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Feature article: Choosing your clothes
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Feature: Choosing your clothes
It's 8am and you're rushing out the door. What will you wear? Why is it that nothing goes with this skirt? Where are your clean jeans?
If that sounds familiar, here are 3 strategies that might help you combat the morning outfit panic. Pick the one that suits you best, or modify it for your needs. They get more difficult as you go down, depending on how organized you'd like to be.
Strategy 1: On the Run
- This plan is the easiest of all, and easy to adapt. The key to this is your mindset. Don't let fashion magazines tell you what goes with what. You know.
- Make sure your whole wardrobe is visible to you. Everything, whether in clear boxes or hung. Anything you can't see, you won't wear!
- In the morning, choose three combinations at random. Top-bottom, top-bottom, top-bottom.
- Now pick the one you like best of the 3 and wear it. No sweat.
Strategy 2: Easy Pickings
- Use this simple plan when you just want to see your clothes and choose an outfit quickly: make sure most of your clothes go with most everything else. If you have a top that goes with only one bottom, either get more things that match well or ditch it.
- Set everything in visible piles or hung neatly, in categories: long shirts, short shirts, long skirts, short skirts, pants, etc. Keep all tops on one side and bottoms on the other. Make a separate section in the middle for dresses.
- Sort by color. Keep the neutral colors to one side. It helps to hang or store clothes from light to dark.
- When you get up (or the night before), choose a top and a bottom. Since most things go with most other things, it'll work.
- When you're done with the two items, set them aside somewhere so you can wear all your clothes in rotation.
Strategy 3: Planning
- In this method, you make a list of everything you own. Type it up on the computer, sorted into clothing categories and make copies. (You'll be surprised how much you own!)
- Every Sunday night, set aside your 5 (or 7, if you prefer) outfits for the week. Cross off the items you've set aside from your list.
- Each morning, either choose the top outfit, or choose any one.
- Setting aside 5 days rather than 7 gives you flexibility. If it's raining and you can't possibly wear that special skirt, save it for the weekend.
- You'll also be forced to wear what you have. Anything you find yourself dreading to wear should go to charity or a friend.
Have an even better idea? Let me know. But whatever you choose, deciding what clothes to wear should be fun, not nerve-wracking. When you have a closet full of inexpensive clothes you love, why shouldn't you wear them?
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