How I learned to dress myself (aged 45 and a quarter)

A personal style formula that has nothing to do with clothes

There is a dress that hangs in my wardrobe that has no place being there. It is the daintiest little thing: puffed-sleeved, semi-transparent and covered in dozens of laser-cut daisies. It is not my style at all, which has always tended towards the mannish and sombre. Why then has it remained there, worn just once on a summer’s afternoon nine years ago? I shall tell you why: because of the way it made me feel.

It is nothing special by the way. It’s from Zara for a start, and the arm holes have always been too tight. Yet when I wore in one June afternoon I was stopped by at least seven different women exclaiming how beautiful it was. 

And well, that felt good. Better than good actually. It felt exhilarating. 

My wardrobe is full of feelings. I realised that last week as I began the mother of all wardrobe clear-outs. I swung back the doors and bam! There they were: shame, joy, regret, excitement- the whole emotional gamut, tumbling out of dresses and trousers and tops not worn in years. 

There is a long, floor length gown in blackcurrant velvet that makes me wistful for a time when I used to have places to go where I wore such things. And a long, chartreuse silk skirt that is at least three sizes too small and which makes me feel guilty every time I see it. There is a hysterical bubble-pink handmade linen dress that I saw some gamine young thing flitting about the Ibizan countryside in on Instagram and thus decided my life needed one too. (It didn’t. It hasn’t. And it never will). And a pair of leather (leather!) jeans that make me feel a complete fraud every time I wear them.

When I have attempted wardrobe clear-outs in the past, I have always abided by the same rules: group together your ‘specials’’; find a place for your ‘everydays’ and throw out anything you haven’t worn for at least two years.  But recently I have found a far more effective way of creating a wardrobe that truly works for you.