“Buy less. Choose well. Make it last” ~Vivienne Westwood
Let’s take a deeper look into your closet today. I strongly believe that a Confident Closet is key to having all the items that you need for creating unique looks every day, without having an overload of clothing. A Conscious Closet is a curated wardrobe that consists of a core, essentials, and accent pieces. In this wardrobe, you have defined your Style Personality, including colors and fits. The core and essentials are your staple pieces that can be combined together as a whole outfit, or you can add a garment from your accent pieces.
In this post, I will answer the question of what a Confident Closet is, and why you need one. Additionally, we will analyze your closet by talking about quality as a guide toward your Confident Closet.
An Confident Closet is the overall name for core items, essentials, and accent pieces
What is a Confident Closet?
A Confident Closet is an overall name for core items, essentials, and accent pieces. The number of these categories are curated and in line with your values, lifestyle, and defined Style Personality. The main goal is to have garments that can serve multiple purposes. If you need professional trousers for work, try to find one that you can also casually wear on the weekend with a white T-shirt, a sweater, and sneakers. When you look for the perfect jeans, it should also be possible to wear them with smart loafers and a nice silk top or blouse that you normally wear to work.
Core items
Your core items are versatile, timeless items that reflect your style. Style is dictated by your preferences. It is something unique to you, but often you will not be consciously aware of it. Your Style Personality is about understanding and articulating your style. Once you have defined the categories that describe your style, your brain will create all kinds of shortcuts that make dressing and shopping a million times easier.
Your core items are most often solid colors that are easy to mix and match. It’s okay to have a number of styles in one category, in comparison to another. For example, I have 5 pairs of jeans, but each one makes me feel differently.
Why do I need a Confident Closet?
A Confident Closet saves time and stress in the morning, as you know now that all your items, fits, and colors fit together. It takes away the stress of making a ton of decisions when you’re shopping and are in visual overload. As all your core items are easy to mix and match, you don’t have an overload of items that are limited to either weekends or work. Additionally, you avoid excess stuff in your wardrobe, which saves you time and money.
I wish to encourage you to do less shopping, make more intentional purchases, which leads to a smaller closet and more joy
Number of items
This post is not about a certain number of core items you must have in your wardrobe. That method seems too strict for me. The number of items should feel good, and it should fit your lifestyle. You will be able to tell when you have the right number of items. It will take some time before you have a fully functioning wardrobe. And I want to give you the tools you need for curating your wardrobe. I wish to encourage you to do less shopping and make more intentional purchases, which leads to a smaller closet and more joy.
Declutter
Creating a Confident Closet starts with decluttering your closet first. This gives you a feeling of which items you really love and need. These items are treated with love and care after you’ve selected them. The fabric informs you how and where it wants to live in your closet – some want to be on a hanger, and others want to be folded. All the hanging items are on the same style hanger, categorized, and organized by color. The folded items are ready for a Candy Drawer, Candy Shelf, or Candy Box, and are stored per category. Essentially, this is the foundation for your Confident Closet. Today, we’re going to analyze these items.
Analyzing
I want you to have a look at the items you have kept in your closet after decluttering and take some time to analyze them. Things we’re focussing on today are fabrics, care labels, colors, brands, and fits. You can take notes in a notebook, but mental notes are also fine. Whatever works best for you to inform you about your future decisions during shopping.
As a fashion designer, I will share insights about the quality of fabrics, construction, fits, and styles. My strength and passion for design have been creating fits and shapes and solving fit issues, together with finding solutions that even the inside of your garment looks nicely finished. This makes me passionate about these subjects and I want to inform you of how these elements can elevate your wardrobe. Investing in quality will make you take care of your garments, and because of that, they last.
Handfeel
So, now you are in front of your closet where you have some clothing hanging and others folded. Let’s have a look at the fabrics. We start with the hanging garments, as those are easier to check and don’t need the whole process of unfolding.
Feel the fabric of the items you really love and wear the most. Hold the fabric between your thumb and fingers. In professional terms, we call this handfeel, and as designers, we do the same when we select fabrics for a garment. Because fabrics determine appearance and comfort. How does the fabric feel? Is the fabric smooth, soft, or sturdy? There is no right or wrong here – just observe. And since this is already a loved item – you also know how it feels on your skin when you’re wearing it. And how do you feel in it – feminine, tough, relaxed?
Do this per category, as the handfeel for coats is obviously different from your dresses. And when you tackle it per category, it also informs you whether you have a certain preference for handfeel per category. It can be, for example, that you really love sturdy felt-like coats, but super smooth and silky fabrics for dresses. This definitely is not a rule; it can very well be that every dress is completely different in handfeel. That is all good. It’s just something to start being aware of, and it will improve your shopping experience for keeping the clutter out.
Folded items
Now that you have a feeling for it, continue with your folded items – tops and pants (you can skip underwear and sportswear). Tops can have a more ‘dry’ cotton feel, or ‘warm’ as velvet, or cupro. It is totally okay if you don’t know the name of the fabrics. My wish is to slowly educate you.
This is all valuable information and something to take note of. Create a list of the handfeel you love, and how it makes you feel when you wear it. You can even define it more by category if you like.
The care label is always on your left-hand side
Care labels
After feeling your fabric preferences, we make our way to the care label. This is the label that is inside your garment, most often in the side seam which holds information about the garment. When the care label is in the side seam, it is always on your left-hand side. This is good to know, as some garments (jumpsuits or tops, for example), are quite similar looking in front and back – just make sure the care label is on the left-hand side when you start wearing it. You are welcome.
Care labels are often bulky packages of information, inside your garment and against your skin. This is because the information is translated into several languages and it holds important information for taking care of your garment. There are a couple of things that will give away if the item is of good quality.
Body color
First of all, the care label should match the body color – that is what we call the color of the garment. Often, care labels are available in black and white. This will result in a better price per label for the company. And, therefore, reduces the costs of the garment, rather than giving care labels the exact unique shade of the body color. This means that all light garments should have a white care label, and, I’m sure you guessed it, all dark garments should have a black one. This goes wrong more often than you think. That can be because it’s a brand of low quality and just develops one color of care label to reduce costs, or the merchandiser or product developer is inexperienced and forgot to select the right color (I speak from experience – it was a huge drama in the company), or it’s a production mistake (we are all human, after all).
If nylon or polyester is part of the quality list, make sure that the natural fiber has a higher percentage
Fabrics and blends
So, you’ve found the care label. Let’s have a look at it. The fabrics and their percentages should be mentioned. When the care label notes 3 or more fabrics, it most likely means this is a low-quality garment. The reason why the brand has used a fabric with more than 3 fibers is to reduce costs, and that is always bad news for quality. You would think that fewer ingredients would be cheaper, but often blends are used with synthetic fibers, and therefore, cheaper ingredients. Polyester is one of those cheap ingredients, and often nylon and acrylics are used as a blend.
Ideally, you have a 100% natural fabric like cotton, linen, and wool. When that is not the case, it will not automatically mean that it is lower quality (as long as it stays under 3). Often, fabrics are mixed with other fibers for a certain handfeel, or to make fabric stronger. Sometimes a wool jumper is mixed with nylon to minimize the wool pilling. Pilling is caused by wear – abrasion which causes the fibers to create small fuzzballs. These are often under and around the armpits, and on the side where you keep your bag.
Synthetics
My advice is to completely avoid nylon, polyester, and acrylics, as they are synthetic yarns, and not breathable. I know it’s not always possible to completely avoid these ingredients. If it’s part of the quality list, make sure that the natural fiber has a higher percentage. To stay in the example of the wool jumper – 65% wool with 35% nylon is acceptable (however not preferable). I will devote several blog posts to dive deeper into fabrics and their characteristics.
After analyzing the handfeel of the garments and reading the fabric information written in the care labels, is there consistency in the type of fabric that you like? Do you have a lot of synthetic fibers like polyester and nylon, or does it all contain natural fibers like cotton, linen, silk, and wool? You don’t have to take action yet – today we’re focusing on being aware of what is in your closet and knowing your preferences.
Taking care of your garment
And lastly, you can find information on how to wash your garment. This will not really inform you if the garment is of high quality, but it will tell you how to take care of your garment. And since you have only the items you love and need left in your closet, you want to have a long life for these items.
Dry cleaning
Often, you find ‘only dry cleaning’ in the care label. And almost always, this is a lie. Companies do this to protect their brand from getting customer complaints. Almost all natural fibers (and synthetic ones, for that matter), can be washed in the washing machine, with the exception of silk and wool. Wool shouldn’t be washed at all (it is dirt-repellent by nature), and silk could be washed on a delicate program in your washing machine. Otherwise, the dry cleaner is your friend for silk fabrics. I will devote a separate blog post on wool and silk and how to take care of it, and about more sustainable choices than the dry cleaner that uses many chemicals.
Is there consistency in the type of fabric that you like?
Get to know your Confident Closet
Almost always I take out all the labels inside my garments – as it’s often itchy or bulky against my skin. This is also because I can feel what type of fabric it is. Additionally, the fabrics I like and wear are pretty consistent, so I already know how to take care of them. For example, all my T-shirts are cotton, linen, or hemp, my shirts are cotton or silk, and dresses and jumpsuits are silk, linen, cotton, and viscose. All of this comes with experience, so take time to get to know your wardrobe. And if you get stuck, let me know – I’m here to help!
So far you’ve created a handfeel, and additionally, you have read the care labels with the names of fabrics. This is all valuable information to note down, as this informs you of your preferences and helps with making future decisions.
A good wardrobe contains a select number of colors that help you
Colors
Now that you are in front of your decluttered and organized closet, you have a really clear overview of the color palette. Probably you have a handful of dominant colors. Those don’t necessarily have to be neutrals. Additionally, you probably have a couple of colors that you wear as accent colors – very different from the rest of your closet.
Analyze the colors in your decluttered closet. Which colors are easiest to wear? Which items are neutral in the sense that you can wear them with many items, without giving it much thought? Note that down.
Prints
And you can see (if you didn’t know already) if you like placed prints or allover prints. Maybe you notice which categories you really love in your allover prints. A good wardrobe contains a select number of colors that help you – they fit your skin tone and hair color, and you can easily mix and match your complete wardrobe.
My wardrobe consists mostly of whites to ecru and accompanied by grey and navy. The accent colors are fire red, royal blue, and mint green. I hardly have placed prints or allover prints, with the exception of a classic stripe and a checkered shirt.
Cuts and silhouettes make your clothes really stand out
Fits and shapes
The clothes on your body and the fabrics on your skin should make you feel fantastic. Fits and shapes make your clothes really stand out. A good fit complements your body, that makes you feel great. Over time you will be able to tell on a hanger how it fits and if it is the cut that you feel good in.
A shape, or silhouette, is basically an outline of a fit. For example, the main silhouettes in my wardrobe are round, or square. Basically, a fit is built up in a certain way, and once you’ve defined what works for you, it’s easy to scan the items in the shops. This will take some practice, but you will get there.
Signature fits
Good brands have signature fits, or core fits, that are used as a base for creating new styles. This means that you usually have the same size and this builds trust. As a customer, you know what to expect from this brand. Lower quality brands start from scratch every time and are inconsistent in size and silhouettes.
As a designer, this is how we start narrowing down what we are designing.
Tops are built up in:
- Category (T-shirt, shirt, etc.)
- Neckline (shirt collar, boat neck, crew neck, etc)
- Sleeve length
- Shape (slim, straight, loose, etc.)
- Body length
Bottoms are built up in:
- Category (jeans, trousers, shorts, etc.)
- Waist height (low, mid, regular, high, ultra-high)
- Shape (skinny, loose, baggy, etc.)
- Leg length (calf, ankle, etc.)
With this information, you can dissect per category the garments you wear most in your preferred fits and/or shapes. Note this down, as this informs you of your personal preference.
The signature fits in my wardrobe are oversized. I love wearing big white cotton shirts with mid-blue jeans. I like the look of cute ruffled dresses, but I look like a country girl when I wear them. So I can just avoid that detail and category. My staple pieces are white straight and oversized T-shirts, big white shirts, silk loose trousers, and jeans.
Brands
The next job in line for analyzing your closet is your preference in brands, labels, or shops. When you just come from decluttering your closet, you may still have your unwanted pile nearby. Also, the unwanted items inform you about brands, labels, or shops that you obviously don’t love or need.
But let’s focus on the items that you do want to keep around. Have a look at the labels. Almost always positioned at the center back, and take note which brand is most present in your closet. This is apparently the shop that makes clothing that you love to wear. You like how the fabric feels and how it fits on your body.
Your style
Today, we have defined and developed the handfeel we like, the fabrics we have most in our closet, which colors we like to wear and are easiest to combine, and we learned what fits and shapes are. This all together is your style and helps you to make easier and quicker decisions when you go shopping. You don’t have to sift through endless trends in shops, as you’ve already defined what fits you best.
A personal example: I don’t think the color black looks good on me, and I generally don’t wear flower allover prints. This results in skipping complete areas in shops. That is a lot of information I don’t have to digest, and a lot of time I am saving.
Since you’ve identified the pieces that you love and need after minimizing your closet, the focus is now on creating/keeping a wardrobe with items that make you feel this way all the time. For many people this is really clear – for others, it’s really a mix of styles and categories. That is all okay. Through this blog post, I want to create awareness and that can take some time.
In future articles, I will talk more about my experience in the fashion industry, how the design process works, why quality is a good investment (and doesn’t have to be expensive), why we should avoid synthetic fibers for our health, how to look at constructions in clothing, how to define and find your Essentials in each category, and how we have a positive impact on climate change through the choices we make about our wardrobe.
Do you think being aware of your style and preferences will help you with future shopping?
Thank you for reading.
We’re in this together.
~
