September feels like a new year to me.

There’s something about coming back from summer, rested and a little changed, that brings with it this sense of optimism. Then life starts to pick up speed, there are things to look forward to, the diary is filling up, and that familiar feeling of wanting to get back into routine.

And I think we expect our wardrobes to somehow meet us there.

Well at least I do.

For most of the summer, I’d been dressing from a suitcase. I had a (relatively) small capsule of clothes with me and getting dressed became straightforward. There weren’t that many decisions to make.

Then I came home and walked into my wardrobe and had this weird feeling of intimidation.

All the clothes. All the possibilities.

But not in a good way.

Suddenly I was back to dressing for real life again. Different places, different occasions, different versions of myself required throughout a week. Getting dressed mattered again in a way it hadn’t when I was away.

The weird thing was that I felt different, but my clothes were exactly the same.

September does that.

You arrive at the new season with new energy and new cravings, while simultaneously being bombarded with images of what’s next. Fashion Week, magazines, campaigns, shop windows… everything is telling us about newness.

Then you look inside your own wardrobe and it can feel as though it hasn’t quite caught up.

Then comes the urge to solve that feeling by shopping. New season, new me and all that.

But before I buy anything, I want to reconnect with what I already have.

Because maybe the wardrobe doesn’t need to change quite as much as the way I’m looking at it.

Start somewhere else… 

When I’m feeling uninspired by my clothes, I’ve realised that standing in front of my wardrobe and demanding that I suddenly become creative rarely works.

So I do this instead…

I need to fill myself up first.

That might mean going to an exhibition, seeing a film, noticing an incredible interior or picking up a magazine. I’ve just been reading The Gentlewoman, which I subscribe to, and there’s something about its aesthetic that stimulates me creatively. The photography, the typography, the clothes, the women, the way everything has been put together.

It fills me from the inside.

And once I’ve had that feeling, I want to go back to my own wardrobe and play.

The inspiration doesn’t even have to be fashion related. I think we sometimes look too literally for outfit inspiration when what we really need is something that makes us feel something. A colour combination. A proportion. A mood. An attitude.

You’re not necessarily looking for something to copy. You’re looking for a spark.

Wear the thing you haven’t worn

Something I started doing during Covid was arranging my rail roughly from least worn to most worn.

Instead of automatically reaching for the familiar end, I would start dressing from the neglected one.

I still love doing this.

Choose one thing you haven’t worn for ages and put it on. Not because you’ve decided it needs to stay in your wardrobe forever, but because you’re curious about it.

What is its energy now?

Does it still feel like you?

Does it work with the life you actually have?

And, importantly, how does it feel to live in it?

I’m not really interested in standing in front of a mirror for thirty seconds and deciding whether something stays or goes. Clothes are experienced in motion. You have to sit down in them, walk somewhere, catch your reflection unexpectedly, spend a few hours being yourself in them.

Sometimes something I’d completely forgotten about suddenly feels brilliant again simply because I’m wearing it differently.

Other times I put something on and immediately want to take it off.

That tells me something too.

It’s a much gentler way of editing a wardrobe than pulling everything out and demanding that you decide, in one afternoon, who you are going to be for the entire season.

Don’t make it make sense

I think this might be the most important part.

Play.

Take the forgotten thing and wear it with the thing you always wear. Put together two pieces you wouldn’t normally think belong together. Change the shoe. Add something slightly wrong. Wear the smarter thing during the day or the casual thing somewhere unexpected.

Not every outfit needs to work.

In fact, maybe that’s the point.

We can become so concerned with defining our style and creating the perfect wardrobe that we remove all the experimentation that allowed us to develop our style in the first place.

There’s freedom in putting something on simply to see what happens.

And I think that is what I was craving when I came home. I don’t actually need an entirely new wardrobe. I needed my existing wardrobe to feel alive again.

Because the clothes might be the same, but I’m not.

So yes, September is the return… to routines and responsibilities, but hopefully bringing a little of that summer version of ourselves back with us. I want my clothes to create some visual harmony with that feeling… for the outside to express what is happening inside.

And I know newness doesn’t always have to come from something new.

It comes from noticing something again…

From …

• wearing the forgotten thing.
• putting together two things that don’t quite make sense.
• being curious about what still feels like you, and importantly, what doesn’t.
• allowing your wardrobe to evolve with you rather than the knee jerk reaction of wanting to replace it every time you do.

So that’s what I’m doing this September.

Not trying to reinvent my wardrobe.

Just playing in it again.

Letting creativity lead the way.

Have a good week,

Penny.