The Curated Closet (book review)

The Curated Closet: A simple system for discovering your personal style and building your dream wardrobe; by Anuschka Rees. Ten Speed Press, 2016.

"Curated" is to 2016 what "artisanal" was a few years ago. It means approximately the same thing, and that thing isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just an overused thing. The positive side of "curated"  is that it implies something carefully chosen,  involving individualized perception and taste; and it also assumes some kind of a "less is more" approach. All of this applies to the advice given in The Curated Closet and on the blog that preceded it, Into Mind. It is a non-multiple-choice way of clothing yourself smarter and better. You don't have to fit into any particular box of physique, season, or blood type, says the book; you can combine elements of this and that, create a style that is your very own.

Unfortunately, assuming that we all have enough fashion sense, say to be able to discern "menswear-inspired French chic" from "Grace Kelly goes to college," is where a book like this leaves some of us in the dust. Some of us don't know our Boho colours from our "contemporary mod," or who Carrie Bradshaw was or what she dressed like (I had to look that up). The open-ended advice of "do what's right for you" can be either empowering or just frustrating. It doesn't matter whether we're told to cut up fashion magazines (which many of us don't have around the house, other than freebie mags from Walmart); or to look at Pinterest for inspiration: the problem, for the average person who doesn't normally spend  time perusing these things, is that we still don't know what we're looking for or at.

But if you take this book slowly, in the right order, and don't let it overwhelm you, there is more help included than may first appear. Simply making a list of things you like can get you halfway there, whether you can come up with a name-in-quotation-marks for it or not. If you're happy with the majority of what's in your closet, and it functions well in your current lifestyle, then you probably have an idea of what you need to buy next or what small changes you want to make. I appreciate Rees' advice to to buy new clothes slowly, both for budget reasons and because it's easy to overdo any sudden change.

If you're confused by the personalized colour-palette approach, as Rees points out, that's.only one way of grouping clothes, and she offers at least two other methods that might work better for you. If you can't tell your key pieces from your statements (another irritating word that should disappear soon) or your basics, that's still okay; you might be better off writing down what your usual pattern, uniform, or formula for an outfit is. Do you usually wear jeans, t-shirts, and cardigans? That's fine: just make sure you have enough of everything to get you through to the next laundry day.  Obviously the point of a curated wardrobe, for Rees, is not to hang it in a museum but to let it be worn and enjoyed.

If you have a great sense of your personal style, you probably know most of what Rees has to say already. But if you find shopping frustrating, and kind of wish you could get yourself a little more together, this book might be what you need.

I borrowed a copy of The Curated Closet from the library to write this review. All opinions are my own.

Favourite read right now: Guy Mannering, by Sir Walter Scott

How do you manage to spruce up someone's clothes when they can't be bothered to notice what they wear, but would be insulted if you asked them to change?

Honest Mac-Morlan received this mandate with great joy, but pondered much upon executing that part of it which related to newly attiring the worthy Dominie. He looked at him with a scrutinising eye, and it was but too plain that his present garments were daily waxing more deplorable. To give him money, and bid him go and furnish himself, would be only giving him the means of making himself ridiculous....On the other hand, to bring a tailor to measure him, and send home his clothes, as for a school-boy, would probably give offence. At length Mac-Morlan resolved to consult Miss Bertram [a young lady whose late father was a friend and employer of the Dominie], and request her interference. She assured him that, though she could not pretend to superintend a gentleman's wardrobe, nothing was more easy than to arrange the Dominie's.

'At Ellangowan,' she said, 'whenever my poor father thought any part of the Dominie's dress wanted renewal, a servant was directed to enter his room by night, for he sleeps as fast as a dormouse, carry off the old vestment, and leave the new one; nor could any one observe that the Dominie exhibited the least consciousness of the change put upon him on such occasions.'

Mac-Morlan, in conformity with Miss Bertram's advice, procured a skilful artist, who, on looking at the Dominie attentively, undertook to make for him two suits of clothes, one black and one raven-grey, and even engaged that they should fit him--as well at least (so the tailor qualified his enterprise) as a man of such an out-of-the-way build could be fitted by merely human needles and shears. When this fashioner had accomplished his task, and the dresses were brought home, Mac-Morlan, judiciously resolving to accomplish his purpose by degrees, withdrew that evening an important part of his dress, and substituted the new article of raiment in its stead. Perceiving that this passed totally without notice, he next ventured on the waistcoat, and lastly on the coat.

When fully metamorphosed, and arrayed for the first time in his life in a decent dress, they did observe that the Dominie seemed to have some indistinct and embarrassing consciousness that a change had taken place on his outward man. Whenever they observed this dubious expression gather upon his countenance, accompanied with a glance that fixed now upon the sleeve of his coat, now upon the knees of his breeches, where he probably missed some antique patching and darning, which, being executed with blue thread upon a black ground, had somewhat the effect of embroidery, they always took care to turn his attention into some other channel, until his garments, 'by the aid of use, cleaved to their mould.' The only remark he was ever known to make on the subject was, that 'the air of a town like Kippletringan seemed favourable unto wearing apparel, for he thought his coat looked almost as new as the first day he put it on, which was when he went to stand trial for his license as a preacher.'