We’ve all been there. Standing in front of a wardrobe that seems way too full to appear so incredibly dull and uninspiring. The key to fixing why you feel like you cannot stand your wardrobe, is to know why and how you ended up here in the first place. So let’s take a look!

You Built Your Wardrobe On Trends

First of all, let’s talk about one that can be so difficult to avoid.

If you notice that you feel very sick of your wardrobe, I think it’s important that you are honest with yourself and consider whether you have almost entirely relied on trends to build it? No judgement here, it’s an increasingly easy thing to do as social media – with it’s horrendously rapid trend cycles – take more and more space in our lives.

If you have never truly sat down and taken a look at the building blocks making up your wardrobe, you have likely ended up with a wardrobe that is a result of more impulsive purchases influenced by what is the trend of the season, or the week even. Basics not only look endlessly chic paired together, they are the pieces that actually make the trendy items you own work. Trying to put together outfits when a majority of your wardrobe is trendy (whether it is old or current), is an actual nightmare and a quick way to absolutely hate your wardrobe.

Your Wardrobe Is For Another Lifestyle

The notion of shopping for your fantasy self has become more well known on social media recently, and is such a valid concept to consider.

Whether your lifestyle has changed, or if you have habitually shopped for some fantasy life that you do not have, if your wardrobe doesn’t reflect your current lifestyle, you will absolutely be frustrated with how impractical it is to put together outfits that suit what you are doing.

You absolutely, without exception, have to start with your lifestyle, before planning your wardrobe (and especially before pressing check out on that cart). You need to know the non-negotiables for your lifestyle, to figure out how to best dress around that framework. This is part of a bigger conversation that I am happy to go more into, but to give an example,

  • If you know you need to wear sneakers for most days, start there. Figure out which bottoms look best with the sneakers, whether you want to make them work with a more dressy outfit or as part of a more fully casual outfit.
  • In the same vein, if you also like to wear dresses, you might want to think about which dresses will work with the footwear you always put on.

In short, the key here is really to find the fantasy self that works with your life. I am a firm believer in not totally giving up what makes your heart sing and what you want to wear, for what is your reality. But amending it to work for your situation is going to make you a lot happier day-to-day. That is a whole separate topic, so we won’t go into that today, but let me know if that is something you would like to know more about.

The Ratio Is Off

Another thing I want to mention, while we’re on the topic of lifestyle, is that it’s important to keep in mind the ratio of you various activities as well! If you assess what you do throughout a typical month, you may see a need for both work wear and going out wear. But keep in mind how many days you go to work, vs how often you need more dressy clothes. So even if you do have a need for sparkly pieces, don’t use that as an excuse to overload your wardrobe with it, when you likely need far less of it. If your wardrobe has clothes that fit your lifestyle, but the ratio is way off, you will still struggle to get dressed in the morning!

You Have Clothes That Don’t Fit

This next one is obvious, but cannot be said enough! Keeping clothes that do not fit you is just giving up precious wardrobe real estate and cluttering your mind when you try to find something in it. These can either be clothes you have kept from a time where they did fit, or, as I am ashamed to admit I have done, it can be clothes you swore you would get tailored to fit you and then never did. Or, maybe even worse, you may have bought things that fit just “sort of OK”, because, as we know, finding a great fit is really hard. Yep, I am guilty of keeping clothes for all of these reasons – no judgement here! The important thing, is to do something about it.

As part of my personal style journey, I have become more selective with what I add to my wardrobe, and this includes not accepting things that do not fit the way they should. Yes, it makes shopping more time consuming, but I am now thinking longevity and quality, over needing to add a whole new wardrobe every season. It is so worth it, and clothes that fit really well always make me feel better about my outfit (and wardrobe as a whole).

You Don’t Spend Time On Your Style

Some mornings I walk into my wardrobe and put together an outfit I love in minutes and sometimes I am running late and get incredibly frustrated that absolutely nothing looks right (meaning, I hate everything in my wardrobe).

I get it, we want to be that effortless girl that always looks like the ones on the explore page on Instagram, without the effort that absolutely requires. Unfortunately, I think always being able to open our closet and feel like Cinderella just receiving the perfect outfit is pure fantasy. Spending time curating your wardrobe will definitely help, but the truth is that it takes a little more effort and planning to always leave the house in a great outfit. This is both good and bad news. Obviously, I don’t believe we can reach that state of always loving our outfit, without spending time to get there. But that also means, there is plenty you can do!

I put together seasonal capsule wardrobes, which help me immensely in already pre-planning a lot of my daily outfits for the upcoming season. Because I also make little collages of them (as you can see here on this blog), I have a visual representation saved of these outfits as well. And as I put them together, I get more ideas! But nothing beats actually putting on an outfit, making sure it’s not just looking good in your head. I will sometimes put on a podcast or some music and have a little try on session. Play around with different combinations and accessories and just experiment! This is something you want to do when you have time, and not when you’re rushing to get ready. Be smart and be kind to your future self by spending time getting to know how you actually like to style the pieces you have.

You Shop Uncritically (& Without A Plan)

Ok, I am willing to bet most of us have done this at some point or another. I know I have. And the more you do this, the more you will end up with a wardrobe that seems like it exists to frustrate you.

But this essentially comes down to when you keep buying things that are “just OK”. I know, shopping can be really hard. Finding something that is well made, within our budget, our size and really well fitting can be so difficult that trying to consider whether we also love this item on top of that seems like way too big of an ask. But patience is key here, having high standards for what you will actually allow to take up space in your wardrobe, will lead to something much more valuable long-term.

You want to change your perspective from “this makes shopping even harder”, to “only the best is worth my money, time and space”. I have noticed that I would sometimes view clothes in a way that, if I could see myself wearing it, I reasoned that it was worth buying. But now I consider my purchases much more carefully, one reason for which is that I don’t want to end up with a majority of my wardrobe being “meh”. I realized I would rather have and re-wear a smaller selection of clothes that I truly love (you know the ones that make your heart sing), rather than trying to reach a plethora of options. Options does not make me love my wardrobe more, which was something I definitely needed to un-learn.

You may instantly fall in love with an item and feel like it will solve all of your outfit problems. Maybe you have the feeling that if only you get this one item, you will have style. But then you get it, put it in your wardrobe, and it is not magically changed.

The anti-dote to this, is to shop with a plan in mind – ideally constructed after you have assessed your personal style, lifestyle and current wardrobe gaps (post decluttering, of course).

You Hang On To Clothes That Don’t Suit You Anymore

I have had such a trip trying to work out this one for myself! And so I think it deserves its own point, rather than to just be lumped in with clothes that no longer fit. Precisely because I have so often kept things that I never wore, with the justification that “it fits, so it feels wrong to get rid of it”.

If you have lived long enough to spend your own money on clothes, you are probably aware that something that made your heart flutter 8 years ago, can have a tendency to look a little…. limp.. in the light of – quite frankly – a different you.

So when you do the (absolutely necessary) declutter of your wardrobe, consider whether this piece that you don’t wear anymore but know you have loved, might just not have a place in your current life. Perhaps it’s something that is highly impractical or a pair of shoes that you simply no longer can tolerate the pain-to-beauty threshold of.

So consider whether it fits both your current lifestyle, but also the personal style you now have. Because taste and preferences evolve – as do long term trends. As your style changes, you will naturally gravitate less towards the pieces who represent someone you used to be. And if they make up a large portion of your wardrobe, it is only natural that you will start to hate your wardrobe – it is filled with older versions of you!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this should enable inconspicuous consumption because you just toss out what you have in favour of something new and shiny you want more. On the contrary, I think this should remind us to not over consume trends and obsessions, particularly because that is even more potential waste (even if you donate!) when we no longer feel like wearing it or it doesn’t work in our lifestyles anymore. Do I have an example from my own life? How about the countless body-con bandage dresses I wore going out in my late teens and early twenties? Where are they now? A lot donated, some sold, and some sitting in my basket of shame. I could have gotten by with waaay less. But my young self was sure this was the most solid investment a young woman could make. Yes, my palm hurts from hitting my own face so hard.

There you have 7 reasons that could potentially explain why you hate your wardrobe, do you have any other to add? x