The Fringe Benefits of a Functional Wardrobe

How decluttering my clothes into a capsule wardrobe helped me to not just rebuild my life, but also reconstruct my identity!

It caused much laughter, sweat and tears - but it was all worth it!

October 2019

6 AM. My phone’s alarm starts ringing. It is a particularly loud and shrieking song, and for some inexplicable reason, I had chosen to turn up the phone’s vibrating capacity to its maximum potential as well. The sum effect is that of a minor earthquake, jarringly close to my eardrums.

Last night’s 11.45 PM me, really wanted me to get up at 6 AM. But 6 AM me swiftly hits the Snooze button and, through the dark, is trying to use muscle memory to turn off the alarm entirely.

15 Minutes later – the whole cycle repeats.

This time, I am cursing out loud. Why did I put on three alarms, again?

And then, it strikes me. I jump out of bed in panic. I remember that today is the day of the Big and Important Meeting.

Today is when I need to be at the office by 9 AM -an hour and a half earlier than usual!

Which means I need to be inside the Delhi Metro and on my way, by at least 7.50 AM.

Which means that I must quickly bathe, get ready and eat something within the next hour.

I have even requested Geeta (my house help) to come in a bit early so that breakfast would be hot and ready by 7.30 AM.

Today is a day I need to look my best, and feel my best too.

I had it all planned, and everything was going swell, time-wise.

Until, I opened my closet, took one look at all my clothes piled high, and thought – “What do I wear to work, today?!”

You see, typically, I had a ‘uniform’ that I would wear to work.

They were a set of 10 outfits i.e. 2 sets of formal pants and matching shirts, 2 long skirts with their matching shirts, 3 kurtas with leggings, and 3 modest and loosely-fitted dresses that would not draw any attention to my shape or personality. I lived in the national capital and that meant extreme weather and extreme health and safety issues. I would commute long hours in different modes of public transport, and my work typically required me to sit at a desk and communicate with people mostly via email.

So, workwear was clothing and accessories that enabled me to walk and move around easily. They were also specifically chosen to render me inconspicuous!

These were clothes I had separated from the rest and put into a smaller cupboard. They were akin to a school uniform, because the alternative of curating an outfit every morning was always a monumental task. At least with this self-imposed uniform, I had one less decision to make in a day.

But this wintry October morning required me to Dress to Impress, and that was, to put it quite simply, a daunting mission.

That morning, despite knowing what was at stake - it took me nearly 40 minutes to decide what to wear. I found myself wishing I had made the outfit decision the previous night instead. Not only was I frantically running the entire distance from the Metro station to the office, but also, upon arrival, my kajal was badly smudged and my hair was flying in every direction. And my outfit of the day, a custom-stitched salwar kameez that was neatly ironed in the morning was now badly crinkled.

Apparently, ghoulish was the look that I was going for!

Furthermore, I had not finished my breakfast and there was a small mountain of clothes tossed all around the room, because I did not have enough time to fold them back into the cupboard.

And instead of powering through that Big and Important Meeting feeling like the Manager and Girl Boss that I believed I was – at the back of my mind lay the thought – “Me and my life, it is one hot mess, like the one waiting for me at home, isn’t it?”

Back then –my life’s song used to be– “I got 99 problems, but a personal style ain’t one!” (Apologies to Jay-Z!). My biggest problem was also the biggest cliché - I had so many clothes, but nothing to wear.

Let me clarify, I am not someone who loves to shop or impulsively buys things. In fact, am quite the opposite because sustainability weighs in on a lot of my personal decision-making.

But I was someone who was a compulsive hoarder. I would keep things for years and years, decades even - especially clothes.

My life has always been nomadic, moving homes and hostels and cities, every two or three years. Logic and good sense dictate that I ought to be someone who can “let go” and “move on” easily. Especially when keepsakes become like excess baggage – tedious, heavy, and expensive to transport around.

But, for this nomadic and maudlin heart, heavy emotions were attached or transplanted onto all the things that belonged to me. Perhaps I did not belong anywhere, but knowing that I carried my 'world' with me, centered my identity and a lot of my beliefs.

And when it came to my clothes, there was this other fact. I was in Absolute Denial that sometime between the age of 15-30 years - my lifestyle, my preferences, and my body had changed. As it naturally would and ought to have changed, because 15 years was literally half of my entire life!

But when it came to e.g. my favourite sleeveless purple and silver sparkly top, or my 2000’s style low-waist jeans that I last wore when I was 18 and had a waistline of 26 inches (sigh!), or a 90s styled denim jacket that could not zip up anymore but had a cute cat pattern all over it – 29 year old me still believed that “a day would come” when I could wear it all again.

As if that 18-year- old body was just one gym workout session away.

It really was Denial – with a capital D!

Fortunately, those days of abysmal Denial are now behind me.

Within a month of that disastrously memorable October morning, I started making some changes. Little changes every day. There were entire weekends that had me sorting just one cupboard, in an effort to declutter. Of course, I would overthink and agonise over every single item, but I soldiered on.

Those clothes I had since I was teen – I donated to Geeta’s daughters who are actual teenagers. I would request that they visit me when they would wear something I had handed them. They would do so happily, not knowing that seeing their wide smiles gave me some mental peace that all my beloved clothes were being used well.

The next step was a massive learning and unlearning about fashion, styling and what it would take to really achieve a functional wardrobe. I started watching and consuming a lot of fashion content on YouTube, that was rather uncharacteristic of me.

You see, I had perceived fashion to be frivolous and not something for the “grown-up”, frugal, and environmentally conscious woman like me.

That was a massive bias that I had to check right at the door.

The truth is that the clothes we wear, the accessories we choose, how you do your hair – all broadly categorised under the umbrella term ‘fashion’ – really has the ability to transform our lives internally, as much as it shapes the perception of the people who see you.

There is even a theory that actually tested the effect clothing has upon a person’s mental process and the way they think, feel, and function, in areas like attention, confidence, or abstract thinking. It is called enclothed cognition (Adam & Galinsky, 2012).

For all you fashion sceptics out there, I highly recommend reading the original paper published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

I tried to imagine what it could be like have a functional method of accessing that kind of power and I gradually discovered that there are many, many people who have studied and experimented with this theory themselves. I narrowed down a list of content creators on YouTube that really spoke to me. They were ultra-feminine, and yet put functionality as the top priority for their wardrobe and personal style.

I dove deep into more research on fabric choices, colour theory, understanding and experimenting what is my body type and skin’s undertone … and with each video, it felt like a new chapter opened that got me quite excited about the possibilities ahead.

When I look back at those months that followed … I recollect that I would rush home from work and put on those YouTube channels to play on loop on my TV. I would then sit cross-legged on my couch with a little black book in my lap and frantically make a ton of careful notes.

What I learned even just about myself, fashion-wise, really astonished me.

Did you know that there is a ‘science’ to knowing which colours typically work for you?

It is often erroneously (and judgmentally) assumed to be based on your skin’s colour, but actually it is your skin’s undertone which determines it.

This factor made me realise why some clothes looked better on my mother, and some worked out better for me. We do look similar, but these subtler lessons made me realise that my skin’s undertone is slightly different than my mother’s undertone. Royal Purple is a colour that I ought to avoid wearing, which was eye-opening because it was a colour I would especially scout and shop for back in my college days.

The biggest reveal was in examining the modern-day purchasing process, my own choices in correlation to my lifestyle and in gaining a know-how about clothing – especially fast fashion and the illusion of branded clothing.

I finally understood why I ended up having a wardrobe literally overflowing with clothes, and yet that unyielding response to it that “I still have nothing to wear!”

In the spirit of full disclosure, I shall mention that finally curating my functional – or the new term I learned – “capsule” wardrobe took nearly a year.

It has been the stuff of hysterical laughter, 4-hour conversations, intense study, arguments, numerous hilarious situations and on one occasion, tears as well. A couple of my friends and peers perhaps avoided taking my calls for a while, because this was the recurring topic that they were subjected to listen to me prattle on and on about.

The day I achieved this feat, it felt like a personal milestone.

I now own < or = 275 clothes at a time– which includes saris and other Indian wear, Western wear, winter clothes and special occasion wear. It does not include my athleisure wear and my collection of scarves. And yes, there was an intense process into why and how I landed upon the magic number of 275 as well!

My entire wardrobe today is a personal style statement that empowers me and most importantly, it is fully functional and does not need to cross that number of 275!

Since January 2020, I have bought clothes on 5 separate instances. This includes two instances of online purchases, a recent trip to Decathlon exclusively for the purchase of Athleisure wear and the remaining two instances were visits to actual clothing stores.

And in all of those separate instances – I have carried (or referenced) my massive sketch book and opened it to this page.

Colour Me Ready! [My Capsule Wardrobe's MoodBoard]

Behold! Take a minute to study this painstakingly curated, handwritten and hand painted visual that is my Capsule Mood board. Everything shown here underpins my current functional wardrobe.

Call it a culmination of a pilgrimage towards attaining clothing efficiency.

And like magic, it has made my life a whole lot easier.

JK Rowling’s Harvard Commencement speech of 2008 is famously titled ‘The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination.’ It is one of my favourite things to watch, when my spirits are low and I am in desperate need for motivation.

Today – I am going to borrow the term ‘fringe benefits’ in a similar vein as she used in there. These being, the unforeseen additional benefits that have actualised after you plan for something and then witness its outcome.

Let me conclude by sharing the fringe benefits of my having a functional wardrobe today.

Firstly, there are less decisions for me to make on a very crucial aspect of my life.

It gives me an immense satisfaction in knowing that I will never have to go through a rough winter morning like the one back in October 2019.

Decision fatigue is one of those terms that millennials are accused of overusing and thereby, undermining all the time. But I know it to be real and with very unhealthy consequences. My functional wardrobe has improved not only my clothing efficiency, but also my overall productivity. It has led to more time being spent on doing the things I love. And now when I have to spend a little time curating an outfit– my approach is that of a happy and joyous pursuit, rather than panic-inducing stress.

Secondly, my minimal wardrobe now has clothes that actually fit me and flatter my personality and shape.

This has done wonders - literal wonders, for how I feel about my body. I find myself embracing my curves and have become grateful to be in a healthy body that has so far, treated me very kindly. This has also motivated me to treat my body better – I eat healthier and work out 5 days a week. And while there are other factors that have aided this self-love and acceptance, there is undeniable evidence in the outcome of the functioning capsule wardrobe for boosting my mindfulness towards my body.

And finally, the functional wardrobe has enabled a massive transition towards a more zero-waste and sustainable lifestyle.

And to think I was afraid to focus on my own style and wardrobe believing that it would make me spend more time and money on my clothes! Instead I ended up learning a lot more about the environment, production cycles, upcycling, and waste management. I buy lesser, but what I buy is of superior quality and worth every rupee when I comprehend the social and environmental costs incurred.

All that, along with the fact that any item of clothing I have is either multipurpose, or goes easily with other items of my clothing and genuinely gives me a sense of joy and power!

Imagine me singing “I Got You (I Feel Good)” by James Brown as I conclude this essay. What's funny is that it was my phone’s alarm tone that fateful October morning!

But I now feel the soul in those lyrics:

“Whoa! And I feel good, I knew that I would, now I feel good, I knew that I would So good, so good, ‘cause I got you!”

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REFERENCES:

• Adam, H., & Galinsky, A. D. (2012). Enclothed cognition. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(4), 918–925. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.02.008

• TEDxUTSC. [Tedx Talks]. (2018, September 20). The Power of Fashion/Maria Raveendran [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/nqTu3CYqWvo

• Bingaman, M. [TEDxTalks]. (2021, January 12). The Link Between Personal Style and Identity | Molly Bingaman | TEDxUMKC [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/VQxI59BQC9Y

• Beth, A. [Alexandrasgirlytalk]. (2019, September 27). How to Dress Better [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/ljf4l6Nuh8Q

• The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination. (2008, May 6). Harvard Magazine. https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2008/06/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination

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Are you someone who REALLY related to this tale?

And do you want to know a step-by-step process to achieve a functional wardrobe for yourself?

Obviously, you and I are not the same people, so we can tweak it along the way - but I would be happy to provide you with a free PDF that guides you through all the resources and methods I accessed.

If you are interested, and think this will add some value to your life - let me know in the comments below.

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