Shopping List

SO. EXCITED. This is where all the prep stuff we’ve done comes together. With the help of some sketching and one last form, you’ll have the start of your perfect shopping list. Here’s what you do:

Pull up a chair in front of your closet and bring…

Blank Shopping List Form

Then…

  • Take the activities you wrote in the Needs Questionnaire and write them in under “Occasion” on the Shopping List Form
  • Write how many outfits you need for each occasion under “#” (Ex: I need at least 5 outfits a week for work…)
  • If you know you won’t need an outfit for certain seasons (like, no weddings in winter) just shade out those rows
  • Start drawing! See if you can draw the number of outfits for each occasion that you wrote down using what is in your closet now. Don’t expect to cover all your occasions in one sitting. I’ve only just started tackling “Work” for winter and spring.


I’ve put it off for as long as humanly possible, but I guess I should share a bit about how I currently dress. Can’t really have an “After” without a “Before,” can I? Here are some quick and dirty sketches of the pieces I’ve been wearing to work this winter. My “outfits” consist of some ill-fitting pants (same style, different colors, too loose) and some tops. I wear black sneakers on metro and change into short black boots when I get to work. So you see I wasn’t kidding about being apathetic before! I like my red bag and my hat though :)

Before
Old Clothes 1

Old Clothes 2

I took these pieces and started doing some mixing and matching on a new Outfit Planner page, to see if I could make a better week of outfits out of them. I’ve been keeping up with my blogs and window shopping, so I had a few ideas about things that might look nice as part of winter-becoming-spring outfits, so I threw those into the mix as well. I also found myself drawing things I own that I usually consider “casual” like my riding boots and my polka dot dress, (shown here as a skirt). I still have a lot of question marks on here, but these sketches definitely helped me see my old stuff in a new way!

After

New Outfits

Now that I have some ideas, I’m going to add the pieces I don’t own yet to my shopping list to go find and try on. A very cool thing about this form is that the more of it you fill out, the better idea you’ll have of what new pieces will be most versatile for you. You’ll have a clear picture (literally) of what you can use across occasions and seasons. This is great if you are on a budget, because you can see which pieces would have the maximum impact for the least expense.

Example so far:

Shopping List Form Example