This week I’m thinking about summer clothes

Because I am having to clean out my closets in preparation for grandparents arriving to spend some time with us during the summer and in a general effort to reduce and give away for others to reuse. So it’s high time I looked through my beloved piles of clothes to streamline the wardrobe for this season. It’s a longish process that I just started. It might take me another week or two to finish. Very complicated stuff.

I already I noticed one big difference from the previous years: the jeans are staying over for the summer instead of being packed up in the winter basket. And they are all wide-leg ones, because really, who wants to feel any garment too close to steaming skin in the heat of July and August? So very nonminimalist of me, but it looks like I have two summer uniforms this year: one is wide-leg jeans and colorful/printed light cotton or silk shirts, while the other consists of colorful, swishy, silk or linen maxi skirts with plain tees or tanks made of breezy cotton or linen knits.

Another big difference from the previous summers is that I am not feeling drawn to dresses at all anymore. Right, a big reason for that is the nursing of the little baby, which does not go well with dresses, unless said dresses would have buttons to open in front, which is not the case for the ones I own. So it’s separates all the way, every single day, hey, hey.

It’s interesting to analyze (a very serious and intellectually stimulating wardrobe-investigation process, don’t make the mistake of thinking otherwise) why, try as I might, I cannot make the two sets of uniforms work together. The shirts that go with the dresses would make a too bland outfit with the jeans (although there are bland days here and there, just right for such a getup) and the shirts that go with the jeans will not match the skirts unless I am planning for a madhouse eclectic look or early eighteen-century prairie fairy style. I know fashion bloggers are big on print mixing, but I am not one of those highly skilled people. For the jeans I kept aside all my peasant shirts, with embroideries, crochet details and beautiful floral prints. They are my favorite shirts and yet they will get little wear this season: only on jeans days. Which will be fewer than the skirt days, especially by the end of summer, when I’m out of my mind and done with the heat, and when I will rely solely on uniform two.

My mother reminds me that as a child I was very hard to shop for when it came to clothes. “You didn’t like anything,” she says. And the truth is that I didn’t like anything of what she liked. Because she wouldn’t buy me long skirts, which have been a staple of my style since I was about three years old (I am often subjected to amused retellings of family anecdotes involving little me stumbling in too long skirts all around my grandparents’ village). People referred to me as “the long skirt girl” at my first job. I remember that fondly.

The predominant colors in my wardrobe are kind of a surprise to me. Mustard yellow seems to be my brightest color choice. Very interesting. Otherwise whites and blues and bits of orange (all expected) and browns. There was no brown in my ideal wardrobe color analysis. I am kind of over browns intellectually, but I think it still appeals to me on an emotional level. It’s earthy and soothing. I’ll keep it.

Right. So, here I am all ready for summer. I now realize that I never had a too great impulse to analyze my cold season clothes. There must be a good reason for that. I guess. I’ll give it more of a thought later, when the return of the chill in the air compels me. I’m happy now with thoughts of great heat, sweltering hours spent by the lake, evenings chilled by large bowls of watermelon. While in a billowing skirt and a gauzy top.