2017 has been the year of hard work. When I see the tally of goals and milestones, I find it incredible that they all somehow seem to be stacking up. It certainly seems that these shiny accomplishments can get blurry through the slog and sweat of the every day grind. As I examined the past 9 months in my head, I could not help but make a little list to remind myself of the things this year has brought my way:
- I started working at BlueChilli - a role that has been 3 years in the making and is literally a dream come true.
- My best friend Michael moved back to Sydney after 3 years (is there a pattern here...?) of living in Brisbane.
- I took a long 3 week vacation in Lima, my hometown - including a sneaky trip to Argentina with my mother for her birthday. It was my first vacation in (you guessed it) 3 years!
- Steven - the dreamiest of dudes - and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary.
- After 1 year of searching, Steven and I finally found a home, a little 2 bedroom haven tucked over the cliffs in Bronte.
- After 12 years, I am finally on my way to being a permanent resident!
- I started writing and teaching again...
And yet, after looking over this list I could not help but find myself fidgety and uneasy. It felt that I had lost something along the way.
After many weeks of reluctant introspection, I decided to stop thinking about it altogether and give into more mundane pleasures - dining out with friends, an indulgent burger for lunch, a glass of rosé at dinner, online shopping....Whatever it took to get my mind out of my mind. Self-actualisation was going to have to wait.
And it was in one of those mindless YouTube scrolling Sunday afternoons that I landed on The Anna Edit - a wonderful lifestyle blog by Anna Newton fro Brighton. Her accent is delightful, and so was her personality. All of a sudden I felt myself thinking "See? Life doesn't have to be so serious! Look at this nice lady talking about lipsticks to strangers for 25 minutes. Let's watch her organise her closet...."
And right then, out of seemingly nowhere, Anna pulled out the book that inspired this post: "The Curated Closet" by Anushka Rees. I had heard - and even explored the idea - of a capsule wardrobe before. I half-assedly experimented with one last year, which pretty much involved me stuffing most of my closet overflow into suitcases and hoping that I would not need anything inside them enough to have to brave dragging them from under my bed. Alas, an uncommitted experiment was doom to fail.
Why would "The Curated Closet" by any different? - you might ask. Well, because the book is beautiful! But also, because it is data driven. Let me say that again - in case you, like me, are a startup data nerd. "The Curated Closet" is data driven. You get to make charts. And you get to have a whole 2 weeks of observing behaviour and hunting for patters - which is literally my job. I couldn't wait. I got to reinvent my closet AND make charts?! Sold.
But what does this have to do with the aforementioned milestones of 2017 and my weariness at the tail end of this year... ? I'm glad you asked. Nothing. Or at least it was nothing at the beginning. When I picked up a copy of "The Curated Closet" at Dymocks the next day, I was hoping this new shiny project would prove to be a great distraction from what was happening or that it would at least buy me some time before I had to really examine what was making me uneasy.
I was a little sceptical going in - capsule wardrobes seemed formulaic and simplistic to me. Does everyone really need the same striped shirt and black blazer in their closets? How often do you actually see people wearing their LBD out and about? Reading the book was really easy. It's a joy of a read! Anushka Rees has a lovely turn of phrase and as a trained psychologist, she really digs into the psyche of shopping. The book is insightful and very complete. It doesn't rely on cliches and prescriptive advice. Instead, it gives you a methodology to examine your own behaviour and allows you to discover what your really need as opposed to what you want.
The want and the need separation was key for me. My closet was full of wants - the perfect loral dress when I moved to Bondi a few years ago, rails of coats fit for European winters, a thousand pairs of strappy sandals I was going to just "throw on" with a pair of jeans, leather jackets that "went with everything" but I never actually used, a dozens blazers for those client meetings I never go to. It was lunacy. Who was this person?!
- I hated every minute of living in Bondi - so these floral dresses gave me PTSD every time I saw them.
- Living in Australia means that the coziest my clothes have to get is a scarf and a trench coat for 2 weeks a year. Why did I have so many wool coats?!
- Strappy sandals hurt my feet. And I hate toes.
- None of these leather jackets fit me well so I never reached for them.
- I don't have any clients?! Where am I meant to wear these blazers to?!?!
It was then that I realised that it was going to be really hard to make room for these new wonderful things in my life when I had so much to let go of -both metaphorically and literally. I had been busy trailing ahead with goals and milestones and weekly To-dos that I had forgotten to let go of old ghosts and baggage along the way. It was time to clean it up, let go of the clutter that is in the way of my joy.
So this is my next experiment: Wardrobe modification therapy. Can I align a closet intervention with a personal cleanse? Am I ready to examine myself from the outside in? I'm not sure - this might just be my latest indulgence and an excuse to buy another leather jacket. But, if nothing else, I'll at least have a cleaner closet at the end of it.....
xClaudia
#startupsupermodel