This is my entire closet in one photo. The only thing not shown is my underwear and sock drawer. If you’ve been a long time reader here, you’ll notice that not much has changed about my closet except I added a hanging closet organizer on the right to store my knitted sweaters the proper way (as opposed to using hangers). I found a good closet organizer at the Container Store with shelves that don’t bend (a minor thing about most hanging organizers that I find so annoying).
I’m lazy about folding and hanging up my clothes, but since I do wear pants many times before washing, I find that storing my pants by throwing them over the lower closet rod is the easiest way to arrange them. This keeps me from throwing my pants all over the floor like I used to.
In other news, I had a nice time this weekend with the BF and his mom. She brought over several eye glasses inherited from the BF’s grandpa who recently passed away. I thought they looked cool all lined up like this. There’s a bunch of hipsters out there rockin glasses just like these. Isn’t it interesting how some styles loop back in time. I love “old people” style. When I’m old I’ll already have been dressing my age for decades.
This got me thinking of what wardrobe items I might want to keep to pass on if I ever have kids.
And here’s yet another picture of my feet against filthy NYC pavement. I’m wearing my favorite socks, bought for 2 bucks in Vietnam. They’re made of thick wool that keep my feet warm in 40 ish degree weather. I love the aubergine color. It looks great with any outfit without being too bleak like an all black sock might be. I’m wearing Elizabeth Suzann clyde pants in cotton twill here. I sized down to a size 4-short, which is quite cropped, so my socks always show when I’m wearing them. I wish I had bought many more socks like these because this color and fabric are hard to find.
I’m in the process of updating my “blog roll”. I want to keep it up to date with blogs that I actually read. That’s something always evolving, as I seek out authenticity which seems to be a rare commodity these days. I’m much less interested in blogs that feel too consumerist, like “hey here’s this new thing; go buy it!”, and prefer blogs that are more about sharing ideas about personal style. We live in a corporate world and there’s nothing inherently wrong with ads/sponsorships and other people making money, but it’s just not something I’m going to seek out.
I still love Grechen’s blog even though there is a lot of consumerism there simply because it makes sense and still feels honest within the framework of her business slowr. Plus she is very relate-able. I consider mirror selfies, no professional photography, and no make-up looks relate-able and real. With her, I don’t get that yucky feeling that I’ve been tricked into reading a blog post when in reality it’s an advertisement.
I’ll often post what brand I’m wearing or review things but I want the main focus to be about sharing ideas and style, and share what that says about me, my values, etc rather than to encourage people to go out and buy specific things. Like for example, when I show a picture of my outfit like the one above, I don’t want you to feel like I’m promoting the idea you should go out and buy SAS sandals, rather I’d want you to be aware that the experience of wearing any wool socks with comfy sandals looks and feels good in cold weather, to me anyway. And that might inspire you to do the same radical/lame thing, with any brand sandal and any brand socks you may already own, but if you need to go out and buy one, that’s fine too if you so choose. And I can say that with 100% no conflicts of interest because I am in no way profiting from sharing this (not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that if I was).
The trade off with blogs with more ads and sponsorships is that they provide a much more diverse range of styles, novelty, thrills, and better photography, etc. I’m sure plenty of people might stop by this blog and say ‘wow this is so boring’ and move on, so I’m not saying that no ads/sponsorships is necessarily worse/better. It’s all in the eye of the beholder and about what you are looking for. I think maybe if I were younger and experimenting more with style, I might gravitate towards blogs that have a bigger turnover of outfits and ones that are constantly introducing me to new brands etc. What about you? How do you feel about this issue?
And lastly I met this amazing red panda in Central Park this weekend (there’s a zoo in the park!). He looked so happy, prancing around, playing gently with his two friends, walking swiftly up and down the tree branches. It was hard to capture a nice photo because he was constantly on the move, but he paused for a split second long enough for me to take this shot. Other than my dog Freddy, I’ve never met a more beautiful animal.
[outfit: sas relax sandals, vietnam socks, elizabeth suzann clyde pants, apc nepal parka]
Dr. it girl 
Your closet is like my dream closet. I still have way too many things (even after deciding to embrace dressing with less…because I had such a crazy amount of things piled up before). Did you pick a specific color palette to stick with, or do you happen just to gravitate toward the colors shown? I wonder if I should work on having a specific color scheme I commit to. I still have the issue of things not working well all together.
To answer your question about blogs with sponsorship/outfit variation/etc., I definitely enjoy looking at them for the beautiful photography, but not so much for style inspiration. Quite a few of them make me feel sort of “icky” with the level of consumerism. I’m sure a lot of those items end up being given away, or written off as business expenses, but that doesn’t make the level of consumption any less offputting.
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When I started editing my wardrobe, most of my clothes were this color but I consciously removed patterns and reds because I didn’t wear them. I learned from that and stopped buying those colors with few exceptions. Patterns are not long lasting for me because I got bored of them pretty soon.
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Your closet looks very peaceful and earthy. Well done ! I have a chair in my closet on which I throw my clothes that I wear multiple times before they get washed.
I edit my blog roll all the time. What I look for is – intention. When the purpose of a blog post is just to push out a product and the item is hyped up to make a sale, they loose me right away. On the other hand, I don’t think I am entitled to free amazing content. They put in the effort and time – they deserve to get paid. Its a balance that I look for.
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The eyeglasses are such a nice reminder of your BF’s grandfather… it got me thinking about elderly people in my own life, and it would be a great memorial to have those frames displayed in a shadow box or some other contraption. It might be even better than a photo, because they are objects the person touched and used on a daily basis.
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I was trying to think of a way to display it.. a shadow box is a great idea!
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I’m currently looking for sites to add to my blog roll/to follow. I don’t think there’s anything I look for precisely I read a few genres, mostly general fashion/lifestyle, “minimalism” fashion/lifestyle, and some personal finance. I like when I can get at least a bit of the sense of the real person behind the blog. If that’s present, I feel like I can be happy to read even a very “my shopping diary + sale finds” type blog, so long as it’s not overdone. (I think Feather Factor does a good job with being an enjoyable “shopping diary” blog. Her price point/lifestyle is completely different from mine, but everything she writes about feels very consistent with her identity, as she portrays it. Each post is also has a balance between affiliate links and content and well, because we shop at completely different price points, I just skim over the links to the content.)
The one thing that really bothers me as a reader and can cause me to unsubscribe to someone I previously read (this is very rare though, I can count the number of examples on one hand, and I’ve been reading blogs very broadly for nearly a decade, on and off) is when someone either changes their self-reported identity very suddenly in order to link/sell more or, relatedly, when someone’s content (what they’re saying they buy and wear) seems driven mostly by what pays them the most. I probably get more worked up about it than I should, as it’s easy enough to unsubscribe and never think about it again, but still feel a little betrayed sometimes when there was someone I found really relatable and I really enjoyed reading them, and all of a sudden they’re really different!
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i actually really enjoy posts about good finds with suggestions on what to buy, but i kind of resent/can’t trust it when the links are all affiliate/rstyle type links..
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Your wardrobe is very calming. I like the idea with the hanging pants rack. Right now my pants ends up on my chair or on my bed which is a small hassle to move from place to place.
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thanks, i used to do that too and I still throw my pants over something but its hidden away now.
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This post made me feel a lot better about my own mirror selfies! I JUST read posting guidelines for the FFA reddit this morning and it was very dismissive of mirror selfies, which made me feel bad about my own. But you are right about authenticity. I’m not trying to create a blog career and I don’t want to spend a ton of time with a bunch of photography equipment and props. All I want is to accurately show what I’m talking about, and if I’m home alone and a mirror selfie is what I’ve got, that should be OK! I’ve been enjoying your blog and like to see ones like it where I get the sense that the person is a real person with a real life. Likewise, as someone who is concerned about consumerism, it is off-putting that even minimalist blogs can often stray into the “buy this” territory. I am more interested to see what styles work for different bodies and lifestyles, even if I DO like what someone is wearing.
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maybe i’m alone in this but I much prefer mirror selfies then those “out and about” photos which seem to be more about modeling a perfect polished life and ego than about the actual clothes. I like your new blog, the layout! I’ll add you to my blog roll.
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I nodded at everything you wrote about your blog and what kinds of blogs you want to follow. Those are the very reasons why I follow you and like yours so much.
Just browsing through fashion blogs at random on WordPress alone is daunting and it’s very hard to find more down-to-earth honest blogs. It’s a little obvious when you see blogs with every title being, “How to…..” or a list of things you Need To Have that they are writing to fish for an audience to market from. Blog identity crisis is also a turn off, but it can depend on how suddenly it happens. If it’s very gradual and the blogger slowly includes sponsored content then I tend to have more respect for them since they are being cautious about not alienating their reader base.
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I feel ya.. i hate it when blogs turn into click bait.
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