Stop buying clothes that aren't my personal style.

When I got back home at the beginning of the month, I had to unpack all of my clothes and put them away. In doing so, I took everything that I didn’t really have any draw towards and thew it into a bag destined for the thrift store. I kept a few nostalgic garments, but other than that, everything that I don’t wear on a regular basis (other than the “going out” clothes) is now gone.

With my last post about this I said that I had too much of an eclectic style. Well, I wasn’t kidding. My drawers are a chaotic mess of random. I’ve been slowly, oh so slowly, adding more pieces to the varying styles in my wardrobe with every thrift store trip. I kind of wish I had more conventional tastes so I could shop in normal stores, but at least it’s cheaper this way. I’ll be lucky if I have more than 1-2 outfit combinations for the 3,000 different styles that I seem to embody, but it’s not as bad as it used to be. Now that I’ve lost a bunch of weight, I can fit some of the older things I’ve been hiding away, which is absolutely freaking fantastic.

The one thing I noticed the most when going through my clothes is that I need more colour. Granted, I’m not a colourful person by any means, but it would be nice to not have to wear black-on-black or black-on-grey all the time. I need to stop gravitating towards the dark tops at the very least. That’s going to be a hard habit to break. :/

I’ve been thinking about this whole defining myself through my own personal style thing, and I seem to come up at multiple forked roads every time. I find that I wear so many different elements from so many different styles that I can’t help but feel like a bit of a poser with absolutely no direction. Sometimes it feels like the people that I’m close to are judging me, thinking that I’ve jumped on some new fad, or that I have no idea who I am. I really hate thinking like that, but when someone you know eyes you up and down and comments slyly, “Oh, you look… different” when they dress alternatively themselves, it’s a little insulting.

How do you piece together your own style when you can so easily look like a completely different person from one day to the next? How do you create some fluidity in your wardrobe when everything is so different that nothing you own could possibly be coordinated together? I’ve been trying to solve this problem by thrift shopping, but even in Value Village I find myself gravitating towards the more mainstream clothing, because it’s easier that way. I really need to stop putting those garments down that I’m initially attracted to. I need to stop convincing myself that I don’t need it because it only matches one thing in my wardrobe and I’ll never wear it. I think that’s the only way I’m going to solve this fashion dilemma. At least amassing more clothing that I like with be a start. I’ll still have to solve that whole “what the hell is my style” part.

It’s too easy for me to reach for the lounge clothes and dump all effort and creativity down the drain. My tank tops, wife beaters and comfy pants see far too much light. Once I get back home and back to work, I’m going to be a thrift store whore, mark my word.

I can’t help but find that every time I go shopping for clothes I give up and purchase plain, thrifty clothing. My style is so eclectic and artistic that apparently I can’t even grasp it. I’m tired of owning tank tops, plain pants and boring skirts while my corsets, poofy skirts, and crazy outfit pieces all sit in my dresser. I have a tendancy of buying one piece of an outfit in one style, and another piece of an outfit in a completely different style, and then when I go to go out I toss on my casual clothes out of frustration.

I want to continue to build up my wardrobe in the styles that I truly adore, and be able to piece an outfit together with confidence. I don’t want to keep defaulting to the $6 WalMart wifebeaters and 3/$15 tank tops at Suzy Shier, even though “they’re cheap, simple and they’ll go with everything”.

I want to express my personal style on a daily basis, not once every full moon.