Looking at photos of myself over the years, I realize I used to have pretty nice clothes. They weren't expensive, but I looked reasonably put together, especially in college, where at my Bible college I was required to wear dresses to class; and in the early days of my marriage, when I still had those college clothes. But somewhere along the line I lost whatever sense of style I had, little as it may have been, and I'm wondering what happened.
I've been thinking about it, and I think I've discovered the answer. My wardrobe suffered from lack of maintenance. Since I had no "style" to speak of, I had no plan, no vision of what my wardrobe should consist of. It was mainly whatever caught my eye, that I could afford, that looked halfway decent on me, that matched at least one other thing in my closet. (One style sense I did have was the love of mixing and matching.) Over the years, as I've changed shape and sizes, what with having babies and growing older, I've outgrown or worn out different items in my closet, and I never replaced them.
Many years ago my wardrobe had a lot of brown and cream. For example, I had a nice brown linen pencil skirt and a cream sweater with pastel flowers embroidered on the shoulder, and to go with it, a pair of tan heels. There is a photo of me wearing that outfit, while holding my first born, who was one year old at the time, and I actually don't cringe when I look at it. But what happened? Well, the waistband on the skirt became too tight--my waistline just never went back that skinny. The sweater became pilled and a little shrunken--and besides, at some point I became disgusted with acrylic sweaters and threw all of mine out. (I did "replace" them, sort of--with cotton sweatshirts! What was I thinking?) I don't remember what happened to the shoes, but my guess is I ran out of things that I felt "went" with them, and got rid of them. Eventually, my wardrobe degenerated to the point where I was wearing jeans everywhere, including church, because that was all I had. It never occurred to me, when I outgrew my brown skirt, to find another brown skirt, to keep my wardrobe going, or to find another cream sweater in a different fiber when I tired of the acrylic one.
Now, I've learned. I've learned that when I find a basic, classic piece of clothing in a color and fit that suits me, I will replace it when it become unwearable, as many times as necessary, until I change my style and I need something else. But I will no longer just let something die. It must be replaced if I want to keep my wardrobe to continue to function efficiently.
