You Need to Stop Doing This if You Hate Your Clothes
As a style expert, one of the comments I hear all the time is this:
“I feel like I have a closet full of clothes, but nothing to wear.”
I get it. About ten years ago, I was a business professional working in an office environment when I found myself in the enviable position of transitioning to working from home full-time. My closet full of pencil skirts, pretty blouses, and sky-high heels soon became totally obsolete. Instead, I defaulted to my new daily “uniform” of faded black yoga pants, an oversized sweatshirt, and sneakers (on a good day, but slippers most days).
At first, I was quite proud of myself, not only was I saving time by not worrying about what to wear, but I was saving money. Unfortunately, those stretchy pants did me no favors (in more ways than one) and I quickly found myself spiraling into what I call my “yoga pants rut”.
It didn’t just affect how I dressed but spilled over into other areas too. Instead of fixing my hair, I pulled it back into a ponytail. Makeup got replaced by tinted foundation and eventually just moisturizer. And yes, I was wearing yoga pants on the daily, but never actually doing yoga, or anything else active.
All of these snowball effects forced me to sit down one day and face what had changed. I kept coming back to one conclusion: I no longer had the built-in accountability of a morning routine that forced me to get ready for the day.
The day after this realization I woke up with a fire lit under me to get showered and dressed in real clothes. The only problem was when I opened my closet, the relics from my corporate past life were the only things in there. This might be the part of the story where you would expect me to say “so I ran out and bought a new work-from-home wardrobe” but it wasn’t that simple.
First off, I had NO idea what to buy. But the bigger issue was I had a closet full of clothes and nothing to wear.
The reality is that most of us only wear about 20% of the clothing in our closets.
What about that other 80%? Well, all it does is cause decision fatigue. When we walk into our closets our brains just see clothes. We can’t differentiate between “this fits and this doesn’t” or “this is out of style and this isn’t” or process “I have an emotional attachment to this college sweatshirt that I’ll never wear again”.
We just see a lot of options, which means we have to make choices.
By removing that 80% of clothing that we’re not wearing, out of sight, out of mind, we can accurately assess what we need.
If you have a closet full of clothes and nothing to wear, the solution isn’t to buy more clothes. It’s to STOP shopping and clean your closet.
At one point in my style journey, I had fifteen black and white striped tops, FIFTEEN. Because I never took an inventory of what I actually needed, I kept buying more. You have to know what you have to know what you need.
The next time you walk into your closet and are tempted to buy more clothes to fix your wardrobe woes, stop. If it’s been more than a year since you’ve cleaned out your closet, make it a priority. Then make a list of what you need to fill in the gaps and shop with intention. You’ll find that you like what you buy more, it’s much easier to put together outfits and you won’t dread walking into your closet.