The Wardrobe Architect Week One: Making Style More Personal

view of my wardrobe from my bed. That orange thing is a kangaroo onesie and it's a very important piece

Ultimate Fran™ wears excellent outfits at all times, often things that she has made herself. As part of my work to become Ultimate Fran I have decided to work through the Wardrobe Architect series from the Colette Blog.

The idea of Wardrobe Architect is to work out your personal style, work out what clothes you should be making and what pieces you are missing to complete your wardrobe. As Colette is a sewing blog, the real idea behind it is project planning. It is so easy to buy pretty fabrics that you have no use for or to make lots of party dresses you’ll never wear, Wardrobe Architect is a series of exercises to help you work out what you will wear and, therefore, what you should be sewing.  

So… MAKING STYLE MORE PERSONAL

The first week of Wardrobe Architect is about how your identity and your experiences affect your style. There is a worksheet of questions that get you to consider different things that have influenced the way you dress and how you feel in clothes. When I first read through the questions, I couldn’t think of any meaningful answers, and I thought it might be a bit pointless. But I wrote a few things down in my notebook, and over the week I came up with more ideas. I’ve enjoyed having a personal project to think about all week.

Here are my answers:

HISTORY

How has your personal history informed the way you dress? When did your tastes crystalise? Have they changed over the years, and why?

As a teenager, I was an avid reader of ELLEgirl magazine, in ELLEgirl I learned about vintage and second-hand clothes, and I learned that a skirt made out of an old pair of jeans could be better than anything you might buy in a shop. I did make a few things as a teenager – I had an awesome skirt I made out of an old pair of jeans, I had a t-shirt that I had covered with words and song lyrics, and I made a black lace choker that everyone referred to as ‘the garter’. More importantly than all of this, ELLEgirl introduced me to the great love of my life: costume jewellery. Ever since my ELLEgirl days, I have been in love with jewellery. ELLEgirl introduced me to Lady Luck Rules OK, which was everything I had ever wanted from life and accessories, and lead to a pretty intense Tatty Devine addiction. I feel like my jewellery and accessories game is still really influenced by this time in my life, the part I have a problem with is the actual clothing.

 PHILOSOPHY

How does your philosophy, spiritually or religion affect your aesthetics and buying habits? Or, what aspects of these would you like to see reflected?

I believe in the life-enhancing joy of beautiful things. I don’t think that material possessions are the way to happiness, but I do believe that you should have well designed and beautiful things in your life. I try to live by the famous William Morris quote - ‘Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.’ Budget permitting, I would never buy anything for my home that I didn’t love, I don’t understand why you would buy something ugly if there is a more colourful or better-designed version available. I think I do this well in my home, but I can’t manage it with clothes! I have far too many pieces of clothing that are not beautiful or useful.

My shopping habits do not reflect my philosophy, I buy far too much cheap, mass-produced clothing. I want to stop buying cheap clothes from places like Primark. It’s not good for the environment, and it’s not good for the people making the clothes. It’s hard to resist Primark when the shops are everywhere and full of such cheap, tempting items. I’ll be honest - I am currently wearing knickers, leggings and a vest top all from Primark. I need to do something about my Primark habit.

CULTURE

How has your cultural background shaped the way you look? How have the aesthetics and values you grew up with affected your tastes as an adult?

My cultural background is more boring than I can say! My family is English with a little bit of Scottish thrown in, but I don’t think it’s had much influence on the way I dress. My parents don’t care about clothes or fashion, choosing practical clothes every time. As for aesthetics, I grew up in a slightly messy house full of cats, books, old furniture, and small boys! They don’t have rigid ideas of what looks right. I was allowed to paint my teenage bedroom whatever dark colour I chose and my parents never had strong opinions about my clothes.

However, both my grandmothers had sewing machines and my great-grandmother was a seamstress. The first sewing I ever did was with my Granny and the sewing machine I use today was originally hers. I'd really like to engage with this part of my heritage more. I want to make these talented women proud. 

COMMUNITY

How are you influenced by your friends, family and the community around you?

I wouldn’t say my community influences my wardrobe very much. I think my friends and I appreciate one another’s styles, but we all dress differently. I’m more likely to be influenced by the people I follow on Instagram!

ACTIVITY

How do your everyday activities influence your choices?

I can’t drive so I walk a lot and need to wear comfortable shoes! I also need to have outfits that protect me from the weather when I’m stomping around. I have an office job but there is no dress code and I can pretty much wear whatever I want to work. 

LOCATION

Does the place you live inform the way you dress? Does climate factor?

I live in England, what do you think? 

This week I went to work in jeans, a t-shirt, cardigan, and ballet pumps and nearly drowned on the way home. My clothes need to be adaptable because it can be sunny one minute and rain the next.

BODY

How does your body image affect your clothing choices? What clothes make you feel good about your body? What clothes make you feel uncomfortable or alienated from your body?

One word: Boobs.

Dressing my boobs is difficult because I need to find clothes that look good AND fit. If I measure myself to choose a pattern size, my bust measurement comes out as 2 or 3 sizes bigger than my waist or hip measurement. I tend to wear things with a lot of ease so they can accommodate my boobs without hiding the rest of me in excess fabric.  I enjoy wearing things like jersey shift dresses because they skim my body and make me feel put together and confident and not just a giant pair of boobs.  

In the past, I have worried about ‘dressing to suit my shape’ and all that boring bollocks, I found it joyless and limiting – I think we should just wear clothes that make us feel awesome!

Ultimate Fran

One of my weird habits is writing lists of the things I want to do and the qualities I wish I had. I write things like, ‘I will only wear outfits that make me feel awesome. I will always wake up with plenty of time to do my hair nicely and put on some makeup. I will read more books. I will stop buying things from Primark.’ I call the person who lives like this Ulitmate Fran. Ulitmate Fran is who I would be if I just grew up and got on with stuff. (Do I sound super weird now?) Ultimate Fran Is who I would be if I didn’t waste my life watching Netflix.

I think I am finally becoming Ultimate Fran.

Today* I have been to work, cooked dinner (eating only a reasonable amount, and not so much that I feel uncomfortably full), watched a couple of episodes of Gilmore Girls (our current Box Set project), spent 30 mins on the exercise bike, and now I am writing this. I have also finished my current audible book (Royal Blood from the brilliant Her Royal Spyness series) and all day I’ve been thinking about overhauling my wardrobe using the Wardrobe Architect system from the Colette blog. 

Most impressive of all, yesterday I made a doctor’s appointment within half an hour of getting a voicemail about it, and without panicking about it at all. It’s almost like I’m a proper adult! I know that normal people will wonder why I’m so proud of making a phone call and saying, ‘Thursday at 9.50 is would be perfect.’ Those normal people don’t know me.  

It’s sad that it’s taken me until 27 to realise that I do have willpower and control over myself. If I want to achieve a particular thing, I only have to decide to do it and then get on with it. It’s like some part of me woke up and decided that my lazy stupor had to end and that I should stop sitting around expecting things to happen without any action on my part. I think my change in attitude has a lot to do with the sunshine and the longer evenings that help me to believe anything is possible. I’m just going to keep going and before long actual Fran should be Ultimate Fran.  

*I actually wrote this on Tuesday 

A picture of a mug caused me to have an epiphany...

I just absent mindedly doodled this the other day

My preoccupation at the moment is all about what I can add to my life to make it better. I want to be happier and worry less and feel like I’m really living the best, most worthwhile life I can. I had a week off for my birthday and it reminded me what it’s like to properly be myself 24 hours a day for more than 2 days at a time. But until I’ve found some magical job that is some awesome, flexible, freelance extension of me, I just need to get as much out of the time that's left me once sleeping and work have been taken away... this is where the mug epiphany comes in.

This mug has been all over pinterest. I saw it when it was repinned by a Beyoncé obsessive I follow, but if you look at who has pinned it and all the associated pins, it’s been taken on as a mantra for super busy, super mum types who seem to be living I don’t know how she does it.* There’s even a thing on thought catalog called No, I Actually Don’t Have As Many Hours In The Day As Beyoncé.  This is obviously not how I had an epiphany. My epiphany was just that I do have the same number of hours as Beyoncé, I have the same number of hours in the day as J K Rowling or anyone I admire. I’m just a human on earth and so are they. Yea, there are people who have staff and stuff to help with responsibilities like kids etc. But I don’t have those responsibilities. I just have me and sleep and work. In fact, I have the same number of hours in the day as anyone who has ever pursued a creative career alongside a day job.

this unicorn pleases me so much that I've included it despite it not being all that relevant

Even more than that: I have the perfect day job. My job is pretty boring and could easily done by a talking monkey (which is what I am...) but, crucially, it’s not that hard and doesn’t require me to do any overtime or take my work home with me, and despite how I feel when I’ve been on an 8AM start, the job isn’t really that tiring.

Once I established that my job really shouldn’t be dominating my week to the extent it does, I started to think about what I actually do with my time.

Here are the things I actually have to do in a week:

Work – 37hrs

Sleep – 56 hrs

Volunteering  - max 2.5 hrs

Travel + getting ready for work – 17 hrs

Total = 112 hours and 30 minutes.

That leaves 55 hours and 30 mins unaccounted for. This is time I spend reading blogs, watching tv and sitting. It’s so much time that I could have another full time job.  WHAT AM I DOING WITH THAT TIME?

Have you seen one of those youtube clips about time management, where someone gets a big bowl or vase and fills it with golf balls and sand and marbles to demonstrate how important it is to prioritise and think about what's really important (here is one if you have somehow missed it)? I feel like this a lesson I really need to learn as I’m clearly just filling my life with sand when I could be using that time to learn a new language or train for a marathon or whatever.

So, step one in project awesome – STOP FILLING MY LIFE WITH SAND I.E. DO SOMETHING WITH MY TIME THAT ISN’T CANDY CRUSH.

*I’ve never seen that film/read the book but it’s about some woman who tries to be perfect at EVERYTHING by never sleeping and just staying up all night making cupcakes, right?