Your wardrobe and self-confidence.

I got up this morning and I looked at my wardrobe and I realised that it feels like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that are missing. I don’t say this with a Paris Hilton intention to buy the perfect red-soled shoes to complete a pretty picture, but as a real mum with a real life, school runs to do and an over-reliance on Breton tops, when I have never been and probably never will be in the fishing line of business.

There’s the long cream cashmere jumper without the white camisole to wear underneath. There’s the vintage style Jigsaw skirt in a deep yellow that is sprinkled with deep blooms and circus sprinkles of faint glitter that has never had a partner in a top that will be the supporting act to this showpiece number.

There’s the deep burgundy dress that doesn’t have shoes that love it. There’s the Wolf and Whistle oriental dress that doesn’t meet with the confidence to wear it. It’s like a dating agency with no suitable partners, a dancing cruise with no deeply tanned hosts to shimmy a rumba around the floor with.

Ask Yourself:

How much emotion do you store in your closet?

How many unfinished dreams?

How much anger do you direct at your clothes for not being the clothes that you want, wish and hope that they were?

I realise that I am building my wardrobe with a scattered approach, one minute I decide to ‘go vintage’ after reading Minxy Vintage or The Fashion File (by the Mad Men costume designer) The next minute I decide that I will become like a chic French woman and have a capsule wardrobe in the style of ‘The Daily Connoisseur.’

I get over ambitious and then decide that I will sew my wardrobe inspired by Gertie and Tillie. Then I realise that I have a coaching business to run, a family home to look after and that sewing my entire wardrobe would take a loooong time.

I love fashion and always have. I read Vogue and other glossy fashion magazines through my teens and have read a huge amount of style and fashion books. I love them as much as I love coaching books. I suppose I’ve not told you about this before because my love of fashion seems, well, a bit ‘fluffy’.

Come to think of it maybe the labelling of fashion as being ‘fluffy’ is what has led to the jigsaw piece wardrobe with multiple personalities. I realise that frantically buying a couple of tops because I can wear them with jeans and the warmer days are coming soon isn’t going to stop this piecemeal approach.

I need to be logical, planned, and thorough and also to follow through. I need to claim the current reality of my life (including financial) and what I do everyday and use that as the guide and basis for what I choose.

The current state of my wardrobe comes from a lot of little choice about what’s important to me and really from a lot of decisions that led the way of the Amazon book basket that sits so neatly filling up in the right hand corner of the website.

Things to ponder (Emotional closet cleaning):

1. How do you feel when you look in your wardrobe?
2. Does it have multiple personalities?
3. Is it a jigsaw with missing pieces?
4. Is it messy or tidy in there?
5. What emotions do you store in your wardrobe?
6. Do you blame your level of income for the current state of your wardrobe?
7. Do you blame your body for how clothes look on you?
8. Who are you trying to be through your clothes?
9. Is the person you are trying to be through how you dress, really you?
10. How did your mum / significant role model relate to clothes?
11. How did your father / male significant role model relate to clothes?
12. What do you do / how do you react, when you are complimented on what you wear?
13. What are your sibling’s relationships to clothes and how do you feel about that?
14. Does your wardrobe only represent you current life or does it also represent particular parts of your past?
15. How well are your clothes looked after?
16. What else is in your wardrobe, other than your clothes?
17. If someone who didn’t know you looked in your wardrobe what three good things would they have to say about you?
18. What is the magic wand you are looking for to sort out your closet woe’s?
19. What would the contents of your wardrobe be like if you loved yourself more?
20. What very small step can you take towards that?

Love Your Closet, Love You.

I’d like to offer you a ‘Love your Closet, Love You’ one to one workshop. In this 90 minute one to one session (by Skype or phone conference line) we look at your closet as a metaphor for your life. You’ll learn a lot about yourself and your wardrobe and take steps to change both your life and your closet contents. The cost of the session is £97. Please email me at deborah@deborahchalk.com if you’d like a place.