The Curated Closet
Page 7
Get tailored
Shortening hemlines, taking in a baggy shirt, or adding darts – there are a lot of things a good tailor can do to improve the fit and silhouette of a piece and that don’t cost a fortune. Put pieces you would wear if the fit were improved in the tailor box, and take them to a tailor after you’re done with the detox.
PIECES YOU LOVE
Repair
Always keep a mini sewing kit on hand so you can take care of basic repairs yourself, like fixing undone seams or loose buttons. For trickier jobs, like taking in a waist, it’s usually better to get a professional on the case.
Off-season storage
This one is optional, but consider creating some extra breathing room in your closet by storing off-season clothes somewhere else. I personally prefer to reserve every inch of my closet space for pieces that are an active part of my wardrobe right now, this season. I store all my off-season pieces, like chunky knit sweaters in the summer or strappy tops and dresses in the winter, outside of my actual closet, in a couple of boxes underneath my bed. That way, when I open my closet in the morning, I see only things I could actually wear today, and my closet is much less cluttered.
Back in your closet
Hooray! If a piece fits your personal style, makes you feel confident and comfortable, and you can already think of several different ways to wear it, it’s a keeper!
Post-detox to-dos
Once you have gone through your entire wardrobe piece by piece, you’ll have a super clear overview of your closet. Use that clarity to do a quick status analysis:
• What are obvious gaps in your closet?
• What type of pieces do you already have enough of?
Think item categories (T-shirts, jeans, semi-casual work tops), colours, seasonal clothes, and function.
Write a quick paragraph summarising your findings and first conclusions, like this:
The closet detox has once again confirmed that I like to shop for shoes more than anything else. Even now that I have got rid of every pair that I never wear or that doesn’t work for my style, I still own more footwear than dresses, trousers and outerwear combined. Conclusion: I definitely don’t need any more shoes for a while. What I do need are basic tops, jeans, and skirts, because the majority of my clothes are too statement-y to wear with anything other than plain pieces. I also need more clothes for work. Right now I have only two (!) pairs of trousers that I can wear to the office that I actually like, and I spend forty hours a week there!
If I paid for it, I’m wearing it: The sunk-cost fallacy
Do you hate wasting things? Are you the type of person who will go out to buy bread just so you can use up that left-over piece of cheese in the fridge, or force yourself to use up a bottle of shower gel, even though you hate the smell? If so you’re prone to committing what is called the sunk-cost fallacy.
Sunk costs are sums that we have already paid and can’t get back, that is, money spent on anything that isn’t returnable. Because we are very loss averse and far more motivated by the possibility of losing things than the possibility of gaining things, sunk costs are pretty much the worst for us.
That’s why we try to avoid them whenever we can, by forcing ourselves to ‘use up’ whatever it is we paid for. We sit through a full two-hour movie we hate, even though there’s a million other things we’d rather do. We continue eating long after the food stopped tasting good. And we refuse to get rid of clothes we dislike and stopped wearing, because we paid good money for them once upon a time and we don’t want that investment to go to waste.
But that’s exactly where the fallacy lies: The money is already spent, so there is nothing left to waste, except for your time, energy and closet space. And remember: just because you don’t like a piece, doesn’t mean someone else won’t love it! So find a new owner for it and move on.
Repeat after me: Your dream closet should be tailored to your personal style and your lifestyle. You already know all about your personal style, now let’s have a closer look at your lifestyle!
Fashion is a form of art, and you want your clothes to look good, sure, but you also need them to feel good and be practical because you spend your life in them. You have stuff to do, places to go, and people to meet. A functional wardrobe is one that supports you in all these endeavours, rather than making your life harder.
If you work in an office only two days a week, a closet full of exquisitely tailored suits and little else is not what you need. And if you’re a busy student who spends the majority of her time in the library, a bunch of pretty bikinis and going-out dresses aren’t going to keep you well-dressed either.
To be functional, your wardrobe needs to be optimally tailored to your lifestyle, or in other words, what you are doing all day. Not what you would like to do, or what you will be doing sometime in the future, hopefully, if all goes well. But right now.
Of course, it’s easy to see why so many of us end up with wardrobes that seem to be tailored to a life very different from our own: Some things are just more fun to buy than others!
It’s more fun to browse the swimwear section of your favourite online shop and daydream about lounging at the beach than it is to think about what you’ll wear during all those hours that you have to spend at the library with your nose buried in textbooks.
And yet, those study sessions are still going to happen and you can’t go naked! So you might as well dress in a way that makes you feel confident and ready to tackle the day.
The perfect wardrobe for you is one that helps you do just that, no matter what your plans are. Ideally, it should match your lifestyle in terms of all the different activities you do on a regular basis, in roughly equal distributions. That means if you work in a corporate office full-time and go out to a fancy dinner twice a month, you should own considerably more work clothes than fancy evening clothes. If you work out three times a week and make it to the beach once a year, you should have more gym clothes than bathing suits. Makes sense, right?
You don’t have to get super specific with this and work out the exact number of outfits you need for activity X and so on (although you totally can, if that’s your thing). But, as you prepare to overhaul your wardrobe, it’s helpful to at least have a good idea of what types of activities you need outfits for and how often. That way you can focus on closing any gaps in your wardrobe during the overhaul, and, at the same time, avoid adding to already jam-packed areas.
A five-step lifestyle analysis
Work your way through these five steps to map out your lifestyle and wardrobe needs.
STEP 1 Write a list of every activity you do in an average two weeks. Include everything from lounging at home to meeting clients for dinner at fancy restaurants. For pointers, refer to the outfits you tracked in chapter 2. On your list, include an estimate of how many days out of two weeks you typically need an outfit for each activity, like the example below.
• Work (office): 7
• Work (from home): 2
• Presenting at a conference: 1
• Date night: 3
• Gym: 3
• Hiking: 1
• Going out at night: 2
• Chilling at home: 6
• Black-tie events: 1
• Meeting friends (daytime): 4
STEP 2 Create categories of activities for which you can wear the same type of outfits and add up the number of times you’ll need an outfit for each category. Think daytime, nightlife, work, special occasions, working out, and so on. For example, since I work from home, I wear roughly the same type of clothes on a lazy Sunday afternoon and on a regular weekday when I’m not meeting anyone, so I can just group both of these under ‘Casual daytime stuff’.
• Work (corporate dress code, for working at the office and conferences): 8
• Daytime (working from home, meeting up with friends): 6
• Semi-fancy (date night and going out at night): 5
• Chilling at home: 6
• Black-ti
e: 1
• Working out (gym and hiking): 4
STEP 3 Now comes the fun part. Draw a pie chart that represents how often you need an outfit in an average two weeks for each of your categories. Don’t worry about exact measurements; you are just trying to visualise the proportions, so eyeballing is fine.
STEP 4 Draw another pie chart, but this time one that represents your current wardrobe (using the same activity categories as segments). Now, compare your two pie charts. Which categories are under-, over-, or well-represented?
STEP 5 Building a great wardrobe is not just about making sure you have enough clothes for whatever you want to do; each individual piece in your wardrobe should also be functional and work well for whatever activity you’re dressing for.
For example, if you work in an office that’s heavily air-conditioned year-round and you are always freezing, stock your wardrobe with a range of knits, heavyweight blazers and tights instead of open-toed shoes and sleeveless blouses. Similarly, if you are on your feet all day, skip the five-inch heels and make sure you have a few chic but comfy boots or lower-heeled options to choose from.
And sure, all this is common sense. You know you should pick clothes that you feel comfortable in and that work with your day-to-day life. But sometimes, and especially when you are standing in a crammed changing room, it can be hard to remember everything. My advice: Write yourself a little list so you have something to refer back to the next time you are out shopping.
Here’s how. Go through your activity categories one by one and, for each, ask yourself this: ideally, what specific functional criteria do you want a piece for that category to fulfil. Use the questions below as a starting point:
• What weather condition and general temperature should a piece from this category be tailored to? What is the climate like where you live? Will you be indoors or outdoors? Do you get hot or cold easily?
• Does a piece from this category need to conform to a special dress code? Think standard business attire, smart casual, covering tattoos or piercings, black-tie, white-tie, and so on.
• For shoes, how much walking will you be doing? What heel height do you prefer?
• For bags, what type of things will you be carrying with this piece? What size, weight and internal structure would be ideal?
• For all your clothes, to what level of maintenance are you prepared to commit? If a weekly trip to the dry cleaner does not fit into your budget or busy schedule, don’t buy anything that you can’t just throw in the wash. If you are not a fan of ironing, stock your wardrobe with pieces made from fabrics that either don’t wrinkle easily or don’t need to be super crisp to look good (such as linen). Figure out how much time you can put into caring for your clothes and then find clothes that fit into that limit.
Setting priorities
Once you’re ready to overhaul your wardrobe (see chapter 13 for a complete guide), aim to restock underrepresented areas first, whether that is your work wear, daytime clothes, or gym gear. For example, if you discovered you have plenty of clothes for all the special occasions in your life but not nearly enough for the day-to-day stuff that you spend 90 per cent of your time doing, make it a point to use the first chunk of your budget to close that gap.
And unless your closet is bursting at the seams, don’t worry about downsizing overrepresented areas just yet. As long as you love every single piece, more options are rarely a problem. Just make a mental note to hold off on buying any more stuff for that area for a while, and put that money toward restocking underrepresented areas instead.
Following is a blueprint for building a fully functional wardrobe that expresses your style, is easy to mix and match, and gives you plenty of outfit options along the entire spectrum of super casual to super fancy.
When I was younger, I bought clothes haphazardly. I had no strategy whatsoever. Every single thing in my closet was something I had picked up here or there because it looked cute on the rack. I rarely thought about how that candy-coloured jumper or A-line skirt might fit in with the rest of my wardrobe and what other pieces I could wear it with. I liked it and so I bought it. Here’s what I know now: your wardrobe should be more than just a collection of stand-alone pieces.
A great wardrobe is like a well-oiled machine that consists of interrelated parts that all work together, allowing you to mix and match freely and create a ton of different outfits that all suit your personal style.
But how do you build a wardrobe like that? You need a good strategy, a blueprint. In this chapter, I’ll show you one of three such strategies that you can use to map out your ideal wardrobe. We’ll talk about the other two strategies, which are based on colour palettes and outfit formulas, in chapters 10 and 11.
It’s all about balance
The idea of strategy number one is to make sure your closet contains a balanced mix of three types of items:
1. Key pieces that really signify the essence of your style and that you can wear in lots of different ways
2. Statement pieces that add variety to your looks and help you express different facets of your style
3. Basics that balance out bolder pieces and give the rest of your pieces a neutral backdrop
Working with a threefold structure like this has lots of benefits:
• It is a fail-proof way to ensure that every new piece you buy fulfills a clear role and will fit into the larger framework of your wardrobe.
• It helps you curate a balanced closet by preventing you from buying only statement pieces or blowing your entire budget on six versions of the same T-shirt.
• It’s a fast track to making sure your wardrobe contains plenty of outfit options for any mood or occasion and is well balanced along the entire spectrum from dressed down to dressed up. Do you need an outfit for a super-fancy dinner party? Build an outfit that consists solely of statement pieces. Do you want to look casual but polished? Wear a couple of key pieces with basic shoes. Want to wear a statement top and your favourite heels during the day? Pair them with basic trousers and minimal accessories. Easy peasy.
What makes a basic a basic?
A white button-down, jeans, a plain T-shirt: All are typical basics, right? Not so fast! Contrary to what fashion magazines may have led you to believe, there is no single definition of what makes something a basic, a key piece, or a statement piece. It all depends on your personal style. My own style leans more toward the casual side, and so, for me, things like large-scale patterns or shoes with a heel higher than two inches are typically statement pieces. But for someone with a bolder style those same items might be key pieces or even basics. All that matters is the relationship between the three functions in your wardrobe: basics are more casual than key pieces, and key pieces are more casual than statement pieces.
Next, we’ll look at each type of wardrobe essential in more detail to help you find the right key pieces, statement pieces and basics for your personal style.
Key pieces
Your key pieces are the workhorses of your wardrobe. They reflect the look and feel of your personal style 100 per cent and are ultra versatile and optimally tailored to your lifestyle. The perfect key pieces for your style are neither particularly bold nor plain but smack in the middle of what you consider dressed up versus dressed down.
TYPICAL KEY PIECES
Jackets and outerwear; trousers; skirts; shoes; bags; versatile tops
BUDGETING STRATEGY
Key pieces should get priority treatment during wardrobe revamps, because they will have the biggest impact on your ability to express your style. So buy them first and don’t skimp on quality. Your key pieces should be as durable and well constructed as possible to last you several years even with regular wear.
With your style profile and mood board in front of you, ask yourself: Which five to ten concrete pieces best signify that style? Which key pieces do you need to be able to create outfits that represent that style?
Statement pieces
Statement pieces add variety
to your wardrobe and give you a chance to express different aspects of your style. Wear them on their own for special occasions or whenever you feel like rocking a bolder look. Or pair them with your basics and key pieces for a little extra oomph.
Statement pieces don’t have to be quite as mixable as the rest of your wardrobe, but as a rule of thumb, each piece should still work as part of at least three different outfits.
TYPICAL STATEMENT PIECES
Bold shoes, jewellery, and other accessories; tops, dresses, trousers and skirts in bolder colours or with unique details
BUDGETING STRATEGY
Since you’ll likely get the least amount of wear out of your statement pieces, don’t spend more on them than necessary. You want your pieces to look great and fit well, sure, but they don’t necessarily have to last you more than a couple of years. Save your money for your key pieces instead.
Identify any aspects in your style profile and mood board that are not yet covered by the five to ten key pieces you chose during the last exercise. Think colours, silhouettes, patterns, and so on. Based on these, choose five statement pieces.