STYLEme: a reflection on travel packing two months too late

I must preface this post by saying that it was intended for posting in MAY (whoa am I disorganized or whaaaat), prior to my departure, but I liked where I was going with it, so here we are. Revamping. It works.

Packing for a trip is one half awesome/exciting and one half extreme dressing OCD neurotic weirdness (for me, anyways). A place and time for an item of clothing + unknown location = ?????? I DON'T KNOW EITHER! The obvious solution seemed to be, pack everything. Pack every cool and/or relevant item of clothing you own and pray that your (if you're me, again, an abnormal example one might say) many mostly stylistically irrelevant pieces come together to create some sort of eclectically questionable "vacation style" you can play off as a having just picked up during your time...wherever you went. Soo having just returned from being in Rome and then on the east coast for 6 weeks, and now currently posted up in Northern CA whiling away the remains of my summer sometimes at a desk job (a real adult job!) and sometimes floating in my pool, I can make (slightly) more informed judgements on what one actually needs when traipsing around Europe for a little while. Or for that matter, what you need when you're away from the entirety of your closet; a sad, sad time for some (me).

I tried my best to avoid the aforementioned flurry of packing where I end up holding two armfuls of clothes and exhaustedly staring at the space between my dresser and my ~~midget cubbyhole~~ closet, but alas it did not work. Two 60 lb bags and a freaking astronomical charge for overweight luggage later, I can safely say I did not need my whole closet with me, considering I wore the same sorts of things on repeat.

Interestingly, I did a comb over of a few of my favorite blogs before I left to get a round-up of solid travel/walking old monument friendly outfits that wont have you looking like this. Just kidding. Although sometimes when my shorts are too short they get all bunchy, an experience I'm clearly sharing with the father in that lovely photo. Aren't you glad you're reading this post? Me too. Back to the point at hand, the outfits I gravitated towards (from Style by Kling, Tuula, and The Man Repeller) ended up being pretty on par with my actual outfits while abroad. NEAT! Simplicity and comfort reigned supreme, think lots of white, small dresses and button downs. Oh yeah, I bought birkenstocks. yikes/yay. Check out some of the bloggin/real world comparisons below.