice and it fits well, the sleeves are just the right length, but the sparklies? I'm not quite sure I'm all up for them. But we'll see.

Long sleeves. There's something about that top on the right. The navy is so beautiful (coming from a girl who has never liked anything dark blue). It's like a night sky. Long sleeves will most probably be worn underneath a cardigan at work, or with rolled sleeves on their own, if need be. I'm not really into long sleeves at all, but I do need some, for it get's cold in the late autumn.

Cardigans. Lovely cardigans. I've for a long time wanted to have a go with the boxy thing on the right, but I haven't wanted to pay a full amount for one only to find out it looks silly on me. I could also have knitted one, but there's an even bigger problem with it if it is not suited after all that hard work. But finding one in my size from the thrift store (it cost about 1,50€) was just the solution. And the cardi on the left is self-explanatory. It's my style, it's my colour, its something I would buy and buy again. It was a easy choice.

Last of the long sleeves (the other new checkered thing I'm trying on) with a dream scarf. Such pretty colours :)

And so far the last of the items. A mid-size bag. This fits in it just about everything one can need on an ordinary day when not working at the gym or at the shop. And the text just makes it funny. Angst?!

So there's still a good few missing articles to be found, but I'm happily beginning my project this time around with these, and trying to find the missing pieces as quickly as I can. And I'm replacing the missing items with items from home that should *not* be a part of this season at all, but they're just there until I can find a flea market replacement item for them.

And now it's time for a film. The little one is ill and we need to take things quite slowly today.

Anjusha

Day one, Season Three

This morning dawned cloudy and a bit rainy. A great morning to begin the Autumn Season in the wardrobe project, Project 333. What better than to wrap oneself in a warm cardigan and woolly socks.

This is my third season of the project, and I'm trying out something I've never tried before. I'm in it for a Thrift Season, which means pretty much all of the chosen 33 items will be from second hand shops, flea markets and charity shops. I haven't found everything yet, I'm still looking for more wintery gear for the latter part of the season (mittens and such like), and I'm missing a work bag (which would accommodate my computer and gym stuff as well as other day-to-day-things needed), and my shoes are MY shoes (for I haven't found fitting pairs from the thrift shops around). But as there are gaps in my needs-list, there are gaps in my 33 as well. I'm beginning the season (as it's still warm) with about 25 items and will add up to 33 once I find suitable gear from the local flea markets.

Today the delve into the closet was quite exciting. ALL new clothing for me. Well, all-never-before-worn-by-me-except-when-trying-on -clothing from flea markets for me. And I chose a skirt and a top and a cardigan with some tights and woolly socks (it looked rather autumny outside) and a scarf to go along for the ride.

What a joy. It was easy to choose what to wear. The clothes are in good condition (I only chose items that looked reasonably worn), they fit me, and they have no stories to tell (yet). I looked at myself from the full length mirror at the gym this morning and thought "I'd never quess I'm only wearing thrift store finds".

I noticed I've never worn navy blue before and now I have a good few items in that shade. It looks like it fits nicely to the darker evenings and starry skies. It also goes well with grey, which I have quite a lot of now as a base colour. And there's the turquoise-teal-type broken lushness of colour that's there as an accent.

I'm well looking forward to this season and what it's about to teach me. I'm already loving the no-strings-attached anonymity these thrift store clothes have. They all have stories, they all have belonged to somebody else in their previous homes, but there are no emotional attachments, and they are not sentimentally laden and bound to be worn by quilt. They are simply clothes, and I'm quite happy about that.

Anjusha

Autumn Season gone wild

The eve of my Autumn Capsule will soon be here. I've been a part of the Project 333 for two seasons now, and in 9 days time it'll be time to make a swap for the Autumn Wardrobe.

I've gone through my out-of-season box and found all my lovely autumny clothes just waiting to be worn. In fact, for the first time, it was a little difficult to choose the 33 that will make it to the final wardrobe, for I've got SUCH lovely stuff just waiting to be worn and I love them all. A dream wardrobe.

Which led me thinking...
Pretty much all of my clothing is very sentimental. It's either a birthday present, a gift from a friend, a memory of a good time or a souvenir from some place. It all reminds me of so much, it's no longer clothing at all. It's a bunch of memories, and it's very, very hard to let go of it, even if it's falling apart or fluffy or completely and utterly worn. Which it pretty much all is too.

I've been reading some other P333 people's stories of their wardrobes, and it's led me thinking about my relationship with my clothes. There are people who are very stylish and who are always ready to tweak the garments they have just to make their selection that bit more perfect and likeable, there are people who are very conscious of their own set of colours, there are a few shopaholics with jam packed wardrobes, and what they all seem to have in common, is that their relationship with clothes is their relationship with CLOTHES. Not sentimental memories, but garments. And I'm finding that a little hard to understand, and also a little intriguing.

So I played around with the thought of having a wardrobe, where I'd have NO previous relationship with the clothes in it. How it would give a refreshing viewpoint, how I could learn a lot from it, and how it might teach me to look at clothes as just what they are. I'm by no means rich, and I can't possibly have a brand new set of clothes to play around with - so no wardrobe makeover for me. Unless - unless it were all from the cheapest possible anonymous places on earth - thrift stores and charity shops, in which case I just might be able to pull it off.

I slept a good few nights letting the thought seep in, and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the perfect idea. To choose one season of P333 clothes and accessories, all 33 of them if at all possible, from thrift stores and charity shops. That would mean a LOT of things.

1. It would mean all garments I would have in the capsule would be brand new to me, with no sentimental strings attached to them.

2. It would mean I could try out pieces I have never tried on before because I don't shop around and spend my days trying on clothes.

3. It would mean I could try to incorporate some new ideas and colours into my wardrobe without making a big fuss about it beforehand and without it costing me a fortune.

4. It would mean I could try to build a wardrobe from scratch - which I've never, ever done before. How would the capsule be different in terms of things fitting me properly, in terms of mixing and matching different outfits from it?

5. It would mean I could do research on HOW MUCH a capsule might be worth in pure cash. Could I do it with minimum budget? And is it at all possible to find everything one needs in charity shops?

I first thought I was going to go through this Autumn season with the lovely autumn stuff I have stuck at the not-in-season-box, and to take my time finding stuff from the flea markets of the area to do the special season in winter, but then happened to have about an hour time at the local Ekocenter - a thrift shop where all of the clothing costs the same, 5€/kilogram. On my first visit a few days back I already found a cardigan and a tank top which were beautiful and they cost 2,75€ (about three dollars) together, and there seemed to be plenty more where they came from. Since that day I've visited the same place again once, and today another flea market, and all in all I seem to have already gathered exactly a third of all things needed. And I still have 9 days before swap of seasons.

I'll be putting all my previously owned stuff that's still worth saving to the not-in-season-box and have a look at it again when it's time for the winter season.

For now, I've been following the home made rules when finding flea market finds:

1. I'll stick to my tried and true way of deciding how many items of each kind to choose for my 33 to be. For example - two teeshirts is just good. There will be only one completely long sleeved top for I prefer 3/4-sleeves to long ones, and I NEED cardigans, for it's cold where I work. Three bags is in order - one small purse, one bigger purse/bag and one work bag.

2. I shall NOT even try on any top that's all black, and refuse to buy one even if it screams my name, for my face and black are not a very good combination.

3. I'll try to find clothes that are nicely my own style and that I feel comfortable in, but I'll try not to choose garments I have a ton of already. I'll try to choose something a wee bit out of the box, something I still like, but that I've not had before.

4. I'll try to find garments that are in good condition and of quality materials, which fit me well.

So these are what I've found so far:

These nine are two skirts, two teeshirts, one cardigan, a pair of leggings, a long sleeved top, a tunic and a bag. All in all these nine cost 17€.

The tank top and the carrot cardigan - my first founds. These cost a total of 2,75€.

So there. I'll need to fill in the blanks and I have 9 days time to do it. And I'm contemplating on shoes - of whether to just have my own pairs because finding proper shoes from the flea market is quite a challenge. But I'm getting there - and I'll keep y'all posted.

Anjusha

(This post is transferred from my other blog - Anjusha-äireen taikateekannu, to be the beginnings of this new blog)