Dear all,
After over a year at YLF (with more active periods than others) I thought I would be well on my way to a happier wardrobe. And I have made some progresses. But I am still not at a happy place AT ALL. I am tired of my clothes, many of them don't fit me well anymore, I spend way too much time figuring out what to wear and never end up with an outfit I like. I feel like I'm suffering from outfit depression.
This is a strange feeling, because all my life I've enjoyed clothes and I never had trouble figuring out what I wanted, what I liked, what to buy, how to wear.
But now I am stuck. And I don't know where to begin. I tried to follow the experience of so many members here and their wardrobe self-assessments, style reflections, shopping plans, but each person is different and nothing has worked for me.
This has gone on for so long that now I feel I need so many items--good basics and sparkier numbers alike--that I can't possibly tackle the task, both because of time and money.
Where do I start?... Do I start by Kondo-ing my wardrobe to see what's left? Or do I start with my style aspirations? How can I figure out what I need without doing either, but how I can do both at once?
It's a bit of a vicious circle at this point. For example, I am pondering over a shoe purchase to fill what I think is a need. But that begs the question, what will the shoe go with besides the couple of pants I have in mind? The rest of my pants, dresses, skirts is a bit of a ragtag collection. And then how will I ever top these bottoms???
I could think in terms of capsules, but I fear I need at least two capsules to fill the holes and I don't know that I have the funds for it. Part of my issue is that, since my daughter was born four years ago, I drastically reduced my wardrobe budget and have been basically "putting out fires" with the sales rack from Old Navy. In other words, items that don't last long, and never really look high-quality. I really want to have a smaller but higher-quality wardrobe right now, but then again, where do I start?
Sorry for this long post and thank you for reading it all. This is part of a larger crisis in my life about how I manage my time, my energy, my space, my leisure, even my mental space... And the clothes express so much of the emotional part that I have a lump in my throat every time I feel frumpy or less than the elegant, confidently dressed, even stylish person I used to be. Which now is almost every day.