"Seeding" a Travel Wardrobe

Top and cardigan: Anthropologie; Pants: Karen Kane (a gift from Sal);

Sandals: Ara; Bag: East 

The outfit pictured here is very typical of what I've been wearing all summer, and came about because of a process I call "seeding," which I'll explain in this post. I developed this process as a way to assemble a travel wardrobe and manage on-the-road purchases, and it has worked remarkably well.

The strategy is easy and straightforward. Before I left for my last trip, I "seeded" my wardrobe with a few new items, shown below. I chose items that seemed very current in terms of color and style, and these formed the basis of my travel wardrobe.

The items I chose worked well with one another, as well as with the pieces I packed from my existing wardrobe. They're also all made of comfortable, washable fabrics that pack easily and resist wrinkling. Below are a few of my travel outfits that used both seeded and existing garments. Right off the bat the new items made my travel wardrobe more interesting because none of these outfits had ever been worn at home.

In addition to the items shown above, I also packed one pair of dark wash jeans, 2 pairs of sandals, one pair of boots, 2 other lightweight knit tops, and a few basic layering pieces such as long-sleeved tees and tank tops. Perhaps you're thinking, "White pants for traveling?" Yep. More on that later.

Now comes the fun part: shopping on the road. The items I seeded my wardrobe with, being the season's current styles and colors, had two important advantages:

1. They worked well with many things I found in the shops abroad. Let's face it, fashion has become pretty homogeneous in the Western world these days, and the things I picked up in Baden-Baden, Edinburgh and Paris could easily have come from any of the shops I frequent in San Francisco. That's fine; they still have the sentimental value of being purchased while traveling, and I know they won't end up as closet orphans since they integrate well with other favorites.
2. Since they were the new and exciting pieces in my wardrobe, they made me gravitate towards other items in the same color family that I found along the way. Not only that, but since I was often wearing one or more of my new items while shopping, I had them there to try on with all my potential purchases. 

Here are the things I picked up on the road:

As you can see, my entire shopping haul was made up of navy, teal and white (or off-white). All of these items were worn multiple times during the trip, and many were still workable even as I traveled into colder climates and needed to layer.  By the end of my trip I had slowly infused enough new items into the mix that I never tired of my travel wardrobe, and since I packed light to begin with, my suitcase had the space to accommodate the additional clothes.

The outfits shown below were all born on the trip, and have since been worn to work and around town. By seeding my wardrobe with a few new things and building upon those as I traveled, I built a fresh, versatile summer wardrobe with plenty of items that can transition into fall and winter.

Now, about those white pants: yes, they seem deeply impractical for a travel wardrobe because even the smallest spill will cause them to need laundering, but I managed to be extra careful with them and it was well worth it. The reason is that although it was hot and summery in Istanbul, the rest of the trip took me to colder climates where my sundresses were rendered completely useless. The white pants were a great way to look summery no matter what the weather was doing; in Istanbul I wore them with tanks and sandals, and in Iceland I tucked them into boots and wore them with layers and a jacket. So go ahead, pack those white pants for your next summer trip; just make sure you stay away from red wine and marinara sauce.

Finicky

 

I'm back from my extended travels, which took me to Edinburgh and into the Scottish highlands, down to York, over to Liverpool as I mentioned in my last post, on to London, over to Strasbourg for the work portion of the trip, and finally to Paris for the last weekend. I had a great trip and though I've only been back since Monday I feel remarkably recovered from the jetlag, perhaps because I had enough time over there that I wasn't still suffering from the first round of time zone changes.

I'll have a follow-up travel post or two after the Thanksgiving holiday is over, but in the meantime I have a couple of outfits from before the trip to share. This one features a new pair of boots that I recently found to fill a specific wardrobe gap: low heeled, mid-calf, medium brown boots that are comfortable enough for walking.

Initially I thought I might take these boots along for the trip, but they weren't quite broken in enough to be safe for 3 weeks on the road. As it is, even my most trusted pairs will start to get uncomfortable after several days of walking on cobblestones, which in fact is exactly what happened. I was forced -- forced, I tell you! -- to buy another pair in York when the two that I brought were becoming unbearable (you can see the new ones in Not Supermum's post). Curse you, finicky feet!

In this outfit I've layered one of my tulle skirts underneath the dress, which mitigates the problem of the dress being exceedingly floaty. Since I haven't yet bothered to work on weighting down the hem, I figured the next best solution was to wear something non-floaty underneath in case of a breeze. Problem solved, in layering weather at least.

Dress: eShakti
Cardigan: Anthropologie
Belt: a gift from Mom
Skirt: Noa Noa
Boots: Born

Packing for Europe: Early Winter Edition

Today I'm off for the UK and France, and since I'm going to be gone for awhile, I thought I'd share my travel wardrobe before I go. It's going to be a whole lot colder over there than it is here, sad to say. My itinerary will begin in Edinburgh, then a few days in York, an overnight in Liverpool, and then a few days in London. After that I'll be working in Strasbourg and ending the trip with a free weekend in Paris. As always, I'm taking lighter layers rather than any bulky pieces. Below are the major items I'll be wearing for the next 3 weeks.

5 shirts (2 long-sleeved layering tees are not shown):

3 cardigans:

2 dresses (these two have traveled with me before and have proven to be ideal travel items
for their wrinkle-resistance and comfort):

3 pairs of pants:

2 jackets (the zip-on sleeves of the vest aren't shown here):

The anorak is a recent purchase, and is something I've been seeking for well over a year. I kept seeing the ideal style on ladies around town, but could never seem to locate it in stores. Finally I was on the bus and spotted it in the window at Gap the other week, and quickly hopped off the bus to get it.

As you can see, I've made the entire wardrobe of jewel tones and neutrals, with black as my major neutral and olive as the secondary. Almost every piece goes with every other piece; below you can see how the shirts, cardigans, and layering tanks placed side by side look like a cohesive collection.

Finally, here are a few different combinations I put together using the same pieces.

And finally, my traveling outfit. I chose my most comfortable, soft, stretchy items and will be carrying the jacket since it's one of the larger items I'm taking. I also fully expect it to be cold when I get off the plane, so I know I'm going to want it when I get there.

And with that, I'm off! I didn't end up getting any new posts lined up except for this one, so the blog will be silent for the next 3 weeks. I'm really excited that I get to skip the rest of the election nonsense (though I did of course vote by mail already), and even better, that I got to see my SF Giants sweep the World Series before leaving the country. What a perfect send off! See you in a few weeks!

Packing for France -- Summer Edition

Holy moly, packing for this most recent trip to France was a challenge for me because I have so few items in my wardrobe that are suitable for the heat of a proper summer. Truth be told, I did a fair amount of shopping here in San Francisco before I left, which is good because I also didn't buy much while traveling this time. Here's a quick rundown of what I took:

Three cardigans and 5 tops. I could've gotten away with taking only 2 cardigans, but I got good use out of all the tops. The 4 jersey ones on the right were all light enough to be able to easily wash in the sink.

One pair of jeans, one pair of shorts (which I had to buy specifically for the trip, since I didn't really own any shorts), one dress, and 2 skirts. The dress (from Athleta, along with the shorts) was also purchased for the trip, and was perfect. I could've worn it every single day.

To keep things stylish even with jeans and t-shirts, I brought along 3 lightweight scarves. Truth be told, at least one of these ended up doubling as a sweat rag. Good thing I brought laundry soap along. I'm a wimpy San Franciscan; I'm not cut out for heat.

Here are the 3 pairs of shoes I brought, along with my clothes all folded and ready to pack (minus my traveling outfit, which you saw in the last post). Note how little space everything takes up; this is a huge advantage of taking multiple lightweight layers instead of any one bulkier piece.

Finally, everything all packed up. The main compartment of the backpack was completely empty for the outward bound trip, which meant I could stuff my purse inside and thus have the allotted 2 carry-on pieces. For the trip back, when I had to check the red bag anyway because it was filled with delicious herbal liqueurs from the south of France, I put the overflow into the backpack and the blue purse became my second carry-on. This is a typical packing strategy for me, as I often bring back exotic liquors which force me to check a bag on the way home.

The purse is also new, and is the ideal travel bag. The fabric is water and stain resistant, the compartments are well organized but not so numerous that I spend 15 minutes zipping and unzipping pockets to find stuff, and the bag itself weighs next to nothing. The color looks very bright here but it's really more of a rich peacock color, which goes with so much of my wardrobe. The bag is by Tumi and was on the pricey side, but well worth it, especially for someone who travels a lot.

Below are a few different outfit combinations; some were worn for my work days in Strasbourg, and the most casual ones were worn in Aix-en-Provence.

 

Of course, I also wore several of the top/scarf combos with the pair of jeans I brought as well. This seems like an awful lot of outfits for a 10-day trip, but in the end it was good because there were several days where the heat forced me to return to the hotel in the afternoon and take a second shower and change. Which, considering the extreme heat wave that the eastern half of the country experienced last week, sounds incredibly foolish in retrospect (the hottest it got was 92F in Aix). Like I said, I'm a wimp when it comes to weather extremes. This is why I usually vacation in the fall.

Packing for Europe

I'm back from my adventures abroad, and since I haven't yet uploaded my photos from the trip I thought I'd present an analysis of the wardrobe I packed and how well it worked for me during my travels. So without further ado, here's what I took with me:

3 Dresses:

3 Tops (this doesn't include a couple of layering tees and a tank):

2 pairs of pants (not shown: one pair of leggings and one pair of tights):

4 cardigans:

2 coats (the short one has removable sleeves, which also came along):

And last but not least, 3 pairs of shoes:

This capsule wardrobe was somewhat of a challenge because of the fact that I had both work and vacation portions, as well as several different cities. The low-heeled boots and flats got lots of wear when I was out walking around in Lisbon and Paris; the studded boots were great for making my outfits a touch dressier when I was only walking short distances for the work and conference portions of the trip.

Overall I did really well with the packing this time around. Everything I brought was worn at least 2 to 3 times and in multiple configurations, and at each stop on the trip I had enough clean clothes to last until the next time I did laundry (which I did twice). The patterned dress got worn as both a dress and as a tunic over jeans, while the short gray jacket was worn both with and without the sleeves. It was great having a couple of versatile pieces like that in the mix.

Here are a few different combinations I planned out while I was packing, all of which got worn as shown:

Shown above is the patterned dress worn as a dress; I put it over leggings when it was cold, and on one warmer day I wore it with bare legs and a pair of orange sandals I picked up along the way.

At left is the same dress configured to be worn as a tunic. I thought it looked great with the red pants.

The floral coat went particularly well with the purples, yellow, and neutrals I brought, but I also pushed the envelope and wore it with the red pants once or twice.

One thing I'll say about packing for somewhere like Paris is that bright colors make you stand out much more than they do over here. Parisian women stick mostly to neutrals and generally wear loads and loads of black. But frankly I've long since ceased to care about trying to blend in with the locals; I knew the weather was mostly going to be dreary for this trip, so I brought bright colors to look springy and to make me happy. And despite it looking fairly out of place, the floral coat still garnered several compliments even in Paris. It just goes to show that you're better off being yourself than trying to adhere to a norm.