Wardrobe Needs - YouLookFab Forum

BrieN's post (and other's responses) about the elusive LBD made me think of a post I did on another forum.

I’ve been living with a relatively small wardrobe (about 60-70 core items and 30-40 shoes/scarves) and have been tracking what I wear for the past 2 years. I had been worried about having such a small wardrobe (small for me given my past history of over-shopping and poor shopping)- but I have found that it has been really easy to be appropriately dressed for a wide range of occasions, and that for the most part I have felt comfortable and reasonably stylish.

I am a “math geek” and have realized that dressing follows several continua:
Casual ---- Dressy
Conservative ---- Fun
Cold weather ---- Warm weather

I realized that if I could plan one or more outfits for each of the 8 scenarios (pair each end with each end, 2^3 = 8), I would be able to avoid the wardrobe panic (getting dressed/undressed/re-dressed, and while still feeling like I didn’t have the right outfit)- and it has worked. Each of us has more or less of one scenario in their lives (I have a lot of casual-fun-warm weather situations in my life) so they will need more things that fit those scenarios (for variety as well as frequency of wears).

Examples of scenarios for my life:
Dinner out with my husband and/or daughters: somewhere on the casual to dressy continuum (depending on restaurant)-fun-warm weather (usually)
Meeting at work: casual-conservative-cold or warm weather depending on time of year
Funeral: dressy-conservative-cold or warm weather
Wedding: dressy-fun-cold or warm weather

Here is where accessories can really help broaden an outfit's utility: I wore the same sleeveless brown shift with nude pumps (dressy-warm weather) to a funeral recently (with a jeweled ivory cardigan- conservative) and to a fund-raiser kick-off cocktail party (with an ivory-brown print scarf- fun).

A good challenge for me is to go through my wardrobe and see if I can come up with one or more outfits that fit each scenario- if I can cover all 8, I think I'm pretty set for whatever life may spring on me. I'd also welcome suggestions of occasions that don't fit somewhere on the continua above (I am excluding sports activities like swimming/hiking/skiing etc that have their own requirements as well as any occupation-specific uniforms like police/military/medical/culinary etc).

9 years ago

rachylou

Veteran

Ohmigosh. I love the math of this. Must study. I think it would be really interesting to see how many roles a given item can fill - what is versatile, what isn't. Someone should teach math this way...

carter

Love this, Sadie! I've been thinking in terms of just casual v dressy and warm v cool weather. Totally missed the conservative v fun piece! At least I missed naming it as a valid criteria. The thought often runs through my head that an outfit I want to wear is too serious, frivolous, revealing, boring, etc for whatever event, but that really just leads to frustration over not having the level of fun v conservative that I need for a specific event.

Definitely need to think this through as it applies to my closet!

PS. been missing math nerd discussions recently;-)

Firecracker (Sharan)

This is such an interesting rubric, and it sounds very useful. I don't know how I would begin to apply it to my wardrobe. I think it could help me identify wardrobe holes, couldn't it?
I think I have very few requirements for the conservative end of the spectrum. Being prepared for a funeral is the main one. My retail job allows for a lot of creativity in dressing for work. That leaves a lot of fun style opportunities for me!

Jenn

(website)

Ooh, this is good stuff! My wardrobe runs about the same size as yours, I think. I'll have to think about how these continua might apply. I do think that, depending on lifestyle and climate, one end might loom larger than other.

For me, it looks like:

CASUAL<---------->dressy (mostly casual)
conservative<---------->FUN (leaning towards fun)
warm weather<---------->cold weather (balanced)

Barbara Diane

LOVE THIS! Thanks! This really sets it out so clearly.

Suz

This is great, and I really like Jenn's refinement.

I think you have covered the main categories with this, and I realize that I do tend (without being conscious of it exactly) to think about my wardrobe in these terms. My wardrobe is a bit larger than this for a four season climate.

The other sliding scale that I might want to add for my own personal situation is:

Private - - - - Public.

I work mostly from home. And I've learned that when I work at home, in winter, I want coziness and comfort...but not true "loungewear," exactly. I want to be able to run out to the corner for milk if I need to (or answer the door for the UPS guy, LOL.)

In summer, I want comfort, but that often involves woven items (since they are cooler) but I don't like stuff that wrinkles much (and I curl up on my bed or the couch to work, so...)

Meanwhile, in public, I like my clothing to have more structure. I am not comfortable in soft leggings and nothing but knits -- I like to add a jacket, a coat, a piece with tailoring of some kind.

In addition, I am a writer so at least some of my public clothes are for giving presentations, meaning I like to have at least one *statement* type piece that adds drama.

I guess another scale might be:

Quiet ---- Dramatic

Others might have scales representing different style personalities that attract them, e.g.

Boho ----- Classic

And so on. It's quite adaptable to the issues that are most important to each person!

Thanks for this!

Hmm. Yes. I might add

Conventional <----> Crazy

UmmLila (Lisa)

On Kayak (travel site) they have these sliders where you pick what time of day you want to arrive, leave and other choices.

I am imagining a fashion app where you enter images of your clothing items, define their various utility points, set your slider choices and then see what pops up as your closet possibilities.

AviaMariah

This is really smart. I think the only change I might have for myself is a sliding three part scale for weather:

warm weather ----------- transitional weather-----------cold weather

I find I automatically cover cold and hot but have to be intentional to cover spring and fall which are a big part of the weather where I live.

AviaMariah that is a really good point.

Not to mention:

Arctic AC ---- Real Life Weather ---- blasting Central Heating.

Style Fan

This is great. I am struggling with my wardrobe right now. Summer is always difficult for me. I will work on this and see what I come up with. I am a mathie too.

Staysfit

Shrinks love Lichert Scales and continuum's

I might include:

solids................patterns
Neutrals...............colors
Quiet.........................Exuberant

I may be getting at the same thing with all three. Perhaps the last one expresses it best? Your continuum was conservative vs. fun, but I might use quiet or classic instead of conservative; and exuberant, happy, or colorful instead of fun.

Shelly

Active Member

I love this method although I am not a maths person at all. But with fashion and shopping I can see the uses. Like, what woman doesn't need to be able to do percentages in their heads at sales time?

Any way to simplify my wardrobe is a winner with me. Thanks!

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