If so, count yourself lucky! I can’t tell you how many times clients, friends and family members regale me with their tales of woe — I was invited to a black tie at the last minute, but I didn’t go because I didn’t have anything to wear; I went to dinner with friends and I was completely under dressed; I took a girl’s trip with my college besties and felt like I was the under dressed step-sister, yata yata yata.
We’ve all found ourselves in this situation or a similar one at some point in time. It’s not fun. Although the folks at Bluefly ran a great ad campaign a few years ago called “Nothing to Wear to Work that’s Why Bluefly” promising to get the perfect outfit to you the next day. The ads were great, but buying a new outfit every time you have some place to go isn’t realistic for most of us.
Of course, we all have that friend who seems to have the perfect outfit for every occasion. College reunion? She’s flawless and each outfit looks effortless. A baby shower? She shows up perfectly coiffed with the perfect Sunday brunch outfit to boot. Diner Date? She’s combined the downtown hipster look with the Uptown lady who lunches with aplomb. How does she do it? I’ll tell you – she doesn’t wait until the last minute to try to figure out what to wear. Each season (Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall) she takes stock of her closet, figures out what she’s keeping, storing and getting rid of. Then she determines which seasonal trends she’d like to add in and what her budget is for such additions. And lastly, and most importantly, she takes the time to put a few outfits together. Some go to the extreme and literally mix-and-match everything while others come up with a few main outfits (general work uniform, going-out and special events); the point is that these folks take time upfront to figure out what will work so that 5 minutes before they need to be walking out the door they’re not standing in front of the closet searching for that elusive perfect outfit.
As Summer comes to a close and Fall is right around the corner, think about coming up with a strategy to maximize your Fall wardrobe and minimize your time spent getting dressed. I’m curious, let me know what works for you …
wedge sandals about two years ago on a fine Spring day while shopping with a client. We were on 34th Street in a shoe store looking for shoes to match an evening gown she’d just purchased. It had been a long day. I was tired and my dogs were sho ’nuff barkin’. I looked up from my client’s feet and saw a suburban mom who was very well put together in a kind-of JCrew meets Martha Stewart kind of way. She had on these really cool patent leather kelly green wedge sandals. They looked sooooo comfortable! As I was wistfully eyeing her shoes, she made a beeline over to me with a pair of sparkly heels in hand to ask my opinion. Interestingly, I get that a lot. I wasn’t doing anything overtly “stylist-like”, I like to think that I look more stylish than most and one stylish person to another kind of karma was going on. Anyway, she showed me the shoes and a picture of her daughter’s prom dress. She wanted to know if I thought they’d work together. She’d made a great choice and I told her so.
