Paris In Black And White

This is me auditioning outfits yesterday. Tops, bottoms, shoes. The rule is every item of clothing has to go with every other item of clothing.

That’s how you pack minimally. That’s how you pack light. That’s how you pack in a carry-on for ten days in Paris.

Hahahaha.

No. Freaking. Way.

I’m checking a bag. I can’t fit everything into a carry-on. I am an amateur.

I was thinking of my friend Tom who takes trips to Vietnam and China on the regular. I’ll bet he’s a pro at packing. I’ll bet he has it down.

But he’s a guy. He’s not thinking “outfits.”

I need a woman to guide me. Only a woman can understand how hard it is to pack for ten days in Paris, in a carry-on, and still look chic.

So after confining myself to three pairs of pants: black, khaki, and denim, I set out to find tops and shoes that I could mix and match.

This is the Instagram wisdom.

Within an hour my room looked like a piñata had burst in there and still nothing was working. I eliminated the khaki. That helped.

It also helped that I took pictures of everything and put them in my Indyx app.

If you’re a clothes person, this is a good app. It works like this: You put your shirt on the floor, button it up, and smooth it out so it looks nice, Then you take a picture of it with your phone from above.

The app takes the background out. You type in the brand: Gap. Then the type of clothing it is: Shirt. Then the size. Small. Then the color: White. Or if it has a lot of colors, you pick them all. Then you press: Add. And there is it, indexed. Or, Indyx-ed.

It’s a little time consuming on the front end, but when you have a lot of your clothes in there, you can put outfits together in the app. Saves a lot of time rummaging through the disaster on the floor.

You can then save them into Collections, like: Paris: May 2025.

Then, when you get to Paris, and wonder what you’re going to wear on that dinner cruise down the Seine, you already know because you have already tried it on and know that it works.

And it’s not just clothes that can be indexed. Everything can be Indyxed: shoes, jewelry, bags, scarves.

It’s genius.

I thought eliminating khaki would help. But I was still dealing with way too many pieces.

I decided to make it easy and just pack black and white clothes. That’s it.

I love black and white, I have a lot of black and white. As soon as I limited my palette, everything fell into place like a nun into her habit.

Look at that picture up there. Put black pants with that sweater. Change to black Sambas. Then keep the black pants, add a lacy blouse and a blazer with a small black and white check and a silver shoe, and it looks positively elegant.

Put a boxy black tee with those white pants and a black cashmere hoodie—low key chic.

How about black cargo joggers, graphic tee, and a white jean jacket? Yeah? Yeah!

If you want to see these outfits in real life, follow me on Instagram this week. I’m going to post there. I’m mainstreetyoga on Instagram.

We’re flying through the night Friday, landing in Paris Saturday morning.

Au revoir! See you in Paris!