How do you incorporate gifts into your wardrobe? Do you just tactfully tell people that you keep a tightly curated wardrobe? Ask for exactly what you want? Or embrace the wild card element that is introduced into your style by gifts, with faith that it can sometimes be the shakeup you need? As much as I’m enjoying getting into the curated wardrobe thing, the idea of going through life with no wonderful surprise gifts imbued with that extra sentimental value seems very sad.

Those of you who maintain, or aspire to maintain, a tightly curated, capsule, minimalist, French, etc. wardrobe, how much do you try to incorporate things you’ve been given that you didn’t pick out yourselves? For myself, I have a relative who likes to give me stuff (I know, world’s smallest violin, etc.) that can be a bit hit or miss. One recent gift became one of the signature pieces in my wardrobe, but some become things I wear once in a blue moon that don’t really “fit”, and make me feel like my overall aesthetic is less tightly coordinated.

Unsolicited gifts and your curated or capsule wardrobe?

I hope this question doesn’t come across as ungrateful or churlish; I consider myself to be very pro-gift. And from the other side, I would probably do this to someone if I thought I knew their taste well enough (without knowing, e.g., what current “holes” they have in their wardrobe and what they have too much of already). But having just recently found this community and realized how amazing it feels to have a very intentional, limited wardrobe, I’m just curious to learn how you reconcile that with receiving, using, and loving gifts.

I mean, this is probably shitty advice but I asked my mom to tell people not to get me clothing. Not that my wardrobe is particularly curated (I’m working on it, kind of), but most of my family just has a different taste than me. They listened to her and now don’t give me clothes!

My mom and my sister, however, always manage to get me clothing that would not be something I would buy, but that I end up wearing all the time. For example, my mom bought me a “frumpy” grey cashmere turtleneck when I was 18 that I’ve now had for four years and wear at least once a week.