Your sartorial preferences can be narrow or wide. Typically they evolve over time, but every once in a while they change overnight, just because. The shift isn’t gradual nor easily explainable, but quite strong and emotional. Suddenly, and unexpectedly, your mood, perceptions and feelings about a certain colour, style, fabric, silhouette, or look are different to what they were before.

I sometimes see this type of fast and unexpected sartorial shift in my clients. Recently, a very casual client who liked faded and distressed denim for years went totally off the look. Since most of her denim was heavily distressed, it was a challenge getting dressed for a while.

Another client who liked her signature dark brown hair, decided to go blonde on a whim. It wasn’t planned, yet she felt like a drastic change. As a result, her assortment of black footwear no longer bookended her outfits. She also needed to adjust her cool colour palette to a slightly warmer one this year.

A client with a neutral wardrobe said she would never wear bright colours, until one day she bought a bright magenta top with a matching magenta and orange scarf when we were shopping. That was that. Out of the blue, her feelings about wearing a bright had changed.

And there’s my client who exclusively wore heeled, low-vamped footwear for their leg-lengthening, figure-flattering effect. One day she tried on a pair of flat slip-on oxfords and decided she liked the look. Her perception of high-vamped flat oxfords, sneakers and loafers as unflattering had changed. When she phoned to tell me, we laughed and laughed!

I remember waking up the morning I turned forty and deciding that I preferred gold to silver as a metal. I hadn’t worn gold for decades, but that’s what I was feeling and I couldn’t explain the shift. Almost eight years later and I almost exclusively bat for Team Gold. It took a while to swap out most of my jewellery, hardware and accessories to gold, but it was worth it. I love gold, which works better with my warm skin tone. I hope I don’t wake up on the morning of my 50th birthday and decide that I prefer silver.

Have you experienced any sudden and unexpected sartorial shifts?