Black Friday Countdown....Day One. The Biggest Shopping Day of the Year is Nigh. The "Almost Girl" Blog Takes a Thoughtful Stand Against Mindless Consumption Mania. How We Love a Quixotic Cause! FASHIONTRIBES BLOG

The fab & cerebral Almost Girl blog - AlmostGirl.Coffeespoons.org - has decided it's time to take a stand against all the mania associated with the biggest shopping day of the year - Black Friday. "Randomly consuming because it is socially mandated isn't something I support," explains AG (aka Julie Fredrickson). "If you want something or wish to give something, it should be because it makes you happy or will make the other person happy. It should not be because you HAVE to do it."

For the week leading up to the big event, she will doing "seven days of frugal and conservation oriented blogging...making my own political statement that says one need not be a clotheshorse and a spendthrift to be unique, compelling and fashionably oriented!" Rock on.

Drumroll...here's DAY ONE OF ALMOST GIRL'S BLACK FRIDAY BLOGGING COUNTDOWN:

Day One of Black Friday Blogging and Political Fashion: Make Due With What You Have
Looking through my closet I realize that I have a lot of pieces that I only ever wear with certain pieces. I think whether out of intuition or habit we tend to rely on certain pieces and certain looks day after day without ever bothering to mix and match a look. Thus when faced with either a new fashion situation or boredom we think, goodness, I have nothing to wear! WRONG! You do but you just don’t know it yet. See how many of your pieces you can match with just one piece! Now maybe as a fashionsta you think you aren’t mathematically oriented but trust me you need to become familiar with the concept of permutations. Here is a very basic introduction to permutations and combinations. Now let’s pretend you have the 8 basic pieces! That seems like a pretty small wardrobe right? How on earth could you ever manage with that. Well according to this nifty little calculation if you wore all of those 8 pieces and arranged them differently each time you would have 40312 outfits! HOLY CRAP! But to be a little more realistic assume that with those 8 pieces you wanted to have various outfits that combined two elements. That is still 247 outfits! Not bad at all! Become familiar with factorials! See and you thought math was useless? Now of course not everything you true is going to be spot on but experimenting is the only way to go. With one quick post I have proved the power of math and fashion! I love it! Math is power after all. So assert your right to be smart about fashion.

And now for a super fun tidbit! The McCord Museum (which recently had a great Claire Mccardell exhibit) has a great mix and match game for 19th century fashion!Mix and Match: 19th-Century Women’s Fashion Just playing with old fashion gave me ideas for new fashion! Go try it out!

- Lesley Scott

Fashiontribes Almost Girl Blog Fashion Blog Fashion Expert