Doctor T Designs

So after my last post, I’ve not started any of the actual work like messing around with my real clothes.  I have done a lot more planning work, like starting along on the Wardrobe Architect series.  Despite whatever else might be going on in the blog-o-sphere, I’m going to give a thumbs up to this process because (1) all the steps have been broken down for me, (2) all the nerdy worksheets to fill out already exist, and (3) it lets me play with pretty pictures instead of being functional after I get home from work at 11:45pm.  When, I know, I should be sleeping.  But I am not.  Because who falls asleep right after they get home from work?  The need to stay awake while driving somewhat hinders the process of relaxing for bed.  But, anyway, this is neither here nor there.

Regardless, I have successfully completed the first three assignments!  Which means the following…

(1) W.A. Week 1: I have examined my past and realized that I actually have a very dysfunctional and somewhat traumatic relationship with wardrobes and style.  Apparently this is the reason my thoughts either go to “over the top costume” or “slovenly PJs, haven’t slept, don’t care couture.”  Which should, I suppose, give me pause.  I expect the purpose of this exercise was to think about things that make you feel good and how you like to represent yourself to the world.  I answered honestly, though, and I sort of realized that I don’t have a very good relationship with fashion/style/appearance in my past, and that my main interest in this is because I like sewing and thinking about construction and colors and textures and pretty things.  But I don’t necessarily often wear colors and textures and pretty things.  Which is perhaps why it is taking me so long to formulate something resembling a plan of how I would like to look, let alone assembling the pieces that would help me accomplish this.  I suppose, at some level, I have to decide who I want to be, and I still haven’t really done that yet.  There are lots of things I would like to be.  I’m just not sure if that is actually who I am.

(2) W.A. Week 2: I played on Pinterest a lot.  Oh, and I also filled out the worksheet that is all about word associations and how you feel about style and things.  It was interesting because I was supposed to do word association with the stories from Week 1 – I came up with some very contrasted wording, and shockingly high number of negative word associations.  In some ways this made pulling out my top 5 words pretty easy, and in other ways, very odd.  How to reconcile being over-the-top, crisp, and functional?  It was a bit of  interesting to see all the different directions my brain is being pulled.  I suppose it is also helpful because it makes me realize I am going to have to combine and layer these concepts together to get something that I will actually be happy with.  And I’m going to have a very critical eye with regards to taste – a lot of these concepts could go very wrong if paired in an unbalanced way.  Anyway, the five words that I chose to represent my style are:

classic, casual, practical, intellectual, and embellishment

Here are the image inspirations I pulled for each of these words:

Classic:

Casual:

Practical:

Intellectual:

Embellishment:

I tried to find pictures that fit into more than one category as much as possible, since I was limited to 20 images for this exercise.  Overall I think I accomplished the general mood I was going for.

(3) W.A. Week 3: Basically I rate things with numbers in a worksheet.  General conclusions from this exercise are: I like having a defined waist, I like covering my legs, I like wearing pants, I like wearing jackets/coats/cardigans.  I’m also not fussy about necklines, and other than capped sleeves, I’m not too picky about my arms either.

So, what’s next?  According to this exercise the next thing is to create silhouette boards and pick general shapes I like for spring/summer and fall/winter.  This looks like it might take a while, so I probably won’t have anything to post about for a few days yet.  In the meantime, I’ve made some progress on my coat: