Despite my years of frivolous shopping, I’ve always had a running list in my head of what I consider to be necessities. Sadly, I usually end up wasting my money on seasonal trends. I’d love to be able to use the old saying of “The buck stops here”, but I can’t, in good faith, use that term. I know me, and I’ll always shop impetuously.
With that being said, if you read this post, you’ll know that I saved every spare dollar I made to purchase a bag that I’d wanted for years. In lieu of purchasing that bag, I left the money sitting in my savings account. I didn’t know what I was saving it for, but I knew it was worth saving.
Nearly a year rocked on with my little $1,400.00 sitting in my savings account. I’d been seeing posts on Pinterest about capsule wardrobes, but let’s not kid ourselves, I knew that I wasn’t capable of this lifestyle, but it had good bones, ‘ya know? Like when people talk about investment pieces, or Marie Kondo. That’s when I decided to make a list of things that were easy to style multiple ways.
I made my list, and if I couldn’t write down five ways to wear it, I marked it out. This was a struggle, y’all! In the words of Marie Kondo, “If it doesn’t spark joy, tell it how much you appreciate it and let it go”. Or something like that. I’ve never seen the show because I’ll not be encouraged to have heartfelt talks with man-made articles, that seems insane, but I digress. I do like the way she folds clothes, but it stops there for me.
Anyway, I managed to narrow it down from 43 essential things to 14. Some of them are a given obvious, some not so much. I like to refer to these things as vaulted pieces. So, I took my $1,400.00 and I challenged myself to purchase the 14 things on my list using only my hard earned $1,400.00.
Allow me to introduce to you the first on the list: The Utility Jacket. I ordered this one from Lucky Brand, and with a discount code, I paid $50.00 for it. I’d been wanting an olive utility jacket or vest, but with my figure, I didn’t think it would look right. I ordered an XS, S, and M, and decided to keep the XS. I’m not an XS in anything (on average, I’m a medium), but they’re a more relaxed, oversized fit. While the other two sizes were more comfortable, they seemed to swallowed me up. Hindsight, I’d have went with the small.
With the above look being the first, below are an additional four ways to style it.
- Over a striped dress
- With leggings and a tee
- With denim cutoffs
- Belted
Photography by Ryan Sherrod
