4 Ways to Improve Your Relationship with Your Wardrobe

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Some people naturally love fashion, and picking out the outfit of the day comes naturally to them and brings with it a sense of satisfaction and bliss.
For many other people, though, clothes are a tricky subject, and their relationship status with their wardrobes is complicated.
The clothes we wear have a tremendous ability to impact our wellbeing, our sense of ourselves and our self-confidence. We all want to look our best — and ideally, also have our dress sense appreciated by the people we encounter over the course of day to day life.
But it can be difficult to feel good about clothes when you’ve got various hangups and complex feelings surrounding your outfit of the season.
Here are some ways to improve your relationship with your wardrobe.

Get a sense for which styles flatter your body
Not all clothes will fit equally well on all people. There is an art to identifying the right garments, cuts and fabrics to flatter your body shape, and if you constantly overlook the importance of this consideration, it’s not surprising that you’d end up feeling disheartened and uncomfortable.
TM Lewin’s guide to womens shirt sizes is as good a starting point as any to get you thinking about different shirt sizes and styles to flatter your physique. For example, women with a voluptuous “apple” shaped body will generally benefit from a loose fit blousy style shirt. A classically curvy hourglass figure, on the other hand, is likely to be well-served by a fitted or semi-fitted style shirt, that tapers in at the waist.
Some of this stuff is, of course, going to be a matter of personal experimentation. You should try out different types of clothing and different fits and styles to see, firsthand, what works for you. Sometimes a style that you thought would flatter your form might not, while at other times, you may be pleasantly surprised by just how good a particular garment does, in fact, look on you.

Take a “quality over quantity” approach
People who are a bit insecure and uncomfortable about their relationship with clothes, will often take a “quantity over quality” approach to clothes shopping. They won’t be willing to spend much money on a given item of clothing, and they will tend to treat clothing shopping as a bit of a chore.
In practice, this often means buying a large number of cheap, low-quality clothes, often without even trying them on, for the sake of having things to wear at a pinch.
If you’re trying to develop a more meaningful sense of your own personal style, it may be a good idea to switch instead to a “quality over quantity” approach, where you buy fewer clothes, but ensure that the clothes you do buy fit you well, are comfortable, make you feel good, and are built to last.
Having a handful of flattering, high-quality outfits in your wardrobe is likely to make you feel a lot better than having several hundred faded, baggy T-Shirts with ironic quotes.

Step out of your comfort zone and force yourself to be a bit more daring with your style
Sometimes people never really explore the world of fashion, or expand their fashion horizons, specifically because they're insecure about their style and don’t want to step outside of their comfort zone.
Of course, you shouldn’t force yourself to wear clothes that you don’t like, and there’s no benefit in wearing some ultra-bizarre experimental runway dress that will make you feel mortified to step out in public, and that will ensure that everyone stops and stares.
But if you have a dress in your wardrobe that you’ve been dying to wear, but just don’t feel that “the time is right” or that you’re “brave enough”, you should consider forcing yourself to put it on and go out.
Stepping outside of your comfort zone is necessary in order to expand your horizons; both in terms of your personal style, and in life, in general.

Consider getting friends, family, or your partner, to help you shop
Shopping for clothes on your own can be a stressful and unsettling experience, specifically because you might not trust your own judgment about an outfit. You may think; “I think this looks good, but what if I’m wrong? What if everyone else will hate it? What if it looks really bad from an angle I can’t see?”
An easy solution here might be to go shopping with friends, family members, or even your partner, and to get their feedback on different outfits.

Of course, you’ll want to bring along people who can offer constructive feedback, not people who will just tell you that everyone looks great, or who will be cruel in their judgements.
*This post is in collaboration with FatJoePublishing