As I mentioned earlier, Maria of lost in a spotless mind unleashed her fashion consultant skills upon my closet this weekend. I cannot tell you have excited that made me, because how often do you get the chance to have a professional go through all your clothes? And when that person also happens to be one of the nicest girls on the planet, you just know you’re in for a treat.

What we did was basically to set up camp outside my closet for an entire evening. I tried on all my clothing items, one by one – all my jeans, tops, skirts, dresses, shorts and all my outerwear – and Maria sat on a chair commenting on colors and fit and asking probing questions like “what does this piece of clothing make you feel?” and “how long has it been since you last wore this?”. It was like clothing therapy, I swear, and I could feel myself getting defensive over silly things like terrible cotton tops. “But but but.. It might get tropical, you never know!”

As the evening went on she made me reconsider a lot of items that I had previously been unsure of, made me aware of how other things were not as flattering as they should be, and she also showed me how I could combine things in ways that I would never have thought of myself. All in all it was a great success. We did end up two garbage bags worth of clothes to give away to the Salvation Army, but I can honestly say that I won’t miss any of those clothes,  and we also ended up with a iron/mend/modify-pile that I need to get control over. Most importantly though, she made me aware of my sartorial strengths and weaknesses:

• I own a lot of basics. This is fine – everyone needs good basics – but one also needs non-basic things to make the basics look more exciting.
• I need to work on my accessories. Since I have a lot of neutral clothes I need a bit more added drama. They also need to be “young”, seeing as a wardrobe that mainly consists of basics looks pretty grown up.
• I apparently need to learn how to fold my jeans properly. I was folding-scolded!
• I buy weird things in sales. Must beware of sales.
• I am good at everyday clothes. However, I did not own a single blouse. I need things that fill the slightly dressier gap between worktime and partytime.

She also made me move my clothes iron permanently into the same room as my closet, and commanded me to buy a lint remover to get pilling under control. She was tough but fair.

The next day we felt an urgent need to go out and fill the gaps in my wardrobe. Yes, this is a clear violation of my shopping ban, but as it was under the supervision of a professional I feel like it could be excused, and besides – we were not merely shopping, oh no – we were filling sartorial gaps! If that’s not a great reason to break my rules then I just don’t know what is right and wrong anymore.

This is what we found to fill my urgent need for a blouse. When I say “we” I mean Maria, as I would have walked straight past these and not offered them a second glance. I can assure you though that I fell in love as soon as I put them on, and that they will see a lot of wear.

We also found some accessories – I must admit I was very reluctant to shop for jewelry at first because I am such a creature of habit when it comes to these things, but Maria gently pushed me in the right direction, and before I knew it these shiny trinkets had come home with me. I also spotted some cuff-style bracelets that I really liked, but I’m a little afraid to go overboard and think I need to pull back a little bit. These are a great starting point, after all!

So that is what we did this weekend in between the eating, talking and youtube-watching. I can’t believe how nice it was of Maria to do this – we literally spent hours going through all my things – and I had such a great time. This is not the first time I let her push me out of my comfort zone, and it sure won’t be the last time. Infinite brownie-points for Maria.

It is now the middle of October and we are two months into my shopping ban, so I thought I would give you a little update on how things are going. The first thing I have to say is that it really hasn´t been that difficult. I started in the middle of August, and since then I have made a point of not really going to shops unless I know that there is something I need to get. That means no window shopping, no wandering around “just to pass time”, and I have been meeting friends at cafés instead of in stores. This means that I have eaten slightly more cup cakes than usual, but hey, at least I didn´t shop.

This does not mean that I haven´t bought any clothes, however, because I have. In the spirit of the public nature of this project I have made a little Polyvore showing you what it is that I have bought over the last months, so that you can decide whether I have cheated or not:

The striped tops were necessities because I managed to wash all my favorite breton tops with a pair of pink sweat pants. Rookie mistake, I know. The tights are self explanatory – winter is coming – and the Dr. Marten´s are as well. My engineer boots are at the start of their third fall/winter season and need some rest. I did a wee bit of cheating when I bought my silver leaf necklace, but I needed something big to go with my simpler tops and dresses and it was almost my birthday so that´s my excuse.

But I didn´t do this just to test my willpower, oh no! I am doing this because I need a new laptop. I am going for a 13″ Macbook Pro this time around, and those babies don´t come cheap, so the question is: has the shopping ban helped at all?

Indeed it has! I know that it is considered impolite to discuss money in public, but as the entire point of this project was to save money I don´t see how this can be avoided. By my calculations I will be able to order my laptop in mid-December at the latest, and I might be able to buy myself a much needed point-and-shoot camera as well. So far I am willing to call my shopping ban a great success!

But hey, we´re not finished just yet – I might slip up royally and spend all my money on costume jewelry on eBay in November – so in order to know for sure you´ll have to stay tuned…