Fantasy Shopping: Summer Essentials

What do I need for summer?

A wardrobe full of clothes, and nothing to wear, we all have that problem from time to time. And we’ve all read those articles / blog posts telling us to sort out the old wardrobe, decide what to keep and what to toss. And then we should analyse what we need to buy in order to achieve that holy grail of practical fashionistas everywhere: the perfect capsule wardrobe.

Yada yada yada, blaah, blaah, blaah…

I have to confess: I only sort out my wardrobe(s) when I can’t find anything in there anymore… Maybe once a year, maybe less often.

And, even if I say so myself, I am the queen of capsule wardrobes. I seem to be rotating (and mixing and matching) 20 or so seasonally appropriate items for a few weeks at a time. And when the season changes, I gradually move on to another set of 20 or so odd items. I don’t plan these ‘capsules’: I usually create a few outfits around the favourite piece of the moment. And then I just end up always going for the same pieces until I get tired of them and move on to something else. Hmm, perhaps it’s because I have been living out of a suitcase most of my life, if not always literally, then in spirit.

The Zen of Wardrobe 

‘Living-out-of-a-suitcase’ is a mental state, achieved only as a result of sheer laziness and circumstances*.

* Laziness: when life gets hectic, it’s just easier to rotate a limited number of pieces so that you can focus your mental energies on something other (e.g. work, or whatever is making you busy) than thinking about clothes.

Circumstances: when you have two homes (and two wardrobes) in two different countries, your clothes/shoes/bags/whatever are always in the wrong country anyway,  and you just learn to make do with whatever you’ve got available.

In other words, you cannot consciously ‘work’ towards it, and no amount of meditation or analysis will help you achieve it. At least not the kind of zen I’m talking about: when your life is in constant transit, you need clothes that travel well and weigh nothing. And you need to be able to get dressed or pack a suitcase in 5 minutes flat, and by simply pulling out the first thing in your wardrobe. As a result you realise that you really can manage with whatever fits in that suitcase, for several weeks if need be. It may not be perfect, but life seldom is, so…

However, there are items that my mix-and-match-travelling-capsule-wardrobe still needs: comfortable summer dresses and light cover-ups, and a coat that is perfect for all sorts of weather (well, that probably doesn’t exist…).

So, after a feeble, and purely theoretical, attempt at analysing the contents of my yet unsorted wardrobe(s), I’ve come to the conclusion that what you see (or something similar) in the picture, is what I need (read: ‘want’) for summer:

• A couple if easy-peasy summer dresses that keep me comfortable when it gets really hot, and a linen shirt to wear over them to protect me from the burning sun. Of course, I have a few summer dresses, and I have linen shirts… But I want a dress that is fitted yet loose enough to be comfortable when it gets hot (I hate those sack dresses shops are full of: they make me look twice my size. And the super-fitted, belted sun dresses are just sheer torture when it gets hot). And there’s always room for another linen shirt, maybe in a bright colour… 

• A parka for rainy days is a must. Yes, rainy, chilly summer days are inevitable both in Finland and in the U.K. And never mind how many coats I have, a waterproof parka (with proper lining and a hood) is something that I always seem to be missing.

Hmm, it just might be that this queen of capsule wardrobes will have to go shopping, with a list, no less. How boring… My usual shopping strategy is this: have some time to kill, go browsing, see something you like, buy it.

Or maybe I should just sort out that wardrobe first: it seems to be bursting, who knows what sort of gremlins are lurking in there…

What are you going to get for summer?

Tiina

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