Now that I’m back from Santa Fe, I realize that I need to follow up on my previous posts about creating my travel wardrobe for this trip. (See the following if you want to catch up: Santa Fe Travel Wardrobe: Color Palette, and The Fabrics & Projects. I also posted ideas for shopping for this wardrobe: Shopping! and Shopping 2: $49.95 or Less! Meanwhile, I’ll get all these photos ready to show you.)

Honestly, I’m a bit surprised that my actual travel wardrobe turned out almost exactly as I planned it; I’ll give more details about the changes as we go. First, here are photos of the pieces I packed: tops, bottoms, dress.

This print dress represents the only major change in my wardrobe plan; even though I did make the bronze/pewter jersey dress (shown near bottom) that I had originally planned for this trip, I reluctantly decided it was a bit too glamorous to function as a day-into-night dress. So I switched it for this print one that I made not long ago; I thought it would serve well as something comfortable enough to wear with flats in the daytime, but could also be dressed up for evening. (And it doesn’t need ironing— always a plus for me!)

Now I’ll show you the actual outfits I put together during the trip, in the order in which I wore them, and with details about what I wore them for. (I was at a workshop for writers and artists, with basically no idea before I got there of what time off we would have for sightseeing, etc. So I really had to guess what I would need.)

First up: airplane outfit. I usually plan to wear my bulkiest items on the airplane, partly to save space in my suitcase, partly because I’m almost always cold on airplanes. I also choose my shoes carefully; these boots, even with the ribbon ties, are amazingly fast and easy to pull on and off going through security. And I packed my turquoise necklace,which you will see in every other outfit, to avoid having to remove it (the clasp is kind of tricky).

First full day in New Mexico: since registration wasn’t until 4:00 p.m., my hotel roommate and I decided to drive up to Taos (about 75 miles from Santa Fe) for a couple of hours. Here’s what I wore, and incidentally, the weather throughout my stay was sunny and 85-90 degrees:

Day 2 outfits: workshops all day…

… and into Santa Fe proper to browse an arts-and-crafts fair on the Plaza before heading to a fabulous dinner:

Day 3 outfit: workshops all day…

… and “wining” around a campfire after dark:

Day 4 outfit: morning workshop, lunch, closing event.

Oh— I was going to show you the bronze jersey dress that I made, that was supposed to be part of the original wardrobe. Notice how amazing it looks with the turquoise accessories!

By the way, all these clothes, plus swimsuit, nightwear, undies, etc. fit easily into one medium-size suitcase. (I like to travel well, but light.)

Outside of traveling light, I have one rule for my travel wardrobes: I must wear each piece I brought at least once. (In my mind, this translates to successful planning.) In this case, other than wearing the same outfit on both travel days, there was little repetition; I wore the Origami skirt twice, and the jeans 3 times (counting travel days). And a note about my beloved turquoise necklace, which you can see I wore with every outfit: this necklace provided the jumping-off place for my wardrobe color palette. So theoretically, anything that went with the necklace would work in this wardrobe. And interestingly, if you look at the print jersey dress, in which print there is no turquoise at all, the necklace nevertheless looks fantastic with it! This shows how starting with a specific palette makes not just the planning, but the wearing of your travel wardrobe all the easier! Bon voyage!

P.S. I’d love to hear about your travel wardrobe ideas. What worked (or didn’t)? What about climate differences, and having to pack for business as well as pleasure? Tell me all!