Dress better

A friend of mine who used to wear my size recently cleaned out her closet and gave me all the clothes that don’t fit her any more. Now I have tons of clothes to try on. She’s a snappy dresser so I bet the clothes will be great.

I hope that the colors that look good on her also look good on me. It can suck to find awesome clothes and then discover that they look crusty on you because they don’t look right against your skin.

i have done all the laundry in the house and now i am going to weed out the stuff that just doesn’t work. Once the old crap is gone i will work with what i have so I know what needs replacing.

And I actually got help from a clerk instead of refusing it. It was worth it. She helped me figure out what fit best and looked most flattering. Now I don’t look like a street person when I go outside.

The picture is the coat I got—except that mine is brown.

A very generous relative gave me some large denomination gift certificates and I decided to put them towards this goal.

I went through this website to see what are considered essential staples. http://www.thechicfashionista.com/wardrobe-essentials.html

Because I HATE shopping, I decided to go through the store’s website and pre-shop. I now have a list of specific items I’m going to be looking for in the store so I’m not just flailing around. Nordstrom has a great site that allows you to look up each item in the closest stores to you and see if it’s in stock.

I prioritized the list and will look at the clothes I picked out. If I don’t like the ones I picked out I can look at others in the same department or go lower down the list. I don’t intend to get everything on the list. I just have goals of what to look at and try on. I’ll be shopping this afternoon. Let’s see what I end up with. I only go home when the gift certificate runs out.

Top goals for shopping this week:

1 dress winter coat—machine washable. I hate having to dry clean and will only buy items that need it if there are no other options.

1 pair dress winter boots.

1 or 2 nice button down blouses—everything I get will optimally be button down because I’m breastfeeding and it’s just easier that way.

1 or 2 Button down cardigan sweaters—same reason

1 pair stud earrings—stud only because I have an almost 3 month old baby and I don’t want her yanking on my earrings.

When I was a kid, I used to be so embarrassed to go out in public with my grandma. She’d mix plaids, wear colors that didn’t match, wear a really nice dress but put an old beat up sweater over it so whatever fashion statement the nice dress made, you never saw it.

I saw some pictures of myself. I wear colors that don’t match, patterns that don’t clash in a fun way and I dress exactly like my grandma does! I admire and respect her in a lot of ways, but I don’t want to dress like her. I’m too young to wear grandma clothes!

I don’t want to use my weight as an excuse. The only reason I dressed better when I weighed less was I was younger, and I lived in San Francisco—and clothes mattered more there than they do here.

I’m tired of looking frumpy. I want to dress the way my mind and personality feels. I feel young, creative, fun and a little bit unconventional. But I dress like I’m old, uncreative and that I’m the type of person who tries to haggle the cashier at Big Lots.