Overkill, part 1

Trying to streamline and refine my wardrobe presents an on-going challenge for me, both physically and emotionally. As a baby step today, I decided to collect and try on all of my black skirts. In this exercise, I did not include two black skirts that are halves of two-piece dresses, three black gauchos, and one black palazzo pant, which are six black skirt-like pieces in addition to the 24 skirts that are in the photo:

A black skirt for any and every occasion!

One pencil skirt is charcoal grey. Seven of the skirts are prints, patterns or tweeds, primarily black and without any other color except white or neutral. The one with a bit of brown reverses to black with tiny white dots, and another is black lace over a nude underskirt. To be fair, six of the skirts are essentially duplicates: two each of three skirts in two different sizes. I still fit in all of them, but the smaller sized ones are tight. I will wear them comfortably again!

There are professional and dressy skirts, resort wear skirts, party and dancing skirts, and lounging or hippie skirts in about four lengths.

From my perspective, I have a complete wardrobe of any kind of black skirt I could need for any occasion. Yes, a couple of them are duplicates in two sizes. Get over it. Can someone tell me why this isn't a sensible set of basics?

As a collector, I want to record the bouclé pencil skirt by Lanvin, the black St. John knit pencil skirt, the flirty black skirt with a "booty flounce" by Alexander McQueen, two straight skirts (one wool and one knit) by Ann Klein II, a cotton pleated full skirt by Elie Tahari, several by Jones New York, a long print jersey skirt with contrasting pocket trim by Max Edition, a faux-sarong style rayon mini by Jams World, and several generic brands, mostly the multi-tiered cotton gauze skirts and the jersey skirts.

I dread the next step of collecting and sorting my black tops and black pants. But this seems to be an efficient way for me to categorize and assess my things. Fortunately I have few items in colors ... but I do have a Jams World resort clothing collection to rival a retail outlet!

The prospect of collecting all of my black shirts and black pants is daunting, but during that process I certainly will lose quite a few items to the donation box! But next in line for consolidation and cataloging is my collection of resort wear.