I recently decided to take the 100 day dress challenge by Wool&. I mulled it over for quite a while, which dress would I want? Which color? Sleeves? Would I like the wool material? How could I make it work with MeMadeMay if I decide to actually do that this year? More importantly, could I actually wear the same dress for 100 days straight!!

I returned to the Wool& website multiple times. Their mission certainly fit my sensibility: Live simply, consume carefully and do good. I looked at pictures, browsed social media #100daydresschallenge and generally questioned myself and my motivation. I finally landed on: there are so many things in my closet I never wear, here’s an opportunity to see if I can find a way to wear them or let them go. This dictated my final color choice: Black, everything goes with black.

I actually wanted to start with the Sierra Tank Dress in Charcoal Gray but that was not going to be in stock until July so the Rowena Swing Dress it was. After perusing pictures, I decided to go with the Long. I’m only 5’6″ but I wanted something conservative enough that I could wear it to the office on the off chance that I’m going to have to start going back in anytime soon.

The dress arrived on Friday and that Saturday my sister called to ask if I could join her in taking care of our Mom. You see, mom is getting close to the end of her life and in fact, my sister thought that it could be that very night. It wasn’t, but Mom is still struggling to make it though each day. I’m so lucky to have this time to honor her and I’m so lucky to have a sister to care for her during this difficult time.

Ironically, while I was at my Mom’s I unpacked the dress and told my sister all about the challenge. She was skeptical but then I did something I hadn’t done in probably 45 years. I decided to play dress up in my Mom’s closet to show her how versatile the dress could be.

It wasn’t easy, my Mom is now less then a hundred pounds, but there were a few things in there I could play with. It reminded me of eight year old me, sitting on her closet floor and trying on high heeled shoes while throwing her scarves around my shoulders. My Mom was always very chic in my eyes.

As my fashion show wore on, we got my Mom smiling and my sister contemplating doing the challenge herself.

This is my first experience with a Wool& dress and I have to say I’m really impressed. The drape and weight of the fabric is perfect and I really like the way the wool feels. It even has pockets! It looks like it’s going to be really easy to tie it up to wear it a lot of different ways.

And now that I’ve worn it a whole day on my “Day 1”, I’m ready to go ahead and order that tank dress – I think it will get a lot of wear.

I’m going to chronicle this challenge on a new instagram account @100daywithsmmczyk if you want to follow along. If nothing else maybe I will finally get better at taking selfies. Or maybe I’ll even figure out how to wear make up if I have to take a picture of myself everyday. That really will be the hardest part of the challenge.

I’m sure I’ll also blog about how this dress fits in with my Alabama Chanin wardrobe soon. Now that I don’t have to think about what I’m going to wear, I’ll have time to get stitching!