Spring Stylebook

The trees here burst into blossom weeks ago, but it still felt like winter. Then a few days into Spring it suddenly began to feel like Spring, with warmer days (but still chilly nights) and heavily pollinated air (achoo!).

I completed a work deadline two weeks ago so I’m having a few weeks ‘break’. There are single quotes on that last work because in the first week I did plenty of physical work: gardening, cleaning up outside, cooking for Paul’s birthday. And for two days of that week I was sick, too.

Then on the second Sunday I decided to do something completely frivolous. I downloaded a wardrobe organising app called Stylebook and over the next week, whenver it was sunny enough that I had good light, I photographed, entered and categorised most of my clothes.

The app enables you to put together ‘looks’ – a bit like a paper doll minus the doll. Obviously I’m not going to add all my underwear and such, or the trackie dacks and old cargo pants I do the gardening in, as the former is waaaay too much detail and the latter hardly going to be part of a ‘look’. I’m not sure I really needed to put all my tshirts in either, to be honest, as tshirt plus jeans is hardly a creative ‘look’. Where the app is most useful is in pairing up clothing in new and (hopefully) stylish ways, and that’s most relevant to the nicer end of the wardrobe.

It wasn’t long before it became clear that the reason I don’t wear some items is because nothing else I have goes with them. In those cases I could make one of two decisions: get rid of it or buy something to match. Since I have plenty of clothing as it is, I’ve mostly chosen to remove the item. In only one case am I sure I need to buy a new item, though the app did draw my attention to one match I hadn’t considered that might work, so we’ll see.

That’s the other benefit: the app has me easily considering matches that weren’t obvious. I thought I needed another evening top, since I only had one. But looking through the tops in my ‘neat casual’ category, I can see some pieces that would definitely work as evening wear in the right situation.

Down at the casual end of the wardrobe, I wasn’t surprised to see I have lots of long sleeved tshirts and skivvies. This is because I’m sensitive to wool, so need to have a barrier between my skin and the many handknits (and handwovens) I’ve made or bought. Every year or two I cull out the black ones that have faded and buy replacements, and having handled and inspected what I had I realised that time had come again. But as I looked at this category in the app, I realised I don’t need to. I have no trouble combining colours, so why have these in black at all? When black fades it looks old. When colours fade they just look like lighter versions of that colour. Not only do I not need to buy more black long-sleeved ts & skivvies, but I can probably not bother buying them ever again!

Then I counted up all the casual summer tops and dresses and realised I had enough to wear something every day for all but ten days of summer. That’s ridiculous! But I’ve got there because I tend to refashion Paul’s shirts and too-small tshirts into sleeveless tops, and I have a weakness for convention and souvenir tshirts. So I culled a few I didn’t like so much and didn’t fit well, and relegated a handful of tshirts to the pajama top pile, and got the overall number to two months.

Of what I’ve culled, five of the best pieces went to the op shop (where I overheard one of the staff say “ooh, that’s pretty!”), I’m hoping to hand at least one of three skirts to a friend, and the really worn things went into the rag bag.

I was worried that the app would make me want to buy more clothes. Instead it’s shown me that I probably don’t need to. It’s helped me say goodbye to a few pieces I don’t wear (and I’ve found a new owner for one already) and shown me some new ways to wear what I have.

It’s pretty robust, and hasn’t crashed or lost information yet. I wish it had a way to show the proportion of handmade/refashioned/bought second hand/bought new as well, but I was able to add ‘refashioned’ and ‘second hand’ into the notes for each piece so a search brings them all up, and I can see how many items I’ve marked as such. I did put ‘handmade’ in the Brands section, so my stats show that 20% of my clothing was made by me. I’m pretty chuffed about that.

I don’t know if the app will be useful in an ongoing way, but it could be if I find myself doing some unplanned shopping. If I was tempted to buy a garment I could tell myself I must find five garments it will go with. Or if I was stuck on a delayed train or in a waiting room I could entertain myself making new ‘looks’.

But even if I have no ongoing use for it, I have had a lot of fun already and got some useful insights. That was well worth the $5.99 it cost!