Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Swap time

OK, so I have to confess, I was getting a little bored with my Project 333 selections. I have been wearing my 25 items for about 50 days!  I decided to swap some of them to make it more fun. I think most people swap 3 items every month, but I decided I will swap once, in the middle of the cycle. My initial plan was to swap 6 items but in the end I selected 10.

10 may seem like a lot, but I was feeling sorry for some of my abandoned darlings, sitting in the dark closet and crying out to me :) Besides, if you are having such a limited selection, you have to be sure that they go with each other, so once I decided to swap one thing I needed to swap something else, I can actually wear it and be happy with what I have.

Maybe I am just not able to live with so little? I am not going to beat myself over it. This experiment helped me enjoy my clothes more and buy less, so I am just sticking with my way of doing it.  Hey, whatever works, right?

You can see what had in my closet HERE.

This is what I decided to swap: 

I really like skirts and I was craving variety, so I replaced all of them, black, ochre, viridian green and Floating Rose. I still have 3 pencil skirts and one a-line skirt, but this time I have two prints (floral and plaid) and two solids (honey glaze and bright dahlia).   
Four Skirts

I swapped my J.Crew Terra Paisley dress for DVF sweater wrap dress in camel, black and white pattern and my Talbots LBD for Brora Mallard solid forest green dress.

Two Dresses
I swapped my skinny True Religion jeans for People's Liberation flares.
Pair of Jeans
 I got rid of one of my white shirts and added a pair of black capris.
Black Capris
 I swapped my J. Crew camel v-neck for gray pullover from Banana Republic and my J.Crew cobblestone cardigan for straw chunky cardigan from Brora.
Two sweaters
 This is one side of my current working closet:
Skirts, Dresses, Pants & Shirts
This is the rest of it:
Sweaters and Tops
How did I decide what to swap? To make it easy, I replaced with similar items, because this gave me some novelty, while still ensuring my clothes will work together. For example, I swapped ochre skirt for honey glaze, and I removed black skirt but added black pants. I added two printed skirts with different cut and pattern but similar colors, so I knew they will both work with many existing items. I exchanged viridian green pencil for bright dahlia because I knew they will work with the same tops.  As for dresses, I still wanted to have one print and one solid and I just picked what I most wanted to wear and what was season appropriate.


Would you consider doing Project 333 or something similar?
What clothing items you cannot live without?

5 comments:

  1. i see no problem at all with swapping clothes in and out of project 333. i think the idea behind it is to see what you really love and what you can do without. for instance during the fall and winter of last year i had a v neck black cashmere sweater on my list and yet i never wore it. do you know i still have it and haven't worn it yet! i paid a lot for it so i just hold onto it. i will eventually get around to selling it on ebay. also, b/c i work in a spa and have a uniform of black yoga pants and an aveda t shirt, i don't have to really worry about work clothes. i think project 333 would have been a lot harder if i had to have a real working wardrobe and casual wear too. i love the choices you made and they make perfect sense to me! xo janet

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    1. thanks for the encouragement Janet! I can imagine the black cashmere may not be so useful in your climate but if you like it you can just keep it for those days when it gets really cold. If you don't like it, by all means sell it!

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  2. Bless your heart! Don't beat yourself up. I agree with the previous commenter -- I think the point is just to reality-check yourself and make you think twice before you buy. I think your measures are fully within the spirit of the challenge.

    I'm proud of anyone who has tried Project 333. Although at this point I'm probably doing it unconsciously, since I have so few things that fit right now, argh. :(

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  3. As I mentioned previously, I don't think I could do project 333 while I'm still building up my wardrobe but maybe later. I don't have a lot of things languishing in my closet unworn, except a few special occasion pieces that have been out only once or twice.

    I love your pencil skirts, that is something I cannot go without and some of the best-ever J.Crew items IMO. The increasing acrylic content on the tweed pencils is a negative but at least I have all the double-serge and several other tweeds so if they continue down that road I still won't buy them, I'll just enjoy what I have.

    How long are you supposed to wear your latest items before swapping again? I'm curious how you can make it work with only four skirts.

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    1. Pencil skirt was what I missed the most. Agree on the increasing synthetic content in the tweed ones, I hate that.
      You are supposed to do the project 333 for three months so I plan to survive with my current selection until the end of March. Sometimes I am tempted to just give it up and use whatever I please but I am also competetive and don't give up easily once I decide to start something, so you can imagine that I am pretty determined to go on, lol.

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