My Wardrobe, Myself

Summer 2024 Wardrobe and Style Wrap-Up

Debbie Roes

September 30, 2024

In my last few posts, I’ve been reflecting upon my summer wardrobe and style: how my style has changed since summer 2023, which warm weather pieces have left my closet, and the new items that I’ve acquired to help me dress more in accordance with my evolving style preferences.

I thought that I would have just one more installment in this series – my favorite summer outfits – but I’ve decided to slot in another essay prior to publishing that final post. In today’s penultimate 2024 summer wardrobe and style essay, I share a variety of thoughts and insights that I’ve been having about what can often be the trickiest season to dress for.

summer 2024 wardrobe and style wrap-up

Even though I live in a place where summer weather starts and ends later than usual, I know that the warmer temperatures will soon be drawing to a close even in my part of the world. There have already been some cooler days and evenings, which are a harbinger of what will soon become the status quo weather-wise.

Since I last checked in here, I’ve really put my summer wardrobe to the test, both at home and while doing some traveling. As has been my practice for quite some time, I’ve continued to capture my thoughts about my ensembles in my outfit journal. This has helped to both increase my awareness and improve my style.

Included below, in no particular order, is a sampling of what I’ve been doing and learning regarding my summer wardrobe and style. This will be a very text-heavy post, but I promise to share lots of pictures in the final installment of this series.

Summer Wardrobe and Style Series: Closet Additions

Debbie Roes

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August 29, 2024

Welcome back to another installment of my summer wardrobe and style series. In part one of the series, I discussed some of the challenges I’ve been experiencing with my warm weather wardrobe, as well as the ways in which my style has changed since summer 2023. Part two was a debrief of my recent closet audit, in which I purged quite a few wardrobe items that I no longer loved, many of which were summer pieces. In that post, I covered the seven main reasons for letting go of my castoffs.

Today’s essay is part three of the series and will cover additions I’ve made to my summer wardrobe this year that are helping me to feel happier, more confident, and truer to my personal style in 2024. I’ll show you fifteen pieces and share why I purchased each item and how it’s making a difference to the way I’m dressing this year.

The New Additions

Here’s a quick look at these fifteen new items, but I’ll show larger thumbnails as I discuss them in categories later in the post:

new 2024 summer items

By category, the new additions break down as follows:

3 pairs of cropped pants
3 new tops to pair with pants
3 long cardigans to wear with pants
3 skirts
1 top to pair with skirts
2 toppers to wear with skirts and dresses

Summer Wardrobe and Style Series: The Castoffs

Debbie Roes

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August 17, 2024

In my last post, I wrote about some of the ways my summer style has changed since 2023, and I shared examples of the types of pieces I like to wear now. Unfortunately, I think there may have been a glitch with some readers receiving that post, as I didn’t get it myself and the number of views was lower than usual. So, if you receive my posts via email and didn’t see part one, you can check it out HERE, but today’s essay stands on its own and may be read separately without confusion.

This was originally going to be just a two-part series, but I decided to extend it after recently completing a closet audit and wanting to write about that in the context of my summer wardrobe and style. I also realized that with the number of topics I planned to address in the series, the second essay might have been too long to consume in one sitting. So, this will now be at least a four-part series, with the remaining portions being released over the next couple of months.

summer closet audit 2024

In today’s part two, I’ll debrief the closet audit that I conducted earlier this month. I usually do my closet audits at the end of a season, but I was inspired to participate in a five-day closet cleanout program put on by the host of my favorite style podcast (who will likely do this again in the fall/winter for those who might be interested).

Closet Audit Overview

Although I tackled my entire wardrobe during that project and purged both cool and warm weather pieces, I’ll only address my summer items in this post. The bulk of what I purged falls into my warm weather wardrobe anyway, as I’d been wearing my cool weather items for months and had already mostly let go of anything that wasn’t serving me during that time.

My 2024 Summer Wardrobe and Style, Part One

Debbie Roes

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July 28, 2024

I have now been wearing my summer clothes for about a month, which has given me an opportunity to form an initial impression about this part of my wardrobe. I haven’t done my full summer closet audit yet, but I’ve found that I usually need to tweak my wardrobe at least a little bit during the two main seasons of the year.

These closet reviews and some supplemental shopping are typically needed because my style preferences, body, and lifestyle tend to change from one year to the next. Sometimes these shifts are minor and there isn’t much to write about, but this year I feel like what I’m noticing merits some commentary.

summer style 2024

In today’s post, which is part one of a multi-part series, I share my initial thoughts about my summer wardrobe and the ways in which my style has changed since last year. In future posts, I’ll discuss my favorite outfit formulas, my warm weather closet additions, and the items that I’ve either purged or placed into my holding zone because I’m just not feeling like wearing them in 2024. I’ll also highlight how I see my summer style evolving this year and in future years.

Debriefing My 2023-2024 Cool Weather Wardrobe

Debbie Roes

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June 30, 2024

I always like to review my wardrobe at the change of seasons, as that’s when I’m best able to evaluate which pieces and outfits worked best for me, as well as what didn’t serve me quite as well. As I’ve mentioned previously, there are really only two seasons where I live in Southern California, which I’ve sometimes referred to as “summer” and “not summer.”

The “not summer” season tends to be much longer, and it usually spans from late October through sometime in June or even early July. The warm weather arrives later where I live than for most people in the northern hemisphere, but now that it’s finally here, this is a good time for me to review the closet pieces that I’ve worn during the cooler months.

I’m actually going to do two closet reviews. I’ll start today with my cool weather debrief, and then I’ll do a “check-in” on my warm weather wardrobe in my next post. Today’s review will be better informed, as I just finished wearing my cool weather pieces for the past seven to eight months, but I also see the value in an early season review for my summer items. I’ll share more about that in my next essay, but let’s get going with my end-of-season debrief.

Some Closet and “Holding Zone” Information

Since I live in a temperate climate, I keep all my clothes in my closet year-round. I’m lucky in that I have a relatively large closet (I share it with my husband, but my wardrobe occupies two-thirds of the space), but I also worked hard to pare down my clothing such that I no longer need off-season storage. That said, I do still have my holding zone boxes, in which I store items that are either too large or too small for me, as well as things that I’m not sure I want to keep for style-related reasons. Because I can be fickle about what I do and don’t like, I usually wait at least a few months before passing something on, as I’ve been known to come back around to liking pieces often enough to merit that practice.