What Should I Wear? Part 1

One of the things you may want to consider in retirement is your wardrobe.  Professions come with wardrobe expectations.  Two things to think about regarding your current clothing are,

1. Do you like your work wardrobe? 

2. Does it fit in your new life? 

A friend of mine is a retired nurse.  She wore scrubs every day to work and had very little to think about with regard to fashion and fit.  Another friend was the superintendent of schools in a larger district.  While an outdoor woman at heart, the majority of her wardrobe was business clothing and not the jeans and sweatshirts she preferred.  How do you create a wardrobe for your new life?  Consider these questions.

What is your work wardrobe?

How was your work wardrobe different than your weekend wardrobe?  If you wore jeans and T-shirts to work every day and you generally lived in those cloths all of the time, you may not need to change at all.

You may have had to wear nice, comfortable cloths during your work day.  Maybe you worked in retail, or as a teacher, or in a business office doing payroll or human resources for example.  Your weekend wardrobe was probably a bit different than your work wardrobe, but the two might have been semi interchangeable

You may have had to wear professional attire in your prior life and invested in well made, high quality garments.  In this case you probably kept your eye on fashion and have something appropriate for every event.  Will you wear these cloths when you are retired?  You might wear some of them, however it is likely you will also add to your casual collection as well.

Do I like my weekend style?

Was your weekend style sweatshirts and leggings, something really comfortable you could throw on to do your weekend chores, drive your kids to and from their activities and other things to keep your household running?  The weekend may have been your time to spend outdoors, doing things like camping, boating, hiking, biking and etc. Going to church and/or the Country Club may have been a regular Sunday activity.  I would guess your wardrobe for the two days a week was probably much smaller than your work wardrobe.

Do you want to wear weekend clothing all week long or do you want to change it up?

While you are exploring ideas for your new life, think about what you want it to look like.  Remember-you are in charge of your new destiny.  Chances are, your style will be similar to what it is now, but there will be differences.  You may still go camping on the weekends or even for weeks at a time, but you might also want to have something in your closet that isn’t just for camping.   If you have a specific work wardrobe like scrubs or a uniform, you weekend wardrobe was most likely very different than what you wore when you were working.  It may also be a little outdated due to the fact you never wore it out because you rarely wore each item.

What you can do now?

Take stock of your wardrobe.  You can organize this however you want.  You may want to organize by categories, or closets and drawers.  I believe it’s best to organize in stages so it isn’t so overwhelming.  For example,  you and take clothing out of one drawer and go through each item, checking first to see if it fits and second deciding if you still like it.  You may have a couple of bags handy, one for donations and on for garbage.  Only put clothing back in that drawer or closet that you really want to keep.  If you have a hard time parting with your items, a stop-gap is to put the donation bags someplace safe and let them sit for one year.  If you don’t need anything from those bags for a year, send the bags on to where you’re going to donate them.  Don’t even look inside the bags, just put them in your car and donate them.  Your clothing will bring great joy to someone who really needs them.

Don’t make this a rush job.  It took me a few years to decide to give some things away.  That lovely blazer I wore to parent meetings, those trousers that had just the right fit, the dress I wore to my daughter’s 5th grade graduation ceremony.  They are all gone now.  There is no such thing as ageless clothing.  A colleague of mine, a much loved 30 something teacher, was willed her aunts wardrobe. She came to work one day with a ’70’s style dress and a matching scarf tied around her neck.  Her high school students probably gave her lots of grief that day because I never saw her wear the look again.  Everything goes out of style eventually. If it doesn’t have elements of the current styles, let it go.

Take some time on a rainy afternoon and delve into your closets and drawers.  Give yourself a set amount of time, for example, 1/2 hour every Monday, so you are sure to start and finish your project.  Breaking tasks into manageable bites often makes them more appealing to start and finish. Remember, it’s not a chore, it’s a labor of love. Attitude is everthing.