Well, we are t-minus 9 days to this world trip and, somewhat trivially, I realized that I have nothing to wear. I will be the first to admit that I am not the most stylish person and I don’t particularly relish thinking about what I am going to wear everyday. A bit side benefit for people like me becoming architects is that we get to wear black a lot, and that suits me fine here in Canada. However, as Europe is having an epic heat wave, Africa and parts of the middle east are on the itinerary, before we are off to SE Asia having an all black wardrobe seems like a liability.
More organized people have capsule wardrobes, which honestly seems daunting and kind of expensive (when we should be saving pennies right now). Knowing that whatever you bring on a world trip is going to get trashed, and that you will have to likely shop abroad at some point with this ‘north american’ body shape makes you want to fall into one of two camps the ‘bring everything approach’ or the ‘bring nothing’. Add to this that it is not going to be summer all the time and that we are going to be travelling through Japan, China, and Korea in the dead of winter.
The last little challenge is that I don’t want to look like I just stepped off a cruise ship, everywhere I rock up. When we did this world trip 17years ago there was a deep backpacker aesthetic of Ali Baba pants (of the 40 thieves variety…not the retailer), and if you were wearing some sort of Banksy-esque graphic tee, then were you even travelling? Now as a mother, and a professional in my 40’s, I don’t think I can wade into those waters again.
So keeping all this in mind, I started thrift and consignment shopping yesterday. I personally like thrift and consignment as there are A) great deals, B) items that have already been pre-shrunk, worn in, and have survived an owner already, C) you can instantly tell which fabrics are going to just be wrinkly fiddly pieces, and D) it feels like I am making a sustainable decision as there is so much fast fashion these days hitting landfills. I also did a clothing exchange earlier in the month which was most excellent. In any case, I started in on dresses with pockets, LOVE a good pocket, and spent most of the day with shirts. I figured if I manage to get boring pants/shorts I can liven up my black wardrobe with some much needed splash of colour. I don’t know if these are going to make it to the final line up, but as we are almost at game day here, it is going to have to do.
Looking at it all together…there is still a lot of black/dark colours. Well apparently you can take an architect out of the office, but not out of her wardrobe preferences, alas. The haul consisted of 2 dresses, one black jumper, 1 pair of short cargo pants, 7 shirts. I think with a pair of jeans, a white tank, a swimsuit, 2 pairs of shorts, 2 sandals and 1 pair of shoes, and some PJs should take me around the globe. If not, apparently there are thrift shops in other countries too 🙂
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