My Dream Closet

I love Instagram and Pinterest.  They allow me to live vicariously through those living the lifestyle I aspire to.  A minimal home, financial security, and great style are all things I hope to someday lay claim to.

When I recently came across MakeSpace and their new "dream closet" idea, I was really excited to make a vision board of sorts for my very own minimal and beautiful closet!

Why don't you come along for a virtual tour?

Colour Scheme

You know me, black and white all the way.  White walls, an industrial concrete floor, and a plain white rug set the stage for my closet dream.

I don't dream of a massive space - a medium size room will do nicely.

High ceilings and a wall of windows along with some vintage lightbulbs bring the industrial minimalism together.

image from who what wear

Of course, I always love a little hint of life - so a large plant or two bring in that tiny touch of colour which is otherwise absent.

And an oversized mirror leans on one wall, reflecting the space.

image from who what wear

Storage

I love to look at my clothes.  I spend the time curating my capsule wardrobes and they become an external representation of where I am in my life.  The clothes I wear on a day to day basis would be displayed on two simple clothing racks, in a gradient from light to dark.  

image from remodelista

A simple chest holds my off season clothing, and a small modern chest of drawers holds my undergarments and accessories.

A small white vanity by the window displays my favourite makeup and jewellery pieces and is the perfect place to get ready in the morning.

Wardrobe

My clothing pieces are all ethically sourced and vegan, from fair trade factories and made with sustainable materials.  They are made to last.

Simple cuts in black, white, and gray are matched in infinite combinations.

A classic white tee.  Black skinny jeans.  A chunky grey sweater.  White sneakers.

A black pencil skirt, a white blouse, and black pumps.

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Pieces are timeless, with an Audrey Hepburn feel, yet somehow current.

Equally feminine and masculine, the clothes are structured and soft, form fitting and relaxed.

Want to see more of my favourite outfit inspiration?  All of these outfit shots come from my 'Style' Pinterest board!

Vibe

High quality speakers play my favourite music (the beatles, the beachboys, hamilton the musical) while I get ready under the watchful eyes of my two kittens.

My fiance sits at the small chair and table where I did my morning pages and drinks his coffee as we chat about the day ahead.

A green smoothie in hand, I pick out my outfit for the day and touch up my lipstick.

I get my man to take a couple shots of my outfit with our Fuji for my Instagram, and head out the door to take on the day.

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Now, I realize that this minimalist lifestyle doesn't work for everyone.  I mean, even I still have trouble parting with more colourful clothing that I just don't wear anymore!  An awesome option for that is to store your off-season clothing (or clothing you're just not too sure about anymore, but aren't ready to donate) off-site with a storage company like MakeSpace.  They're a new full-service storage facility that can be managed from your phone!  (So much more convenient than storage companies I've dealt with in the past.)  They make it super easy to have your items picked up, stored, or delivered back to you, with just a couple of taps.  Check out their self storage locations here!

I hope you enjoyed today's post and I would LOVE to hear about your dream closet in the comments below!

Until next time,

Is Veganism Less Popular Among Men? My First Q&A!

I answer this question and more in my first ever Q&A video on my YouTube channel!  Go watch it on YouTube or right here on my blog after the jump...

Without further ado, the Q&A!

QUESTIONS...
ONE Are you considering trying the uniform clothes like un-fancy has been doing? 1:01
TWO What does your current bullet journal look like?  6:25
THREE Which do you prefer… BBG or Way of Gray?  9:41
FOUR Why do you think veganism is not more popular among men?  11:21
FIVE How can I get vitamin D on a vegan diet?  12:30
SIX How long have you been vegetable inclined and what changes have you seen in this time?  13:40
SEVEN How do I deal with/reduce gas and bloating after going vegan?  15:43
EIGHT Every time someone goes vegan does it actually save animals’ lives or are animals still slaughtered at the same rate?  17:30

LINKS TO THINGS I TALKED ABOUT...
Fall Capsule Wardrobe
Winter Capsule Wardrobe
How To Build a Capsule Wardrobe
Un-Fancy
Article mentioned @ 4 minutes
Vegan Dr Martens
How To Use A Bullet Journal To Stay Organized
May Designs
The Ultimate Wedding Planning Timeline
Kayla Itsines (BBG)
Sophie Gray (Way of Gray)
Food Combining Rules
A Vegan’s Biggest Regret

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Have a question you want answered in my next Q&A?  Leave it in the comments below!

Also, thank you so much to everyone who entered my Vegan Cuts Beauty Box contest!  The box has been sent to the very happy winner :)

Until next time,

Winter Capsule Wardrobe

Winter is here and that means it's finally time to reveal my second capsule wardrobe!  I had a lot of fun with my Fall Capsule and loved putting together this wardrobe, armed with months of capsule experience.  (Learn how to build a capsule wardrobe here!)  Some of my choices last time just didn't get worn, so I'm hoping to make wiser picks in my Winter Capsule that can handle the range of weather conditions and temperatures that Toronto winters throw at us Torontonians!

First things first, I promised I would review my first ever capsule wardrobe experience!

F A L L   C A P S U L E   W A R D R O B E   R E C A P

T H E   G O O D.

• I LOVED the capsule wardrobe experience and never want to go back to the standard closet explosion of earlier years!
• The neutrals meant that almost every item went with everything else, which made getting ready so much faster!
• I loved the minimal and neutral style I curated for myself.
• I really enjoyed the challenge to create different combinations from the same pieces for the 3 months.  Go check out my instagram to see what I put together!
• This experience made me realize that I can downsize my wardrobe even more than I did during my KonMari minimizing spree, which is super exciting for a clothing hoarder like me!
• The majority of my clothes were super comfortable which was AWESOME.

T H E   B A D.

• My tall black boots broke the first time I tried to wear them.  Yeah.
• I barely wore the dressier items I included - the two white button downs and the deep v neck long sleeve tops in black and white.  My day to day and work environments are very casual and I had barely any opportunities to dress up, other than auditions.  Since audition wear isn't included in my capsule I just didn't need these items!
• The dress pants, track pants, and green jeans I included are cropped and it was often too cold to wear them, despite wanting to.

T H E   U G L Y.

• I definitely didn't include enough clothing for cold weather - it got VERY cold in December and I had to go outside of my capsule to keep warm enough with more layers and heavier sweaters.  This is a tough problem in Toronto where fall weather goes from summer heat to winter chill on a day to day basis.  I hope next year I can find a better balance!

And now time for my winter capsule wardrobe reveal...

Once again I'm sticking to an almost entirely neutral palette.  I considered including a plaid shirt again,  but finally decided against it.  Only time will tell if I regret that decision!  

I did a lot of thinking and planning around layering options, since the temperature in Toronto ranges quite a bit.  I also work in a store that can go from freezing to boiling to freezing again within any give day, so I need to be able to take off and put on layers easily!  I'm hoping that I have enough of each layering category to keep me going until the end of March, I actually increased the number of tops in my capsule from 18 to 27(!) so hopefully I've covered all of the bases!

I'm also excited about my new vegan coat (see my unboxing video here) as it's black (surprise surprise), super warm, and very comfortable!  20 points to HoodLamb for making an awesome winter jacket.  I plan on doing a detailed review after I've had a bit longer with it!

Just like last time, I'll share where I bought everything if you're interested in picking up a couple of the pieces.   Once again, a little disclaimer.  As I am an ethical vegan, I do not endorse purchasing any items made from or by animals.  A couple of these pieces I purchased before my transition to veganism, and are therefore not in line with my current beliefs.  If you are interested in my take on wearing products made from or by animals as a vegan, and why I continue to wear some of my old pieces, check out the post HERE.  I won't be linking to items containing animal products but will instead link to a similar item made with vegan materials.  I hope you understand and respect why I am choosing to do this!  Also, some of the items were given to me or I purchased long enough ago that they are no longer available.  In those cases I will link to something similar, or the same item in a different colour!

Alright, here we go!

TOPS (27)

1. white cami - similar
2. white flowy cami - aritzia
3. white tank - similar
4. white tee - aritzia
5. white v neck tee - urban outfitters
6. beige deep scoop cami - similar
7. taupe waffle long sleeve - aritzia
8. deer baseball tee - similar
9. heavy patterned cardigan - similar
10. grey cropped tank - brandy melville
11. grey tank top - hollister
12. grey tee - aritzia
13. grey v neck long sleeve - similar
14. grey hooded cardigan - similar
15. grey & black baseball tee - aritzia
16. dark grey tee - aritzia
17. beatles tank - similar
18. black cropped cami - similar
19. black cami - similar
20. black tee - aritzia
21. black deep v neck tee - similar
22. black henley - similar
23. black long sleeve top - aritzia
24. black v neck long sleeve - aritzia
25. black cardigan - similar
26. black pullover sweater - similar
27. black chunky pullover sweater - similar

BOTTOMS (8)

1. black skinny jeans - american eagle
2. black zippered leggings - zara 
3. black leggings - urban outfitters
4. black vegan leather pants - similar
5. grey high waisted leggings - similar
6. high waisted blue jeans - urban outfitters
7. blue ripped jeans - similar
8. blue jeans - anthropologie

DRESSES (1)

1. grey sweater dress - aritzia

OUTERWEAR (1)

1. black parka - hoodlamb

SHOES (3)

1. vegan doc martens - doc martens
2. short black cowboy boots - similar
3. black winter boots - nice shoes

That's it!  I'm excited to see how this capsule holds up over the next 3 months.  I will be committing to no new purchases until mid May or so, when I will be planning my spring capsule!  Check out my Style and Capsule Pinterest boards to see what I'm loving for spring as I begin looking for inspiration!

I hope you've enjoyed reading my recap and seeing my new picks for winter 2016!  I've been considering filming videos to go along with my capsule wardrobe posts, whether sit down chat style or showing the clothes on my body as more of a look book.  Let me know if you'd watch and which you'd like better!  If you have any questions or suggestions please let me know in the comments and I hope you'll consider giving capsule wardrobes a try!

Until next time,

Are you doing a capsule wardrobe this winter?  Leave your link below so that we can check out your picks!

Linked Up!

How To Minimize Your Belongings Using the KonMari Method!

I am very new to the concept of a capsule wardrobe, but am absolutely loving the experience of living with one over the last thirteen days.  Just in case this is your first time hearing of it, let me explain.  The idea is to reduce your wardrobe to a small, well thought out collection of pieces that can be mixed and matched to create many outfits.  I first learned of this idea from the Un-Fancy blog, so I am loosely following her instructions in my capsule attempt.  (By the way, If you've never been to Caroline's blog, Un-Fancy, go now. I'll wait.) 

Back?  Great!  Let's continue...

Before choosing any items for my capsule wardrobe I wanted to go through all of my clothing and discard about 50%, minimum.  I was inspired by reading The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo.  

If you haven't read this yet, you should.  It's allowed me to finally get rid of things I've been carting around for years.  If you're interested, read my review of the book here!

Using the method described in Kondo's book, I met my goal and allocated approximately 50% of my belongings to be donated, sold, or thrown out.  With a newly halved closet, it was time to try my hand at capsuling (probably not a word, but I'm using it anyway.)  I tried to look at my remaining clothing objectively, as if I were looking at items in a store and not my clothes with their multitudes of associations and sentimental connections.  I wanted to create a minimal wardrobe of clothing that was comfortable, fashionable, versatile, and suited my body.  Interested in the result?  Go check out my Fall Capsule Wardrobe! 

But how exactly did I minimize my clothing 50%?  And what about all of the other crap that always seems to gather in my house?

Here is a recap of the KonMari method summary I wrote for my post: Living With Less: A Review of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up & How To Declutter the KonMari Way! in a super pretty and pin-able graphic! (You're welcome.)

Just like Marie suggested, I began with clothing and continued from there.  I came across this book at the perfect time, just before I moved into a new house and got all of my things out of a storage container!  As I unpacked I sorted into categories, and then I went through one category at a time.  It was glorious: I sorted and discarded before I ever put one item away in my new home!  I realize that not all of you will be lucky enough to have a move coincide with your desire to declutter, and that you may even see that as undesirable (since you need to transport all of the items you'll just be discarding when you get to your destination), so I suggest choosing the room with the most open floor area and making that your sorting room for the next couple of days.  Let your family know what you're doing, and assure them the mess won't last long!

Putting Your Belongings Away

Once you've discarded, how do you organize?  Marie has a whole host of awesome tips and tricks in her book, but the following are my favourites!

And there you have it, the simple ways you can minimize and organize your belongings for good.  Are you going to pick up Marie's book and give it a read? It just might change your life!

Until next time,

ave you used the KonMari method?  Tell me about it in the comments!

Linked Up!