October Style Sudoku
It’s my fourth and final style sudoku of the year! I have challenged myself to do a style sudoku in each season this year after taking a break from style challenges. I put together my winter version in January, my spring version in April, my summer version in July, and now I’m back with my fall version! Out of all the wardrobe remixes out there, style sudokus are my favorite. As a huge sudoku nerd, they’re fun for me to put together and just as much fun to wear. The goal is to play around with what’s already in my closet—and it usually helps curb my spending, too, though not always. ;)
A style (or wardrobe) sudoku is exactly what it sounds like if you’re familiar with sudoku the puzzle. Basically, you choose four tops, four bottoms, four pairs of shoes, and four other items (accessories, jewelry, outerwear, etc.) and arrange them in a 4x4 grid so each row, column, and corner makes a complete outfit. (You can also make outfits out of the diagonals and the inner “squares” of the two middle rows if you’re so inclined!) In my past style sudoku challenges, I shared the diagonal outfits, too, even though diagonals aren’t technically included in a real sudoku. This gives me 14 outfits total.
Back to cool weather means back to a darker color palette. I picked primarily black items—there are six total—and added accents of cream, olive, rusty brown, and denim blue. I only picked one patterned item this time around and only two layering pieces (vest and faux leather jacket). Hopefully I won’t feel too bored of these pieces by the end since they’re all pretty simple.
When it came to selecting items, I focused on how I wanted to feel this fall: comfy and cozy. That meant soft tops (flannel shirt, sweatshirt, sweaters), stretchy jeans, and shoes that feel good on my feet. I wasn’t planning on selecting only denim bottoms for this sudoku. I tried on my black paperbag pants and my brown wide leg pants but they didn’t look quite right with these shoe options (or any others that I was considering). I made sure I had at least one different denim silhouette to mix it up a little bit. As usual, deciding what “accessories” to select was the hardest part. I don’t like to select jewelry because it feels like a cop out, but I felt pretty limited with the layering options considering the tops I wanted to wear.
As I did for my previous sudokus, I’ll be breaking down what I wear into three different blog posts over the next two weeks and detail what I did on each day, how the outfit worked for those activities, and the weather. As of right now, we have multiple days with precipitation in the forecast, but only one day looks to be really rainy. I didn’t want to wear my rain boots again (as much as I love them) so hopefully my shoe picks will work out this time around. We’ll see!
Below the sudoku, you can find the details of all 16 items. I’ll be sharing a daily photo of my outfit over on Instagram stories (check out my “Style Sudoku” highlight) and then posting them here after a few days have passed.
FIRST ROW
Madewell flannel ‘Sunday’ shirt in stripe / no longer available; similar by Madewell
Madewell high-rise skinny jeans / no longer available; similar from Macy’s
Madewell ‘Jess’ oxford / no longer available; similar by Madewell
Gorjana ‘Taner’ bar necklace / exact from Shopbop
SECOND ROW
Phase3 whipstitch wool floppy hat / no longer available; similar from Revolve
Earth ‘Apollo’ boots / no longer available; similar from Amazon
Madewell ‘Cali’ demi-boot jeans in Preston wash / exact
Everlane cashmere cropped crew / no longer available; similar by Reformation
THIRD ROW
Everlane authentic stretch high-rise skinny button fly / exact
& Other Stories cotton blend sweater / exact style (limited sizes) or similar by Target
Uniqlo ultra light down vest / exact or similar by Gap
J.Crew ‘Cece’ ballet flats / no longer available; similar by Lucky Brand
FOURTH ROW
Earth ‘Keren’ boots / no longer available; similar by Earth
BlankNYC ‘Life Changer’ moto jacket / no longer available; similar by BlankNYC
Everlane lightweight French terry shrunken hoodie / exact
Madewell high-rise skinny jeans: tulip hem edition / no longer available; similar by Madewell
