




One of the things that you may have found, if you participated in the FABruary Style Challenge, was that you wore some of your best clothes, even if it wasn’t a day that you’d normally dress up in that way.
So many people keep their ‘good’ clothes for another day. The day that is important enough to warrant those good clothes. Yet, fashions change fairly quickly, and I see in my wardrobe therapy sessions many ‘good’ clothes that are barely worn as the owner didn’t feel they were good enough to wear them on an ordinary day, or had been brought up to ‘save them for a special occasion’ which rarely came.
So now is the time to embrace your whole wardrobe and wear your good clothes every day (well as long as you’re not gardening or using bleach!). Enjoy what you have and wear it all, don’t keep it for another day because you don’t think that today is significant enough to wear it.

What messages were you given growing up that have stuck with you as an adult and affect the way you dress?






I was always told to a. wear bright colours (which I only veered from briefly in my period of fascination with pastel (some warm!) colours – me can be foolish) and b. to show off my legs. I love skirts and dresses and it’s a shame that it’s unclassy to wear mini skirts/hotpants as those would show my legs off even more.
My grandmother was always yanking my tops down so they covered the crotch of my pants. Never explained why so I grew up thinking it was somehow inappropriate to have my shirts end at my waist instead of mid-thigh.
I wouldn’t buy a lot of things that looked good on me because I was self concious about the crotch of my pants not being covered. I used to drive my mom insane by pulling on all my clothes trying to make the tops longer.
I learned from What Not to Wear that I don’t have to do that and in fact because I am petite I would look far better if every single one of my tops didn’t end practically at my knees.
It’s a hard habit to break, it’s taken a complete change of mindset. I still occassionally find myself unconciously tugging at my shirt hems. I don’t even notice unless my husband comments.
I think that most people would look better if they dressed up a little more in their everyday lives. In years past (up through the 1950s), professional people used to “dress” for work and it made them look polished and like they took pride in their work.
However, I still like the idea of “play clothes” and “school (or work) clothes”. I wear good clothes when I go into the world, but change out of them when I come home. Then, I can make these clothes last and look good for longer. My husband was not raised with this concept. So when we go out in the evening, his better clothes are in the dirty laundry or dry cleaning bag from wearing earlier in the week. Unless you are the super-rich with unlimited resources to spend on clothes, nobody needs to wear their best cashmere sweater to take a nap on the couch with the dog.
I love your work Imogen! very inspiring, helpfull and practical to apply! a big hug to you and your team, Greetings from ViƱa del Mar, Chile
Great advice. Lingerie is no exception. Wear the nice stuff!
I took this post to heart and started wearing more of my nicer things that I used to save for client meetings or interviews. Hopefully I won’t regret it when I need it and it’s a little more worn.
I think it’s easy to get confused here between dress-up clothes (which are more formal or evening-wear and so not appropriate for most days) and just better quality stuff one might be saving for no really good reason.
Re: changing upon getting home, I usually do it, too, for comfort as well as protecting the stuff. But, I try to make my house things reasonably nice — this is what my husband sees me in most of the time, after all.