Denim: Just Say No

An acquaintance of mine asked me recently what she should do to punch up her look a little bit. She seems bit bored with her wardrobe, and I think this is pretty common.  If you know what you like and tend to gravitate towards the same types of clothing or accessories, it is inevitable that a certain monotony will appear in your closet.  There was a time when I realized I had 4 indistinguishably similar lacy A-line dresses in my closet.  There was another time when I realized I inadvertently bought the exact same brushed cotton flannel shirt from Nordstrom TWICE.

Anyway, my advice to her was to do something that really helped jump start my wardrobe when I did it several years ago:  Try to eradicate jeans from your collection.  Specifically, get rid of every pair of flared jeans still hanging around your closet.  The last time flared jeans were trendy was 2004; gotta let those go. Same for ill-fitting skinny jeans.  Dependence on jeans as the staple item, or as the anchor for most outfits, was so limiting to my personal style growth.  I didn't even realize how limited my options had been until I threw out all that denim in that fateful closet clean-out so many years ago.

This is the glorious selection that slowly but surely replaced all that needless denim: Skirts (mini, midi, and maxi), leggings, jeggings, leather pants, skinny patterned pants.

Best of all, tights, in a myriad of colors and patterns.

[I love every single one of the looks on this page. Nordstrom Christmas catalog is my fave.]

I'm not saying this will work for everybody.  But when I made the jump and stopped building outfits around jeans, it really opened up a world of other options.  And let's be honest here.  In this city, when you spot a pair of flared jeans, it's usually a correct assumption that the wearer is a tourist from the Midwest.