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Amaranth
6-22-11, 2:18pm
Periodically a group of friends sponsors the Six Items or Less clothing challenge. The idea is to choose 6 very versatile items and wear some combination of them for a month. The 6 items are for regular daily wear and don't include exercise clothes, swimsuit, pjs, work uniforms, jackets/coats, or accessories.

Some of the previous participants have chosen several of their items to be of black fabric to make the mixing and matching easier. This works better on people of Winter coloring in terms of going with their natural coloring. People of other Color Seasons could choose a similarly flexible neutral out of their color pallette such as navy, gray, or brown.

I'd like to participate in a future round of the challenge, and have been having a hard time figuring out what the most useful items would be. Also I'd like to be a bit in the direction of simple, classic, and interesting rather than, simple, dull, and boring.>8)

One aspect of this challenge that I am already good at is choosing good quality clothes that hold up to many washings. However I'd still welcome things to choose or avoid related to how well they hold up. A number of the participants have been surprised to learn that many of their clothes survived so few wearings that they were nearly in the disposable category. Some people wound up mending items several times a week or being reduced to 5 or 4 items when something became unmendable. Others wound up swapping in other items to make it through the challenge in order to be professional at work, yet feeling like they were compromising following the challenge. To me this seemed like a reasonable compromise as it allowed them to continue in the spirit of the challenge while still learning about the quality of various brands and styles of clothing.

What would your choose for your 6?

catherine
6-22-11, 3:06pm
OK, here's one thing (at least) that I would include, personally. I've just found the wonder of the polo dress!! You know--they look like polo golf shirts, but they're dresses. For the summer, they're PERFECT! I never feel overdressed or underdressed. I've worn them walking the dog and to a reunion. You can wear a sweater or a blazer over them, you can wear them with flip flops or pumps and they look just as good.

I could live EASILY for a month with three of those dresses in different colors, two different sweaters and a blazer.

kib
6-22-11, 3:39pm
I think the big question is, what do you do on a day to day basis? A life like mine that's mostly spent at a desk at home, in the house cooking cleaning and gardening, with an occasional shopping trip or casual brunch is a lot different than a life that includes working in an office - especially an office with serious air conditioning, or that includes plenty of partying, restaurants or other social events. I love the polo dress idea but I'd probably only choose one of those, since I don't spend a lot of time in the public eye.

Assuming a light cardigan or hoodie type thing counts as "jackets and outerwear", I think I'd choose two classic sleeveless tops of varying formality - either collared or ruffled depending on taste, one pair of comfortable pants or capris (I now adore my black yoga pants and think they look good in public when paired with a nice top), and a less formal but still presentable house outfit like knee-length shorts and a presentable tee shirt, and the polo dress. An alternative to the polo dress would be a pretty skirt that could pair with any of the tops.

If I were doing less manual labor, I'd skip the shorts and go for a second pair of "office appropriate" pants. Ideally I'd choose fabrics at least for the tops that could wash and dry by hand overnight.

Fawn
6-22-11, 4:26pm
I would chose:

2 knee length sleeveless dresses: one solid neutral color, one accent color
2 summer cardigans: one neutral color, one accent color
1 pair long pants in neutral color
1 shell top that will go w/ pants and both sweaters

pony mom
6-26-11, 12:06am
I think I saw this in an older LL Bean or Land's End catalog, but they had a lovely collection of linen pieces. It had blouses, shirts, pants, capris and shorts in white, beige, blue, pink and a print. They all went well together and a few pieces could be worn in so many combinations. Blouses could double as jackets, a shirt and skirt with a belt could look like a dress, a sleeveless top with capris for a casual look...I loved all of it. Don't love ironing though : (