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"We&amp;#39;ve spent plenty of time talking about shopping your closet around here lately--Three new ways to wear an old white blouse! Make khaki shorts look cool again! A fresh new take on jeans and a T!--but one reader really put her money where her mouth is and decided not to buy anything new for an entire year. Oh, did I mention she&amp;#39;s not repeating any outfits, either? Meet Kelly of the awe-inspiring Kel&amp;#39;s Closet blog, after the jump.\nPinterestFacebookLike many women, Kelly loved to shop and, as she puts it, &amp;quot;I don&amp;#39;t think there was a week or a paycheck that went by where I did not buy something.&amp;quot; She was a victim of the have-to-have-it-now syndrome, until the economy took a nosedive and suddenly, she didn&amp;#39;t have the budget to throw around cash on stuff she didn&amp;#39;t really need anymore. So she gave herself a kinda scary, totally admirable challenge: Wear a new outfit every day for a year without making any purchases. She has a few exceptions (new shoes for a wedding she&amp;#39;s in this October are okay), a very loyal boyfriend who&amp;#39;s allowed to buy gifts (and snap her photo for the blog!), and a host of readers who get to help her decide what she should keep and what she should toss. Meet Kelly now and tell me you&amp;#39;re not inspired to clean out your own closet!\nSTF: What inspired you to start this blog?Kelly: Honestly, it was the movie Julie and Julia. I love to write. At the point I saw the movie, I had already made this promise to myself. What better way to keep me accountable than by sharing it with many?\nSTF: What were your shopping habits like before you started it? Anything sitting in your closet unworn for ages?\nKelly: I was a frequent flier before! Whether it was a t-shirt at Target or a pair of shoes at Off Saks, I bought, and I bought a lot. I regret the bills I have, but I don&amp;#39;t really regret the purchases themselves. I think that is what the blog is really helping me with\u2026I am able to remember the times, places, moods of each purchase. There were some random emotional purchases that I made, that may never make the blog because they look terrible! The unworn for ages may get weeded out before even getting worn. I am finding that with needing to wear something different every day, I am finally getting to some of that stuff at the back of the closet and taking a look at it again. I have a lot of unworn, primarily just because I kept buying new new new! I think we all have those &amp;quot;What was I thinking?&amp;quot; purchases lingering in there. Most of mine were from ebay - never fit quite right, etc.\nSTF: What are your most-regrettable purchases? How about the ones youve worn over and over again and are happy you splurged on?\nKelly: Yeah, I was on a real eBay rollercoaster for a while. I was buying cute little date dresses last year because I was in a new relationship and actually going out on dates! There are some that have never been worn, and I either need to give them away or put them back on the auction block for someone else.\nMy most favorite dress is a Dolce &amp;amp; Gabbana I bought four years ago. I talk about it in a post titled &amp;quot;Clothes I would save from a fire&amp;quot;. It was about $350 dollars and I love it! I also have a dress that cost me $2 that makes me almost as happy. My shoe purchases seem to have been the most extravagant over the years. I don&amp;#39;t regret the expensive ones - I tend to regret the less expensive (painful!) ones!\nPinterestFacebookSTF: Have other women been inspired by what youre doing? has anyone reported a similar shopping ban since you started Kel&amp;#39;s closet?\nKelly: I have a friend who, after I shared the blog, told me she had also stopped shopping. Interestingly, I have found that I have gotten feedback that people are now dressing up more as a result of my blog. They talk about going shoe shopping and thinking of me, wanting to buy high heels again.__\nWant to be a whole lot better at shopping your own closet? Sign up for our Style Tip of the Week newsletter now!\nSTF: How the heck did you amass enough clothes to go a year without repeats?\nKelly: Scary, isn&amp;#39;t it? It has a lot to do with some weight transformations I made in the last five years. I lost a significant amount of weight. You are feeling good about yourself, and suddenly it seems like everything you try on looks good. There is also the &amp;quot;dark&amp;quot; side to it. When you can&amp;#39;t eat your emotions away, you shop them away.\nSTF: What has been the biggest challenge of this project so far?\nKelly: I am happy to say thus far it has not been too hard. I did go shoe shopping Saturday. I had four exceptions to the no shopping when I started. I am in a wedding in October, and I get to buy shoes and earrings. I need running shoes every 500 miles, and I needed a tacky bridesmaid dress to wear for the bachelorette party. I knew those events were coming, so they were my exceptions. As a result, I bought some shoes on Saturday. It was sad, though, I have to tell you. There were some adorable shoes that would have come home with me in the past that I could not buy. I keep reminding myself that by the time I wore them, it may have only been once or twice a year. Still, it was hard!\nPinterestFacebookSTF: How close have you come to breaking down and buying something on the not-allowed list? What stopped you?\nKelly: Believe me, I have been tempted! There were these cute T-shirts at Target. I thought to myself, who is going to know if I buy these? I won&amp;#39;t tell anyone, I&amp;#39;ll just sneak them in. I would have too much guilt; ultimately it is blog land keeping me accountable! I just cannot lie to them!\nSTF: What has surprised you most about shopping your own closet? What would other women like to know about your experience?\nKelly: I have always loved accessories. As I state in the first blog, I can&amp;#39;t wear the same ensemble twice. An ensemble is clothes, shoes and accessories. I can wear the same clothes, they just may be accessorized differently and with different shoes. I think I am realizing there are core pieces that we all have to have, and I have them. So many women have amassed several pairs of jeans, black pants, etc. You need the basics - a pair of dark denim skinny jeans, dark denim boot cut, one pair of black pants, a white button down, a few camisoles in neutrals, a great black pencil skirt and a few basic blazers and cardigans. I could, theoretically, pull together something new and cute each time with those core pieces just by a different splashy shoe and accessories! I have a TON of accessories\u2026they put my shoe closet to shame.\n__STF: Anything the readers have made you toss that you would have wanted to keep? Are you feeling more purged in general, in your regular life?\nKelly: Recently I wore this purple dress. I mentioned in the blog that I thought with a little tailoring it would look better. I was told to just plain get rid of it. I laughed when one person called it &amp;quot;schmatta&amp;quot;. I also had a green dress that got the axe. I find it interesting that I do not know most of these people. I &amp;quot;met&amp;quot; most of them through an online food journaling website. When they see something they don&amp;#39;t like, they tell me &amp;quot;it is not very Kel&amp;quot; or if they love something &amp;quot;It is so Kel!&amp;quot; I am trying to figure out exactly what that means. Additionally, I am also trying not to influence the vote. If I had a blah day, that might come across in my blog that night. I am trying to steer clear of that because it does influence their thoughts.\nTo find out more about Kelly (and help her decide whether she should keep or toss her next pulled-from-the-closet look), visit Kel&amp;#39;s Closet! And then tell us, dolls...are you inspired by what Kelly is doing? Are you guilty of over-shopping? Have you been shopping your own closet more lately? Are you surprised by how many cute outfits you can put together with the stuff you already have? Discuss!\nPLUS:\n- Meet the girl who&amp;#39;s wearing the same dress every day for a year\nAND:\n- Check out how we shopped one teacher&amp;#39;s closet to give her a whole new school year wardrobe--from stuff she already owned! \nMore Ways to Get Glamour\nYou could win $50,000 just for registering or logging in to Glamour.com!\nAdd Glamour to your iGoogle homepage\nFollow Slaves to Fashion on Twitter!\nPhotos: courtesy of Kel&amp;#39;s Closet"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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