I’ve been talking recently about sorting out my winter wardrobe as I do not know what to wear. Although my wardrobe is fit to burst, I have nothing to wear! Sound familiar?

And up until last week I couldn’t really work out why (or hadn’t really thought very hard about it at any rate). I now know after reading Into Mind’s article “Does your wardrobe fit your lifestyle?” that there are now 2 primary reasons for me not knowing what to wear.

1. I don’t like a lot of my clothes. But, until now, I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of them. That would be admitting the huge wastefulness I apply to clothes shopping.
2. Of the clothes I like, they don’t fit my lifestyle.

I have dealt with number 1 by detoxing my wardrobe of all the things I don’t like. The clothes that don’t suit me, aren’t my colour, fit badly, aren’t my style or generally make me feel hideous. There was a lot of it and my cupboards now look bare, highlighting the clothes I like but don’t wear. While they were great when I had an event management company, they are now entirely impractical for my day to day life!

The tiny pile that is left is what to wear every day. No wonder I don’t know what to wear. There isn’t anything!

In order to work out what I need, I have followed Into Mind’s advice and analysed my lifestyle – she says to do it over a 3 week period, write down what you need and how often you need it. This is what I came up with over 3 weeks:

What to wear over 3 weeks

The fun stuff/going out and smart are both total over estimations but I couldn’t face up to the fact that I just don’t go out anymore!

I sorted out what I have left and if you compare what I have and what I need you can see the problem I have!

What I need:

What I have:

Apologies for these primary school graphics but if you look, basically half of my wardrobe is filled with clothes that I spend less than 5% of my time doing! And the stuff I spend most of my time doing I have only a handful of clothes for. That, my friends, is why I have nothing to wear on a daily basis. If anything is in the wash, which is everything after one wear around a toddler, I’m buggered and have to put together crazy ensembles that even Ugly Betty would struggle to pull off.

It’s funny how I never realised it before but my brain just doesn’t work like that. I’ve never thought about about what to wear from a functional point of view! Now I know where to focus my wardrobe efforts, I hope I soon will know what to wear.

To start with I need day time casual/work clothes, by which I mean things that I don’t mind people seeing me in day to day. They have to be comfortable and practical (they can cope with me regularly bending over to pick up the little guy without baring my builder’s bum)  but also have an element of the yummy mummy about it. I want to look nice. Then I can move onto the other elements of my wardrobe, or lack there of.

Gone are the days of buying cheap, throw away fashion on a whim – dresses or jumpers I wear a few times and then banish to the back of my wardrobe – I want quality not quantity and the rules are that I have to try it on and love it before I buy it!

What do you think – do you ever wonder what to wear?

What does your wardrobe look like compared to what you need? Are you like me and have significantly more clothes for something you don’t do much of? I love to hear what you’re up to so do comment below xx