If you recently detoxed your wardrobe and it looks depressingly empty. You cannot wait to restock your wardrobe right away! And you are probably wondering what do you need? How much clothes do you really need before you can escape from the clutches of saying “I have nothing to wear”?
Breaking Down Your Wardrobe
Before you jump off to the store and start shopping, you might want to take some time and think about what your lifestyle looks like. I am often asked the question, “So, what style suits me?” The answer to the question goes beyond a jacket colour or a dress style. Wearing a style that belongs to you, requires a deeper understanding of your location, personal preferences and knowing who you are. A great wardrobe is made up of clothes that not only suits your style personality, bodyshape and colour. But more importantly it needs to be representative of your lifestyle. If you work in an environment where it requires you to be dressed in sneakers and casual pants, an elegant chic style (as much as you look awesome in it) would not be suitable, because the lifestyle does not correspond.
Your ideal wardrobe not only needs to reflect your style, but it should also reflect your lifestyle. I would break down a wardrobe into 6 categories:
- Workwear
- Smart wear
- Casual wear
- Leisure home
- Sports
- Special occasion
Essentially your wardrobe should have the most clothes in the areas where you spend the most time – thus, reflecting your lifestyle. Alright, so how can you figure out if your wardrobe suits your life?
How to Find Out Whether Your Wardrobe Fits Your Lifestyle
Review Your lifestyle:
- List down the activities you do on average in a week.
- Estimate how many hours are spent per week in each activity.
- Using the downloadable form below, express your time spent for the activities in the form of a pie chart like above.
- Determine what category of clothes would be appropriate for the activity you have listed and list them next to the activity (refer to example below).
Evaluate Your Current Wardrobe:
- According to the 6 categories of clothes, review your wardrobe and estimate the percentage of clothes that fits in the respective category.
- Express the percentage of each clothes category in the form of a pie chart.
- Compare the respective categories in “My Wardrobe” with the categorized activities in “My Activities”.
From the pie charts you have created, you would be able to evidently observe if your current wardrobe suits your lifestyle. Any gap identified in any category, would indicate that you have too much clothes or you have more than enough clothes (than you need) for that lifestyle!
Ideally, the amount of clothes in your wardrobe should correspond roughly to the distribution of your categories, i.e. your lifestyle. Now you know exactly what you need the next time you go shopping for clothes. If you spend most of your time wearing smart casual outfits, then make sure you invest in some great versatile smart pieces that will add to your wardrobe. Likewise, if you have more casual clothes in your wardrobe than your lifestyle accounts for, then make a note to yourself to not shop for any more casual clothes.
I love hearing from you, if you have any feedback, opinions or questions please comment below. And if you enjoyed this post and know someone who could do with this information, please share it with them by clicking on the share button below.
If you would like to breakthrough from your wardrobe frustration and build an ideal wardrobe that represents who you want to be, drop me a chat (jeann@stylebyjeann.com) or simply follow me on INSTAGRAM for style inspirations.
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