The Curated Closet

The Curated Closet: A Simple System for Discovering Your Personal Style and Building Your Dream Wardrobe
by Anuschka Rees
272 pages
NonFiction - Fashion

I've been wearing yoga pants so often lately that even I'm sick of it. Time to up my fashion game! German blogger Anuschka Rees wrote this book to aid readers in developing a curated closet - a small, carefully edited wardrobe that works with your current life and reflects your personal style in a truly fashionable way.

I love studying fashion and this is one of the best fashion books I've read. But it is also the most challenging! It forces you to develop your own fashion sense by asking provoking questions rather than providing answers. This book will not tell you "who" to be. There are no "must have" wardrobe lists or neatly defined styling categories. It does provide backup information to aid your decision process, but ultimately you are an artist with a paint brush in your hand staring at a blank canvass. You must decide what you will create.

Creating was a hard process for me - like an author who writes and rewrites only slightly more satisfied with each new version. Or who throws out ideas entirely and starts over from scratch. Frequently. Reading this book felt like a hard math class. I wrestled with the challenges in each chapter and found it impossible to comfortably move ahead until I had really absorbed the previous lesson.

I'm a fast reader, but I couldn't get through more than one chapter a week, due to the nature of the book. Some chapters took multiple weeks to process. Through this struggle, I learned a lot about fashion as it applies to me. I grew in my fashion life and the development of my personal style like never before. But it took significant time and energy.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Fashionistas. Readers interested in refining their personal style and wardrobe.