Nina Garcia's rules for how to edit from "The Little Black Book of Style"

"I don't care if it is the latest trend or the 'must-have' item of the season. I don't care if you spent a week's salary on it in 1999 so that you could afford it. I don't care if you wore it everyday in college and you 'can't bear to part with it.' If it doesn't look good on you, it should not be in your closet."

I could hear Nina Garcia saying the lines above as I tried to sort out my closet.  Closet space is limited in our condo.  The unexpected holiday did not give me an excuse to procrastinate further. I had to clean out my closet because no matter how hard I push  I cannot make way for more hangers.

I'm still hopeful I can someday fit back in the Chloe dress I wore in my Despedida de Soltera and the Prada dress I wore in a bridal shower. But into a broken piece of luggage went my resort trousseau for my honeymoon and my finds from Australian designer Alannah Hill from that trip.

I can easily give away all the dresses in which I look like I'm expecting. But how can I let go of the bright green dress I wore in the baptism of my first born?

While trying to find a bargain, I probably ended up spending for something I never used so it's probably time I actually used my Stella McCartney for H&M cigarette wool plaid pants from 2005 to sport the androgynous look.  But will I still resurrect that Marc for Marc Jacobs black denim jacket which has gone with me on so many trips--that went into the luggage too.

I used to love wearing dresses, and many of them have marked milestones in my career. I found the orange striped maxi dress I wore on tv last summer, and I also saw the dress I wore on Project Runway Philippines while I was seven months pregnant. Here is a feather bolero I wore to the launch of the angel author, and another printed chiffon maxi dress I wore to a garden themed book launch.  With sadness, I'm putting a lot of  them in the giveaway pile. They are better off being used by someone else.    This was a time when I wore mostly dresses to work and events.  But now I want to move on to mixing and matching separates. 

What I really can't let go of,  I'm saving some for my daughter's future vintage wardrobe.

Here are Nina Garcia's rules for editing:

1. Throw out what you don't wear and what doesn't look good on you.
2. Buy the right size
3. Don't be sucked in by the sale tag
4. Don't play it too safe
5. Do not buy according to the trends
6. Be ruthless when you edit

Weekend reading: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

My book club was captivated by Patron Saint of Liars.  I couldn’t really understand why the character did what she did several times in her life, first as a pregnant woman who leaves her husband and lives in a home for unwed mothers. Then, when her past threatens to meet up with her presence, why she would just walk away from the family she had chosen so many years before. But the characters grew on me, and I felt the poignancy of her fear of being committed or caught.

With State of Wonder, Ann Patchett has written another compelling tale. Dr. Marina Singh, who works in a lab outside Minneapolis researching  statin development for their cholesterol drug program, is transplanted down to the jungles of the Amazon to speak some sense into Dr. Annick Swenson, about the timetable of her research for studying breakthroughs of the Lakashi tribe on fertility. The CEO, who is also secretly Dr. Singh’s lover, sends her to follow on the heels of her lab partner who ended up dead with a fever.  

By the time she reaches the research camp, she has lost all her luggage, then the clothes get stolen off her back and she has to subsist on two dresses she gets from the tribal women.  She has to battle an anaconda coiled around a boy, brave flying arrows and a tribe of cannibal and perform a Caesarian section, something she hasn’t done since medical school.   But what she ends up discovering in the jungle, changes her irrevocably and forces her to finally make a stand. 

State of Wonder is currently on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Bestseller list.  It is available in National Book Store in paperback for P729.00