I was really inspired by a buzzfeed article called “Giving Myself a Dress Code Changed My Dang Life”. https://www.buzzfeed.com/rache......rmNjpE6d5 . I’ve been feeling unhappy with my wardrobe, and I realized recently that I just don’t love a lot of it. Part of that is because I need to have things in it that aren’t, well, lovable — I am a gardener, so I spend a lot of time in practical, completely unstylish gear. But my non-gardening clothes are a mess.

I’ve tried capsules, but they didn’t work for me, and I am not sure why.

So how to get from a mess to a dress code, without throwing out things and starting over?

This is the process I’m working with:
1. Decide on the dress code! I thought about what clothes I have that make me happiest, and noticed that grey jeans + striped tops are those things for me. I also love wearing an extra layer on top.
2. Sort through my wardrobe. Grey jeans + striped tops all go together and get a drawer to themselves.
3. Other jeans in good condition will stay in rotation until they get bumped down to garden jeans. Non-striped t-shirts get bumped down to garden clothes or loungewear (loungewear has been yoga pants + t-shirts for a decade).
4. Other trousers and dressy tops get divided into “I have a meeting in an office where jeans are not appropriate” and “dressed up”. These will all get hung up on one rack in the closet.
5. Top layer — I have a lot of cardigans, flannels, and hoodies. I’m dividing them up! Cardigans are “dress code appropriate”. Flannels are for working in the garden. Hoodies for loungewear or taking out the dog.

In theory, this will end up with the 4 largest drawers in my dresser being: grey jeans + striped tops; cardigans + flannels; garden clothes; workout clothes. And then, hopefully, a rack in the closet where I can just grab “going to a meeting” or “date night!” clothes without having to think too much.

I’ve set aside a big chunk of tomorrow to work on this, but I started by doing a rough sort on drawer contents and on the laundry I did yesterday. I quickly found two problems. 1) I have several striped cardigans 2) I am queer, and have a fair amount of related shirts. I found myself reluctant to consign these shirts to loungewear. I wear them frequently and love them. I decided to solve both these “problems” at once — those shirts “fit” into the dress code bc they’ll be worn with the striped cardigans. (Probably not in the summer, though. In fact I am wearing one of those shirts now, with grey jeans, and feeling happy.)

I’m really hoping that once all the non-dress-code clothes pass out of the wardrobe, I will get to feel like a million bucks every time I get dressed. (Except for garden clothes. No one feels like a million bucks in those.)