Tropical Vacation on a Farm Wardrobe

I packed for a year on a farm, only to get invited on a last-minute(ish) trip to Bermuda!! Okay, technically it's a Sub-Tropical Vacation...but the predicament still holds.

In How Does a Stylist Pack for a Year on a Farm? I talked about my process for editing down my flouncy city-girl wardrobe for a year of farm life. I brought rugged, utilitarian clothes with a bit of a funky edge in a lot of dark, moody tones with an occasional pop of Old School New England prep. The dressy clothes I did bring were primarily for work trips into NYC that I thought would mix well with my farm-y clothes.

When our friends invited us to join them for a quick trip to Bermuda (which, it turns out, is extremely easy to get to from the East Coast??!) – we of course said YES! But I didn't want to schlep a bunch of one-off beach vacation clothes from Los Angeles just to wear one time and then eat up space in my closet the rest of the year. My algorithm started pitching very tempting solutions. "Just buy a few beachy pieces to really lean into the vibe of your vacayyyyyy" it whispered. "Start a vacation capsule rental with Nuuly or Rent the Runway" it beckoned.

All we're shown on all these platforms is images of people who are essentially in-character wherever they go. Every celebrity and influencer magically has a perfectly-on-theme and hyper-niche wardrobe for every trip they take, every event they attend. And every brand has a cruise collection, resort line, holiday capsule. The message it sends is clear: if you don't fully immerse yourself in the caricature of these location, you aren't really living – you are failing, you are not enough.

It becomes too easy to forget that, truly, not that long ago most people just wore their regular damn clothes on vacation. Perhaps adding one item here or there for activity-specific clothing demands. The fashion industry wants you to forget that your clothes are versatile – that a skirt may look pastoral and woodsy in one context and summery and beachy in another. That with a little creativity, most of us have wardrobe that already contain the raw materials needed to feel great (or at least completely acceptably good) in tons of situations. And anyway, who would I be if I couldn't live up to my own standards of making use of what one already has?! If I can't take a farm-y wardrobe and beach-ify it, how could I ask others to do the same?!

So, I set myself a challenge: pack for Bermuda using only the clothes I brought with me for the farm – and record the process and results (in the video below).

But then, there was another catch...