Dressing With Confidence

I often stand in front of my wardrobe and stare into it.

It’s kind of like staring into the fridge. Aimless staring. Wondering what to wear (eat). Deciding there is nothing to wear (eat). Determining that there is nothing that I want to wear (eat). Going back to an old favourite, whether or not it is good for me (this is exactly like food). It’s worse when I have a function to go to or when it is between seasons. Then the staring gets intense and most everything comes out of the wardrobe and goes back into it (after a spell on the floor). It’s not like I have too much. Nor is it like I have too little. OK, I probably err on the side of too much but it’s less than you might think (especially if you are a man reading this). The problem is that I don’t know how to put it together. Dressing is often difficult and the result makes me feel fat and frumpy and unfashionable when it should be easy and I should feel elegant, stylish and confident.

Enter Alice owner of Dress with Confidence who lives in SW London. She came over for a wardrobe declutter, to advise me on how to dress to suit my colouring, shape, and style, to take away what was dreadful, and to make a list of the things I really needed to prepare me for a shopping trip.

Here is what I learned:

• I am a pear. Sigh. It’s true. Not a desperate pear, but a pear nonetheless. For those of you who are not sure what that means it is this: my butt is bigger than my shoulders. Not a lot bigger, but bigger nonetheless. What I need is to dress so that people don’t actually look down at my butt. Their eyes need to be drawn upward by short necklaces, details around the neck, puffed sleeves, structured shoulders, scarves that are wrapped around my neck and kept tucked up, fitted dark skirts and trousers that emphasize the waist not the hips. What I have is low slung skirts, utterly plain tops, rather baggy trousers, and suit jackets that cut right across my hips.
• I am an autumn. I suit the warm, muted colours of fall. What I need is forest green, teal blue, lots of red, dark purple, olive, chocolate. What I have is grey and white.
• I like a classic, natural look which indeed characterizes my wardrobe but risks doing this: looking dull.
• I have good instincts both for shape and colour.
• I have way more clothes than I thought I had when I put them together in different ways.

Here is the result:

Alice did not make me feel fat, frumpy or hopeless and although we did have some tussles over certain items of clothing that are in my ‘practical’ category (I am from Canada, it’s cold and practical rules) she never made me feel pressured or silly. Alice showed me how to put together what I have in different ways to make loads of different outfits that I had never before created. She took away some clothes that I don’t wear or should not wear. She made a list of the things I need to round off my wardrobe and enable me to make several more outfits. Here are some of the things I learned:

• I can stretch out my wardrobe by combining colours: green t shirt and purple sweater. Orange t shirt and purple sweater. Green t shirt with mustard jacket. Orange t shirt with red top. If I buy just a few tops I have infinitely more variations to last several more years. We decided on three: a deep pink top, a bright blue top and a chocolate brown v necked jersey.
• I can stretch out my wardrobe and cope with seasons by layering. See above.
• I can smarten up any outfit by adding a (short) necklace or a scarf that is kept close to my throat.
• I have to take in all of my skirts and get a pencil skirt.
• Jeans are not just for the garden.

Alice took photos of the outfits I particularly liked and made a shopping list of the things I needed. It is mercifully short. She has gone to do a recce in Kingston and we are going to meet up for some pain free shopping. Pain free shopping? To buy things I really like, really need, and will definitely wear?

I can’t wait.

Virtuous Bread is an SW London transplant from Canada. A former partner in a strategy consulting firm, she has become a baker, a writer, and a social entrepreneur, founder of Virtuous Bread.

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