... is to change her mind, right? So I'm changing my mind about the October Dress Project. I've decided not to participate this year.
At first I was really excited about doing it (as I wrote in this post), and I even bought a "new-to-me" dress for wearing for the month of October. As you may recall, the purpose of the ODP is to wear the same dress for 31 days, in the name of "anti-consumerism, pro-simplicity, anti-conformity, pro-imagination." I wanted to do this to start getting more creative with my wardrobe and get out of my 'jeans-and-shirt' rut. I figured that it would force me to look at my clothes differently and start accessorizing and creating new outfits.
However, when I started thinking of what I was going to wear with my dress for the month, I encountered a problem - I didn't actually own any of the things that I wanted to wear with it. Cute tights? Nope. Fun belts?? All I have is black. Colorful shoes??? Again, no. I wanted to accessorize, but I had a very limited supply of accessories. I had a few things in my existing wardrobe that I could wear with the dress, but I had a vision of myself just wearing it over the same pair of skinny jeans for more than half the time.
So I went to the mall.
I was actually in Sears with 2 pairs of $12 (each) tights in my hands when I thought "wait a minute - this is crazy. This totally counteracts the whole purpose of the ODP". It really defeats the purpose of being "anti-consumerism" if it just makes you want to go out and buy new things, right? So I put the tights down and slowly stepped away from the hosiery department. And I reconsidered if this experiment is right for me, right now.
In the end, I decided that right now, this isn't the right thing for me. Like I said, I don't have a lot of accessories in my wardrobe, and while I'd like to eventually change that, I don't think the right way to do it is to buy things solely because I want them to go with this one dress for this month. And like I said, I'm obviously missing out on the "anti-consumerism" and "pro-simplicity" aspects of the project, if it makes my green-eyed shopping monster perk up just thinking about it.
So, rather than doing the October Dress Project, I'm going to try to be more purposeful in working with what I have in my wardrobe, and perhaps adding a few new pieces to it (hopefully at an upcoming clothing swap where it will be for free!). I'm going to try to take more risks (I have several scarves, but I've never really been a scarf-wearer - perhaps now is the time???) and get rid of the stuff that just doesn't work for me (I'm talking to you, white-skirt-that-I-never-ever-wear). It's not as exciting as the October Dress Project, and I probably won't blog about it much, but it's what I feel comfortable with.
And I can always change my mind again, right? ;)
4 comments:
Aw, I was looking forward to seeing what you would all have come up with! :)
But seriously though, I think you made a good decision given the points that you were making.
I'll say YAY to scarves!! (And I might be interested in that white-skirt-that-you-never-ever-wear) :)
I was looking forward to seeing what you'd come up with too!
Accessorizing is fun and I'm a newer convert to scarves and I love them!
I would've been in the same position. I am just NOT an accessorizer. (seeings how I have none!) It would certainly be an interesting experiment, but I can sure understand deciding not to do it after all!
I love scarves!!! I might go through mine and bring the ones that I don't wear a lot to the upcoming Clothing Swap. I say "might" because that is the one accessory that I have trouble parting with. My rationale - they don't take up a lot of room so it's OK that I have a lot, right?
You have every right to change your mind. I also was looking forward to what you would come up with but your reasons for backing away from it make sense to me.
Here's to new/old stuff!!
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