Are you happy with the content of you wardrobe? If your wardrobe isn’t working for you, you could ask yourself, did you work for your wardrobe?
Most people are unhappy with their wardrobe to such an extent that it seems normal. To illustrate this, do you remember the last conversation you had about your clothing? For me, it seems conversations are often about somebody acquiring something new, and they are still on a high. Rare conversations range from the sustainability-issues with our clothing, how (and if) to repair clothing, making clothing as a hobby, or where you should go shopping in the first place. But most conversations are about people’s uncertainty about what to wear to some event, what is okay to wear often at somebody else’s expense…
From those conversations it is clear that there is much uncertainty. Most people think it is their own fault that they do not have the right garments in their wardrobe. And perhaps, it is, but not because of the reasons that you think.
All you need to do to have a better wardrobe is simply fill your wardrobe with trendier items, right? Or more sustainable ones. And you need to organise better. Oh, no, I know, you need to find out what colours suit you. Maybe you should hire a personal shopper to help you out? Or invite somebody in your home and together go through your wardrobe. They know how to combine things together, right?!? I am sure somebody else can tell you what to wear, because, well, they know. Sure.
Or maybe you should take a step back and figure out what you are trying to accomplish anyway.
With what you have been doing now, going through the regular steps with the regular solutions, you will keep getting the same result.
I am not telling you anything new, you know this.
If you keep shopping in the same stores that you have always been going to, you are not going to change the results in your wardrobe. Buying the same labels that are in the garments that you are throwing out is not going to help you change the feeling that your wardrobe gives back to you.
If you want to change your wardrobe you need to change the habits around your wardrobe. You not only need to change how you get your items, you also need to change how you think about fashion.
Let me give you a little insight. We think that fashion needs to make us feel good about ourselves. We look at shallow solutions to solve our deeper issues, like feeling alone, ugly or in other words, unworthy. Brands and trends will give you a story that results in a temporary, quick fix, which some call an addiction. The thrilling rush of buying something new, buying into a made-up story, makes us feel good for a while.
This buzz doesn’t last. The rush that I mentioned lasts for hours(!) to days depending on which report you read. It will not be long before these newly bought items will change and feel like the older items you already own. And your wardrobe will still give you the same uninspired feeling that you have always been feeling.
Fashion can mean so much more to you.
If you are able to turn it around, then you can experience fashion the way it is meant to be. Instead of making you feel like you are not good enough it is supposed to show your individual self. Instead of making you feel ugly or fat, it is supposed to excite you. Instead of making you feel like you cannot wear fashion like you should, it is supposed to support you and show you off. Instead of making you feel like you are not good enough, fashion and the clothing that are in your wardrobe are supposed to make you feel like you matter.
Your wardrobe is supposed to be a reflection of your personality not of last year’s High Street shopping trends.
Fashion and how you buy matters, not just to other people. Sure, how often you wash makes a difference in our environment. Where you buy might make a difference to the local economy. Personally I am a big fan of buying Fairtrade because it makes a difference to the people making my garments and the farmers who are farming the cotton.
These choices eventually have a reflection on me. On what emotions I feel when I open my wardrobe. Did I make things myself? Was it a communal effort? Was it an item that challenges the current status quo? Or did I make a difference in the life of an emerging designer? All the different emotional states I had while buying my garments come back to me when I open the doors of where I store my items. They reflect what I find important in life. They reflect who I am. Some of them might even reflect who I want to be…
I help people to create, or curate as I like to call it, an inspirational personal wardrobe. I use the word curate because I feel we should think about the pieces in our wardrobe as artworks. And our entire wardrobe as a collection. Yes, even the basic pieces. Even the tops and shirts that we hide underneath our outfit. They are the closest to our body, they are the closest to our hearts, they deserve some attention too!
Curating an inspirational personal wardrobe is a lifetime’s work, because your personality will be changing and your wardrobe will reflect this; and it is ok that you can see the development that you have been going through. Would you diss every experience that you go through that has shaped your personality once you’ve been through it? Of course not!
It is difficult to change your habits if you are unable to look at them objectively. It is also difficult to change as you have been buying meaningless items for so long. If you haven’t done so already I invite you to download my ebook. In the ebook I go further into what is wrong with how we experience fashion at the moment; and how you could distance yourself from it and learn new individual habits. I hope to show you how we are actually harming ourselves with the habits we have and how to step up and change this.