I have absolutely no idea how it’s Friday already.
Honestly, where has this week gone?
I had a newsletter to publish yesterday. THURSDAY. The day I publish my newsletter every single week, and somehow I completely forgot that Thursday had even happened.
Excellent organisational skills from a woman who teaches other women how to make their mornings easier.
In my defence, it’s been one of those weeks where I’ve been everywhere, talking to everyone, having the most fascinating conversations and somehow arriving home with another twenty-seven ideas for things I want to do.
Last Monday I was in The Sloane Club exploring a pop-up with independent fashion brands for What’s Worth Wearing, the project I co-founded with Rickylee. And one of the things I love about doing this is getting to meet people who are making clothes because they have something they genuinely want to express.
Not because an algorithm has decided that burgundy is having a moment or because apparently we’re all supposed to be dressing like the same woman who owns a very expensive coffee machine.
These designers have their own ideas, their own references, their own ways of looking at the world, and I find that fascinating.
Some of the pieces are things I would wear immediately. Others are completely outside my personal taste, but I can still appreciate the imagination and craftsmanship behind them.
And I think that’s one of the things I enjoy most about fashion. There are so many ways of expressing who we are, and none of us needs to look like anybody else.
Which got me thinking about something I see all the time when I’m working with women’s wardrobes.
The outfit you wear most often might not actually be your favourite.
I know. Slightly offensive thing for a personal stylist to say.
Especially when you’ve probably spent years telling yourself that those black trousers and that particular jumper are your absolute favourites because you wear them three times a week.
But hear me out.
Our brains are rather fond of familiarity. They like knowing what’s coming, they like things that have worked before, and they’re especially enthusiastic about not having to make another bloody decision at 7:30 in the morning.
So when you find an outfit that fits, feels comfortable and doesn’t require too much thinking, your brain remembers it.
And the next time you’re standing in front of your wardrobe, half asleep, with approximately fourteen things already demanding your attention, guess what it suggests?
The same outfit.
Very helpful. Thank you, brain.
Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with repeating clothes. In fact, I encourage it. I don’t understand this idea that we need to look completely different every time we leave the house, as though the people at the supermarket or the office are keeping records of how many times we’ve worn our favourite jeans.
Nobody cares, darling. Wear the jeans.
But there’s a difference between repeating an outfit because you genuinely love it and repeating it because it’s the only combination you know you can rely on.
And sometimes we confuse the two.
I’ve worked with women who have beautiful wardrobes full of interesting clothes, colours, textures, dresses, jackets and pieces they’ve collected over the years, but when I ask them what they actually wear, they show me the same five or six combinations.
Then I start pulling things out.
A jacket they bought because they absolutely loved it but haven’t worn in two years. A beautiful blouse that’s apparently waiting for an occasion nobody can identify. A skirt they adore but have somehow convinced themselves only works with one particular pair of shoes.
And suddenly we have a completely different conversation.
Because these women don’t necessarily lack personal style. Often they have a very clear sense of what attracts them, what they find beautiful and what they would love to wear.
They simply haven’t figured out how to make those things work in their actual lives.
So they return to what they know.
And the more often they repeat the familiar outfit, the more natural it feels, while everything else starts requiring an unreasonable amount of effort.
I sometimes think our wardrobes are full of little relationships like this.
There are the clothes we love looking at, the clothes we love the idea of wearing, the clothes we bought for a version of our lives that hasn’t quite materialised, and then the clothes we actually reach for on a Wednesday morning when we have seven minutes to leave the house.
Those last ones usually win.
Not necessarily because they’re the most beautiful, but the easiest.
And this is why, when I work with a client, I don’t begin by telling her what she should be wearing.
I want to know what her life looks like.
Where is she going during the week? What does she do for work? How often is she meeting clients, working from home, going out, travelling, spending time with her children or doing all those things that somehow never make it onto our carefully organised calendars?
Because an outfit can be absolutely gorgeous and still be completely useless to the woman who owns it.
I could create the most spectacular look for somebody, but if she spends her mornings running between school drop-offs, meetings and the Tube, and the outfit requires fifteen minutes of adjustments every time she sits down, how often do you think she’s going to wear it?
Exactly.
And that’s where the first part of my Wardrobe Architect Method comes in: Lifestyle Profiling.
It sounds very technical, doesn’t it?
But essentially, we’re looking at the life you actually live rather than the life your wardrobe seems to think you live.
Because those two things are not always on speaking terms.
Once I understand that, I start identifying the shapes, proportions, colours and combinations that work for your body and your lifestyle, and we build outfit formulas around them.
Now, when I say outfit formulas, I don’t mean a uniform that makes you look identical every day.
Quite the opposite.
A formula is simply a combination you know works, which means you don’t have to start from zero every morning.
Perhaps you love wide-leg trousers with a fitted top and a structured jacket. Brilliant. That’s one formula.
But that doesn’t mean you need to wear the same black trousers, the same white top and the same blazer until one of you retires.
You can change the colours, fabrics, shoes, accessories and the way you style the pieces while keeping the proportions that make you feel fantastic.
And this is where it becomes fun.
Because you get to keep the ease your brain loves without sacrificing the creativity that makes getting dressed interesting.
I often tell women that I want getting dressed to become as quick as ordering a coffee.
Although, to be fair, some people take an extraordinarily long time ordering coffee, so perhaps that analogy needs reviewing.
The point is that I don’t want you standing in front of your wardrobe every morning trying to invent an entirely new outfit.
I want you to have combinations ready that you already know work, but with enough variation that you can choose how you want to express yourself that day.
Some mornings you might feel like wearing colour. Other mornings you want something simple, elegant and quiet. Perhaps you’re speaking at an event and want to feel particularly powerful, or you’re meeting a friend for coffee and feel like wearing those fabulous shoes that have been waiting patiently for some attention.
All of those women are you.
And your wardrobe should have room for them.
Something else I’ve noticed is that when women begin experimenting with their existing clothes, they often discover they have much more personal style than they originally thought.
They just weren’t giving themselves the opportunity to explore it.
And I think this is what I’ve been enjoying so much about the conversations I’ve had this week, particularly around independent fashion and the people we meet through What’s Worth Wearing.
There’s something wonderful about seeing somebody express an idea through a garment and then realising that another person might take that same piece and make it completely their own.
That’s what styling is to me.
The designer creates something, but the person wearing it continues the story.
And sometimes that story changes depending on the day, the mood, the occasion or simply because you’ve woken up and decided you fancy being a little more colourful.
Why not?
I’ve been thinking about this beyond clothes, actually.
How many things do we continue doing simply because we’ve always done them that way?
We go to the same places, order the same things, follow the same routines and sometimes even describe ourselves in the same way for years, without stopping to ask whether those choices still reflect what we enjoy.
Not that there’s anything wrong with familiarity. I love my routines too.
But I don’t want familiarity to become the reason I stop being curious.
And I certainly don’t want that for my clients.
Because personal style isn’t something you discover once and then preserve in a little glass box for the rest of your life.
You’re allowed to experiment. You’re allowed to change your mind about a colour you thought you hated, wear something unexpected, discover a new silhouette or decide that the clothes you loved five years ago no longer interest you.
You don’t need to become a different person to try something different.
You might simply be giving another part of yourself a little more attention.
So here’s something I’d love you to try this weekend.
Open your wardrobe and look at the five outfits you wear most often.
Not the five you think are your favourites. The ones you actually wear.
Then ask yourself why.
Is it the fit? The colour? The comfort? The way they make you feel? Or is it simply that you already know which shoes go with them and you can’t be bothered to investigate any further?
No judgement. We’ve all been there!
Now look at the clothes you rarely wear but still love.
Could you use one of your familiar outfit formulas and introduce one of those forgotten pieces?
Maybe it’s a different jacket, a more interesting shoe, a colour you’ve been avoiding or a piece of jewellery that completely changes the mood of the outfit.
You don’t need to reinvent your wardrobe this weekend.
Just interrupt the autopilot for a moment and see what happens.
And if you’re wondering where to start, I’ve created a free Wardrobe Pattern Assessment that you’ll receive when you subscribe to this newsletter.
It will help you recognise some of the habits behind your wardrobe choices, understand what you keep reaching for and begin noticing where familiarity might be making decisions on your behalf.
Because sometimes the first step towards having a wardrobe that feels more like you isn’t buying something new.
It’s understanding why you keep wearing the same bloody thing.
Anyway, I was supposed to send you this yesterday.
Apparently even my newsletter has fallen victim to the habits and chaos of my week.
But here we are, on Friday, talking about clothes and brains and the strange things we do without noticing.
Not a bad way to end the week, actually :)
Love,
Carolina x
P.S. Tell me something. Do you have an outfit you wear so often that your friends or colleagues could probably draw it from memory? And do you genuinely love it, or has it simply become your emergency uniform? I’m VERY curious.