Finally, I present to you my 30 for 30 recap. I don't know if I learned anything that was especially mind blowing or original, but here are a few things that I noticed (I highlighted the important bits for anyone who didn't want to read the following novel. But I would suggest you read it all. It's really beautiful. And it came from the soul):
1) My best outfits seemed to be ones that happened by accident. Some of the ones I liked the most, like number 5, 13, 15, and 17, were ones that came together with no real planning. Some outfits I thought out ahead of time, which worked pretty well, but the accidental ones were different. Instead of me consciously decided to pair things together, with these outfits, things were accidently thrown together. For example, in outfit 13, I was just messing with different colors and trying to see what I could layer together. Somehow, I ended up with blue under green under purple and gray. But it's most definitely one of my absolute favorites. But because it sounds bad to say that some of my favorite outfits were ones that I didn't plan (that kind of sounds like when I plan things out my outfits are horrible), I'm going to rephrase this: my best outfits happened when I wasn't doing things that I usually do. I was playing with color and layers because I was forced to. I got out of my comfort zone.
2) Kelsey's six-item theory is genius. This means that you wear about six pieces every day, including shoes and accessories, to have a balanced and interesting outfit. What it helped me with was trying to figure out if I had enough going on in my outfit. Sometimes, it felt too busy or too simple, so I'd refer back to the rule of six to see how I stood and if I needed to add something or take something away. See? It's brilliant.
3) I found myself coming back to the same pieces over and over again. I wanted to remix all the same things because I had all these ideas for some things and then no ideas for other ones. This made things a bit unbalanced at times. But what I'll take away from this is something I read on Kendi's site (I forgot exactly where or else I would link to that specific page). Basically, she said that she only buys something if she can think of five ways to remix it right away. That way, you don't end up with those pieces that you never wear and then feel guilty about having it hang in your closet with the tags still on. I was pushing myself to come up with creative and interesting outfits, and I was more confident in my ability to come up with great outfits with some pieces than others, so I avoided some pieces. What I noticed was, maybe it's because of my love for mixing patterns, but the stuff that I gravitated toward using all had patterns. So I've decided to buy more "interesting" pieces in the future. And things that I can come up with loads of remixes standing in the changing room of a store. I mean, just imagine having a wardrobe full of those pieces you love and just have so many ideas of ways to wear. Wouldn't that be amazing? That's not to say that basics aren't important, because they provide a base outfit that you can accessorize. But it's important, at least for me and my style, to have more pieces that I'm crazy about than basics.
So, this ended up being a lot more text heavy than I intended it to be at first, but it turns out that I learned more than I thought I had. And while the 30 for 30 was a great experience and I'm sure I'll do it again, right now, I'm just glad to be done.
Do any of you have anything to add? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
-Charlotte
