How to dress for your lifestyle sounds like a no brainer but we are constantly bombarded by images selling us items we don’t need. Adding clothes to your wardrobe that don’t fit your lifestyle will leave you frustrated and wondering why you have nothing to wear. Read on to find out how to properly analyze your lifestyle and climate so you can build a wardrobe that’s functional and fashionable.
This is part 2 of the wardrobe revamp series. To read part 1 about defining your personal style, click here.
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Why Dressing For Your Lifestyle Is Important
Fantasy life vs. real life. We all have a fantasy version of ourselves that can be hard to shake. It may be that your life didn’t quite turn out the way you thought it would. Or you imagine that you should be living on a tropical island but in reality you live in a frozen tundra for six months out of the year. Maybe your lifestyle has changed a lot in the last few years. Marriage or divorce, changing or losing a job, retiring, moving to a new place, having children are all examples of how life can change pretty quickly and sometimes we need to adjust our wardrobe along with it.
You can make it easier to get dressed in the morning by ensuring you have the right amount and the right items of clothing for your life. If you ever find that you don’t have the clothes you need for the weather or for a particular activity, then go through the questions below and analyze what your real life is like, not your fantasy life.
Questions To Answer To Dress For Your Lifestyle
These questions will help you to analyze where you spend your time and will then help you decide what types and how many clothes you should have.
- What do you do for the majority of the day? Examples: working at a computer in an office, working at a computer at home, caring for others, retired, etc.
- Are you on your feet or sitting for most of the day?
- Is there a dress code? Scrubs, uniform, business casual, business professional, etc.
- What do you do with your free time? Go out to eat, hang out with friends/family, run errands, lounge at home.
- Do you exercise? How often and to what intensity?
- Do you have to dress formally at all? If so, how often? Formal work events, weddings, black-tie events.
- Are there specific clothing items you need for hobbies/recreation? Hiking, camping, watersports, winter activities, house or outdoor projects, sports.
- How much physical space do you have to store your items?
- What is your financial budget for clothes?
Dress For Your Lifestyle – Climate
The weather also plays a large role in the types of clothes you should own. Answer these questions to narrow down the weather-specific clothing you need.
- What is the climate where you live? Hot, cold, temperate, all of the above?
- Do you experience all 4 seasons or is the weather pretty much the same all year?
- Which specific clothing items do you require for your climate? Snow gear, rain gear, hot/cold weather clothes.
- Which items do you only need for vacations? Swimsuits, skis, snow boots, hiking gear.
How To Dress For Your Lifestyle
Knowing the answers to the questions above will help to determine if a piece of clothing will suit your life. If you love summer dresses but live in a climate that’s cold for most of the year, you may find it difficult to get dressed in those colder months. You can certainly have some of those dresses in your wardrobe, but they will make up a smaller percentage than your cold weather outfits. The same goes for your lifestyle. Filling your wardrobe with ripped jeans and combat boots is no help when you’re trying to get dressed for a business casual office 5 days a week.
It may help to write down the approximate hours you spend on different areas of your life. Then you can see exactly how much time is spent on which activity and what percentage of your wardrobe should fit those activities. If you’re a nerd like me, you might even create a pie chart to map out how you spend your time. 😁
Dress For Your Lifestyle + Personal Style
If you read my post on defining your personal style and you put together a style inspiration board, now is a great time to see how well those images match up with your lifestyle and climate. You can add and remove images to help them align with your life. Are there any obvious gaps? Is your style board for your fantasy self or actual self?
I hope this post was helpful to you. I know it’s helpful for me to have a grasp on my lifestyle when shopping for new clothes. Just because an item matches my personal style doesn’t necessarily mean it will work in my wardrobe if it’s not suited to my life.
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