Before I was a parent I had different “categories” of clothing.
Weekend clothing.
Going-out clothing.
Professional(ish; I never was very good at that look) clothing.
And now? Now I just have clothing.
Because if there’s one thing you can say about motherhood, it’s that it’s unpredictable; it’s rare that a day goes by without one plan or another getting completely turned on its head. Yesterday’s plans, for example, involved a shoot in the morning and meetings all afternoon, but 9AM saw me and that lovely, high-heel-inclusive outfit that I had been planning to photograph sitting in my car on I-95, headed to Connecticut with a feverish baby (she’s OK now).
So you can get dressed for one activity or another, but you’re virtually guaranteed to end up doing something in that clothing that you didn’t intend to: crawling around in a sandbox in your favorite pair of heels, or suddenly having to meet with your child’s teacher in your grossest pair of sweatpants. And contrary to what you might think, that’s turned out to be very freeing: it’s made me start just wearing whatever it is that I feel like wearing on a given day, without worrying too much about things like…oh, I don’t know, occasion. What I think makes “sense.”
And the byproduct of this is that I’ve become much less precious about my clothing: I don’t save those “interesting” or “fun” or whatever pieces that are hanging in my closet for special occasions, because seriously: if I wait until my next big glamorous event to break out my favorite dress, it’s going to be hanging there a long (long long long) time. So I’ve stopped waiting, and have started just wearing those special things – those weird things, those things that maybe aren’t even necessarily the “correct” things to wear for a given situation – just because I feel like it.
And so if what I feel like wearing is a burgundy silk jumpsuit, blue high heels and silver eyeliner on a Thursday afternoon (for activities when a pair of yoga pants and sneakers might be a slightly more practical choice), on they go. And if I end up playing a sandbox and the shoes get dirty, so be it. It’s not clothing that’s precious; what’s precious is the things you do while you’re wearing it.
On Me: Boohoo Utility Jumpsuit; Tatiana Pumps ℅ Nine West; J. Crew Purse; Bobbi Brown Glitter Liquid Eyeliner; Tom Ford Glasses (on sale).
