How to self-evaluate an outfit

EFF #26

This week’s newsletter includes a creative exercise at the end which is for paid members only. Don’t forget if you are a fellow writer, artist or maker, I accept barters. Please support if you can.

I was cautious on writing about fashion in this way. To rate an outfit to me means opening ourselves up to the floodgates of criticism, including self-criticism. It also feels closely linked to "rating hotness" which is often underpinned by narrow ideals of beauty and is laden with misogyny (can anyone ever forget that the founder of Facebook created a hot or not app? Still so gross).

I’m not very good with criticism. I don’t like the idea of going around and judging people’s outfits. I like outfit watching and banking inspiration but I’d never give people ‘ratings’. I don’t like the best/worst dressed celebrity lists. I don’t like the idea of fashion hierarchies. But I do believe that fashion is a skill we can work on, one that’s highly personal. Engaging in evaluating our own outfits is something we should choose to do, not as an obligation nor forcing our taste onto others.

If you've read any of my recent newsletters, I've been feeling a disconnect with the way I'm embodying fashion right now and the way I want to embody fashion. I know the solution isn't just buying all the things that I think will fill that gap. It's not as simple as "shopping our wardrobes". I’m all for wearing what we own. But repeating outfits from our wardrobes and hoping wildly things will fall into place is not the answer. I realised I needed to dig deeper and figure out what wasn't connecting.

Fashion takes effort. Fashion takes skill. Fashion takes time and energy. Fashion is a process of continuous evaluation, rejigging and stepping into new, more aligned fashion identities.

To think that fashion is effortless undermines all the people who create designs and who style others. It takes passion, knowledge and skill. That doesn't mean that engaging with fashion should be a moral prerequisite to be treated with respect.

Sometimes we simply can't engage to the extent we'd like to.

Sometimes it's too ambitious. It's too expensive, too time consuming or mentally consuming to build a wardrobe that is going to align with all of our fashion wants and needs. For some of us, all we want is for fashion to be less complicated. We want to wear our clothes without being judged. I get that.

It's another reason I hesitated on writing about self-rating outfits because there have been genuine fucking reasons in the past (and sometimes in the present) that I haven't been able to fully embody the fashion I want to.

Sudden weight gain which narrowed my access. Money. Depression. Working a 9-5+ that I hated. Burnout. In those times, fashion occasionally felt like a connection to a former life, but in general, fashion felt performative and exhausting. In my struggle-times, putting on an outfit that aligned with my fashion aspirations felt so ridiculously far off. I was lucky to find anything that fit. The last thing that would've helped me was "self-evaluating" an outfit. That would've been an instant buzz off. So if that's where you're at right now, I respect that this week's newsletter won't be for you.

The other thing that I considered when writing about this is our collective trauma of being given unsolicited advice. You can't exist for two seconds online in a fat body without someone piping up about how you should live your life.

I remember growing up in the 90s/00s. I was thin, as in I could shop at most stores. But that didn't mean I was thin enough for friends and family and the unsolicited comments were exhausting. There were the obvious weight loss ones and backhanded compliments. Honing on which parts of my body were acceptable, or even ‘pretty’ and what parts clearly weren’t up to their standards. But there was also random advice on how I should dress or actually more to point, how I shouldn't dress. Which parts of my body I should hide.

One last thing I worry about when talking about self-rating or self-criticising an outfit, is the idea of needing to reach an ‘end’ when it comes to our wardrobes. It often feels like if we can just keep up with the trend-based treadmill of fashion rules, we’ll get to some kind of end and finally, finally things will be perfect. But what’s the antithesis to arbitrary rule-based fashion? In my opinion, experimentation, a willingness to fail and recognising that wardrobes will always be in flux.

At the heart of this week's creative exercise, my goal isn’t for you to reach wardrobe perfection. Bodies change, lives change and that means, our wardrobes will also change. My goal is to self-evaluate an outfit so you can get more curious about what you do like.

What I'm here to do is for those who are currently feeling disconnected with their wardrobes an opportunity to self-reflect. Maybe you'll figure out why an outfit isn't working. Or maybe you'll come to realise that you are already brilliant at fashion and the self-doubt is just coming from society.

I'm not here to tell you how to dress. I'm not here to give you unsolicited advice. I'm not here to tell you how to look thinner. I'm not here with the colour seasons or rule-based fashion (no hate if it helps you). I'm not here to tell you which basics you need to buy. I'm not here to put pressure on you to make fashion a priority.

I don't hate my current wardrobe. There are some pieces that I truly love. But there are also so many pieces that are "I like it" or "I can wear it in the summer" or "it fits" and I want more of "I feel so much joy in this outfit".

In the midst of a declutter, I realised that I don't have space for the so-so pieces anymore. Not when there is the potential for more connectedness and joy. And what better way to figure out which outfits bring me that joy then analysing an outfit?

Please note that the creative exercise does include ‘rating’ so assigning numbers which may be loaded for some people.