There is a specific pleasure in the first properly warm day — the moment you can finally remove a layer without being cold. The pleasure is physical but also symbolic: something has loosened, some restriction has lifted.
I find transitional dressing — those weeks between winter and actual warmth — to be the most interesting moment in the wardrobe cycle. You are working with a limited palette: pieces that can move across temperatures, that look right at 8am and 7pm, that carry the weight of winter fabrics while anticipating lighter days.
What I love about this period is that it demands consideration. You cannot rely on summer simplicity or winter armor. You have to actually think about what you put on, which is, I think, the point of getting dressed at all.
My instinct in spring is always toward texture. The season invites linen before it's warm enough for it, silk in weights that still hold some body, cotton voile layered over something heavier. The hand of the fabric matters more to me in spring than any other season.
The color notes I keep returning to: warm cream, muted sage, dusty blush, and the particular shade of blue that exists between powder and slate. These are not spring colors in the obvious floral sense — they are spring colors in the sense of emerging from winter's palette: still somewhat muted, but beginning to lift.