Next up — creating the Spring 2006 shopping list. For each segment of your life you should have a uniform template, a certain combination of pieces that expresses your idiom and makes you feel like yourself.
Starting with your dominant lifestyle segment (that is, what you get dressed for most often), create a spreadsheet (or just a list on a 3 x 5 card, whatever works for you) with a column for each major piece in your uniform. Estimate, based on your lifestyle and laundry cycle, how many of each you need. Now here’s the tricky part: identify what you have and list them, starting at the bottom with the one you hope to biff next and working up to your favorite, leaving room at the top for new pieces you need. Work through each segment.
Once you see where the gaps in your wardrobe are, you can create a prioritized shopping list. First is anything completely lacking. Second, those staple items in your wardrobe, things worn daily. Depending on your budget, that may be as far as you get.
Armed with your list, approach your shopping trip(s) with reason. Shopping is a business endeavor. You have my permission to take as many coffee breaks as you need. Save your feet, your pocketbook, and your sanity!
Hi Rebecca,
Not exactly what you are talking about, but shopping news from Katie and I. We went to the Outlet Mall yesterday and both of us found bras that actually fit us – now, I don’t know about you, but for us that is a major achievement! Katie also forced me to not buy my standard microfiber seamless panties that I love and to buy cute cotton undies like I wore 25 years ago instead. I also redeemed my Ralph Lauren Polo gift certificate Dillon gave me – the rather extravagant amount (for a 17 year old son – who is quite unselfish, I might add and not too captivated by money) bought me one shirt and a very cute make-up bag :-).
Have a great day!
Susan, here in Texas where the swimsuits have been out since late January and the sweaters that we rarely wear will be in stores by August 🙂 making us wish for just a few moments that we lived somewhere cold enough to wear them (weather factors don’t make us stop buying them)
There is a reason that undergarments have been called “foundations”.
Believe it or not, dug has been encouraging me to blog about bras; he’s so impressed with how I have been able to eliminate the straps slipping off my shoulders.
Rebecca, who suspects that if you worked in an office building in Texas you would need those sweaters in August.
But here’s something curious: for some reason this page had ads for men’s underwear on it! (The ads are placed according to the words on the page.) ???
I did some research before bra shopping and the one thing that every article I read mentioned, was this: straps falling down are a sure sign of an ill-fitting bra!
I did once work in an office, but I don’t remember if I wore my sweaters much more then or not. I do remember always buying sweaters right before school started (remember this is September in Texas and so still hot) and so wanting to wear them — then about October or November you could wear sweaters – at least until noon time! It is snowing and 32 degrees in Germany right now and so I think Katie and I will get to wear our sweaters when we visit in two weeks – thankfully I purchased three sweaters for the trip!
Susan
I’m not sure I buy the “ill-fitting” thing as the only answer; mechanically, it only makes sense that if you have sloping shoulders straps will slip off, unless there is something to hold them. Like a racerback.
I’m pretty happy for you about your trip, but not just because of the sweaters.
So is that the trick to straps that don’t fall off? I have that problem too! Always.
3 options:
~ a racerback bra
~ an add-on strap that connects the bra-straps in the back (I don’t know what they are called, but they are available in lingerie stores).
~ lingerie straps. That is a little strap that you add into the shoulder seam of the garment (I just pin it, but you could sew it). These can be purchased at the fabric store.
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