Project Never Nude

A document of one woman's mission to put clothes on her body without losing her sanity or savings.

[projectnevernude]

The Data Driven Wardrobe

True story: since I started this blog (which has SIX! FOLLOWERS! NOW! WHAT WHAT?!) I've been keeping a spreadsheet tallying up what I wear every day. At a glance I can see my wardrobe MVPs and the things that only get one or two wears a month. I have a vague aim of doing some kind of information visualization one day, but until then I just have my numbers.

And you know what I wear the most? KNITWEAR. Amsterdam is getting real cold at the moment, and the temperature at my office fluctuates widely between rooms. I've worn my Everlane cashmere cardigan a total of 22 times since I bought it - for reference I wear my other tops an average of 5 times a month. So when I went to & Other Stories to buy myself a freakum dress for Christmas parties and New Years (post pending, when I have a chance to photograph stuff), and spotted a giant wool and alpaca cardigan, I had a moment of clarity: I wear the shit out of my knitwear, :. this massive cardigan will get WORN, :. I should buy it RIGHT NOW. 

So I bought something on data-driven impulse. I am wearing it now. It feels like a giant hug. Daps to me for (a) actually spending money on clothes and (b) spending money on things I really like. 

[projectnevernude]

Lessons Learned 3: Life is Not a Look Book

So I have this Everlane silk shirt, and it is a pain in my ass.

It was - is? - my second silk shirt. The first is from Second Female and it's wonderful, a light silk crepe that hand washes easily, dries fast, and never needs ironing.

The Everlane... oi, where do I begin. The first time I wore it I was sharply reminded that some silks make you sweat like a motherfucker, and Everlane's is a very sweaty silk. No probs, I thought, coming home, I'll just hand wash it.

I didn't realise that it was 'dry clean only' until it arrived, so I emailed customer service to ask if I could hand wash. Yes, they said, carefully, and so I did. The silk lost some of it's lotiony sheen and felt more crepey, but that's cool, I thought, I like silk crepe. But then it went ahead and dried in a wrinkled mass. It took me days to summon the courage to carefully, carefully, carefully iron the shirt.

So I wore for the second time. And promptly got water marks on it. The water marks came out with another near-surgical hand washing, but, again, the shirt dried into a wrinkled mass.

I just went to iron said wrinkly shirt, and discovered that there's another tiny mark in the back... and a bunch of little pinholes. I'm going to have to have it dry cleaned.

It's note exactly what I was expecting, but that's life. The investment pieces you think will be investment pieces turn out to be high maintenance nightmares. Stains happen. Mystery tiny rips happen. All you can do is keep trying.

Oh, and PS? I just bought a third silk shirt from & Other Stories. I just hand washed it and laid it out to dry now. Here's hoping I'll be able to actually wear it.  

[projectnevernude]

What’s most important is that you should wear what suits you and wear it over and over. My motto is: Buy less, choose well, make it last. What I think my clothes give people is the power to make them feel sexy. But what is even more important is that they talk about the body in a way that makes you stand out. There is a form to it all, a relation between you and what you are wearing.

Vivienne Westwood on clothes. 

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A few weeks ago I was noodling around my favourite time-waster ladyblog, Cup of Jo, when I came across this game changer of a post: The Front Tuck. Ever since I've been front tucking ALL of my shirts. The front tuck, you guys. FRONT TUCK. 

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I bought some clothes! Pants, because I knew I needed pants, and shoes, because I uncharacteristically bought shoes on impulse.

Clockwise from top left:

Top Shop Leigh Jeans: €50 A bunch of friends recommended Top Shop jeans to me, and I've got to say, they weren't wrong. I bought the 30" inseam and for once in my life I haven't had to have my jeans altered. That said, I'm not thrilled with the range of colours I was able to find. I really wanted that classic blue denim wash, and the only blue denim jeans available were pre-ripped.

Vintage wide leg trousers. €25, though I just discovered a tiny rip that I'll have to have repaired, so they'll ultimately be a bit more. They fit beautifully through the waist and are the perfect length, but the fit is very... 80s. I want to pull these off. I long to pull these off. I feel like I need to have one truly oddball item in my wardrobe. Let's see how they go.

White Vans. €65. Would you believe I bought these on impulse? I'm typically a Cons girl, and I've been hemming and hawing on replacing my old destroyed pair. I was walking home with my vintage trousers, thinking they'd look great with a pair of Cons, when I passed the Vans store and thought screw it. I never do that. I'm pretty certain they'll get a ton of wear, though. 

PS - I keep a 'tally' post of my F/W capsule over here. Whenever I add something i it goes in there. 

[projectnevernude]

How often should you refresh your wardrobe?

Can I share something with you, non-existent readers of my secret blog about clothes? Every Sunday I like to take a shower, do my nails, slather on a smear of Queen Helene, and spend a l'il time writing about clothes. It's fun. It's pleasant. And today I'm thinking about timings.

The nice, neat, proper way to talk about capsule wardrobes is in three month increments: every three months you refresh what you're wearing, take photos, and post them to the Internet in a nice complete set.

For a bunch of reasons, that won't be me.

Reason 1? Money. I'm actively trying to buy the best quality I can afford. This means I'm not buying enough to fill all the 'gaps' in my current capsule. Heck, i'm two months in to my current capsule and I'm still 10 items short. I couldn't imagine refreshing the lot in one more month, only to shop for more things. 

Reason 2? I just don't get bored with things. I've never been happier with my wardrobe; I relish wearing the few, better quality, well-cared for, properly ironed things I have over and over and over. I find it easy and relaxing to get dressed in the morning. I'm in no rush to clutter that up with more stuff for the sake of it. 

So: the plan is, for now, that I will have a 6 month cycle. I'll work on fleshing out the remainder of my fall/winter wardrobe, before I jump into the insanity that will be building a wearable spring/summer wardrobe in March. 

As I mentioned in my first wardrobe post, I reserve the right to replace anything that I rate below a 5. I plan on applying the same method to my spring/summer wardrobe. 

That's my plan. It is interesting to me. I hope it helps someone else. 

[projectnevernude]

*screams*

[projectnevernude]

Lessons Learned 2: On Not Being Naked

An outline of this post:

I feel crushingly guilty about spending money on clothes. It feels silly, and frivolous, and a poor use of money.

Simultaneously, I feel shitty about not having a ‘style’. I feel shitty about not looking nice, or looking dated, or looking inappropriate, or looking drab or dull or boring.

One of the biggest challenges of  this project is actually buying clothes. I am acknowledging that clothes are a need, that work appropriate clothes are a need, that even developing a personal style is a need, and I've committed to meet that need, even though everything inside me is screaming that I should put all of my money into an index fund or whatever.

 This got me thinking about a hierarchy of needs for clothes. It looks something like this. 

First: You need clothes to stop you from being naked and to protect you from the weather. 

Second: You need an adequate amount so you don’t have to do laundry every day.

Third: You need enough options to be dressed appropriately for the situations you find yourselves in. Work clothes at work. A nice dress at a wedding. Stuff like that.

Fourth: You need to not be stressed out and sad by the amount of clothes in your wardrobe. Often too many options is more stressful and sad-making than the right, properly curated amount.

The fifth and last need: Your clothes need to make you feel good. I call this 'style.' It is the last need, because you need to pass through the previous four needs to reach 'style.'

It's comforting to take stock and realise that you've met the majority of your clothing needs before you hit the one that everyone's always on about, 'style', and it's comforting to define 'style' as 'the clothes that make you feel good.' I will never be on trend. I'll never be drawn to dresses or heels. But I do feel good in a pair of brogues, a silk shirt and some decent jeans, and I think that translates to 'style.'

[projectnevernude]

Claudia Schiffer in Vogue Germany, 2010, by Camilla Akrans.

Now I want a sweater dress. And severe German cheekbones.

[projectnevernude]

Red coat + black gloves.

[projectnevernude]

Lessons learned #1

Hang everything up. 

My 'wardrobe', if you can call it that, is a clothes rail. What can I say, Dutch apartments don't tend to come with built-ins. When I did my purge it was packed to the gills with whatevers, and a lot of the clothes I actually wore were stuffed into drawers. 

Since I did the big purge I'm finally able to fit my entire wardrobe - except for knitwear, which I keep folded in a drawer - on the clothes rail. I bought clip hangers for pants and skirts (well, skirt).

It's enormously helpful. It makes getting dressed in the morning insanely easy. I also feel really motivated to put away anything I want to wear again - coats, jeans, shirts that are still good for one more wear. 

So here's lesson learned #1: hang everything up. It makes a difference.

[projectnevernude]

My heart, my soul, my greatest inspiration in one dizzyingly glorious video. Lovely Lauren will always be my hero. 

[america-runs-on-kennedy]

[sexyfrenchfries]

god

[vintageblackglamour]

The great Geoffrey Holder won two Tony Awards in 1978 for costume design and directing “The Wiz.” He is shown here in all of his 6’6” splendor in the October 1975 issue of Ebony.

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[superseventies]

[natgeofound]

Visitors of diverse nationalities crowd a casino roulette table in Swaziland, 1969.Photograph by Volkmar K. Wentzel, National Geographic Creative