Slide Show: In the Closet with … the Clean-up Crew Edition
Slideshow: Jenny and her husband share a closet, and by that I mean poor Robin gets an inch to her yard. To wit: Some multi-rung hangers of gray slacks that Jenny insists she needs for dressier shooting gigs teeter precariously around the outer limits.
We started by identifying what Jenny’s doing right; what feels good, looks better, and is easy to throw on and doesn’t generate headaches. Exhibit A was this Lauren Moffatt top paired with drainpipe Levis and a short heel.
In this way, we arrived on criteria we could use to determine whether other pieces should stay or go. As it turns out, Jenny wants to look modern, feel comfortable, and throw a little sass and sex appeal around here and there, too. And, as a professional in her mid-30s, she definitely wants to reconcile her increasingly sophisticated future with her rock and roll past. One ain’t better than the other, but rather, where they meet is a really rad place.
This is the jacket, upcycled by the lovely Erin Skipley, that needed to be freed of its hanger-partner. I can’t even remember what its hanger-partner looked like, but it’s now available in some North End thrift shop.
The jacket also needed to be freed of its band buttons. I used to be as game as the next girl to sport an old school Echo and the Bunnyman badge, but we’re older and wiser now, aren’t we? Jenny swapped out her indie rock pins for a brooch her sweetie recently picked up for her at the Lakeside Rummage Sale. Sweet!
The after photo from what was another unhelpful hanger combo. We tossed whatever used to be paired with this vest, which is also by Erin Skipley, and paired it instead with a really good basic (scoop neck tee with 3/4 length sleeves). We then tossed in a hair accessory Jenny hadn’t quite wrapped her head around. It was almost too girly for her, which is exactly why it works so well with the menswear-inspired (okay, yes, and corset-riffing) vest.
Here’s that Paco Rabanne velvet blazer and the old man plaid — and Jenny’s "psyched" smile. Proof that a little irony here and there works. She’s pointing out her new necklace; it’s from the Lazer Nature collection, which you might remember reading about here.
Sometimes you just need a friend, or a hired gun closet counseling professional (you’ve seen one of those on this blog before, hint hint), to tell you that something you like is indeed likable. This is Jenny’s third-week-in-October dress. She might have tossed it, but we saved its life. I think it’s sweet and charming—and it’s fun to have something so specific that you just wear it once a year. (Shout out to the daffodil tee my friend Lacey gave me.)
Unless you’ve got eyes in the back of your head, it does pay to have a friend around. Jenny wasn’t sure about this drapey tunic; she felt it got messy and weird… confused. But I noticed something really pretty going on in the back, and we discovered that if she wears her hair up when she wears the top, not only will she reveal a sweet sexy spot, the cleaner look means less confusion, too.
This is just one of two or three discard piles. You shoulda seen the gray slack discard pile. Out with the old, cheaply made, ill-fitting, and overly ironic. They’re just taking up valuable real estate.
If this dress were made of a better fabric, it coulda stayed. But as it was – poly – it had to go. Sometimes a retro fit and some puffy sleeves can be fun, but not when the thing isn’t well made.
