The Woman we keep dressing for

Our wardrobes often remember who we were long after we've changed. There is a version of ourselves hiding in almost every wardrobe.

She lives in the dress bought for evenings that became fewer than expected. She wears the tailored trousers from a previous job, the heels purchased for a lifestyle that no longer fits and the silk blouse we imagined wearing once life slowed down.

She isn't a mistake. She is simply a reminder that our lives change faster than our wardrobes do.

Clothes have a remarkable ability to become time capsules. We rarely keep garments because of the fabric alone. We keep them because they carry a memory - a first promotion, a holiday abroad, a body that felt different, the years before children, the woman we thought we were becoming.

Perhaps that's why letting go is rarely about the clothes themselves. It's about acknowledging that a chapter has ended.

I've realized that my wardrobe holds another version of me too. It reminds me of everything I worked towards before becoming a mother. Long days in fashion. Ambitious goals. The excitement of building a career. Somewhere inside those clothes still lives the little girl who dreamed of working in this industry, and I find it surprisingly difficult to separate that dream from the person I am today.

We often say that we are more than our jobs, and I believe that's true, yet work shapes us. It gives rhythm to our days, confidence to our identity and, sometimes, even influences how we see ourselves. When that rhythm changes, our wardrobes quietly reveal the gap between who we were and who we've become.

Motherhood didn't make me care less about style, if anything, it made me appreciate it more, but it simply changed what I needed from it. I no longer need a wardrobe that only reflects my work. I need one that reflects my life. A life that moves between client meetings and pre-K pick-ups, coffee with friends and evenings at home, playgrounds and dinners that feel wonderfully overdue. A wardrobe that allows me to feel like myself through all of it, rather than asking me to become a different woman every time I change my shoes.

For me, that often begins with denim. If I could wear jeans to a black-tie dinner, I probably would. There is something reassuring about them. Reliable. Comfortable. Familiar. They ask very little while making almost everything else feel more effortless. My collection has grown to occupy an entire shelf, not because I'm searching for the perfect pair, but because they seem to understand this season of life better than almost anything else in my wardrobe.

These days, getting dressed feels less romantic than it once did. I wish I could tell you that every morning begins with quiet reflection and thoughtful decisions about the woman I want to become. The truth is rather less poetic. Most mornings begin by negotiating with a tired face in the mirror while mentally calculating the day ahead. Meetings I know about. The ones I don't. A nursery phone call that might come. Traffic. Grocery shopping. A last-minute dinner. Life has become wonderfully unpredictable, and my wardrobe has had to learn that too.

Perhaps that's what this season has taught me more than anything. Not to dress for the day I hope will unfold, but for the life I know I have.

For a long time, I thought holding on to older versions of myself was a way of honoring them. Now I'm beginning to wonder whether honoring them might actually mean letting them go. Not because they no longer matter, but because they brought me here.

Maybe our wardrobes aren't meant to preserve every woman we've ever been. Maybe they're meant to grow alongside us, making space for every new chapter without asking us to forget the last.

The clothes that no longer serve us don't diminish who we once were, they simply remind us that we've had the privilege of becoming someone else.

And perhaps that's something worth making room for.

Most wardrobes are not built. They are accumulated.

One thoughtful purchase. One impulse buy. One dress bought for a holiday that somehow never feels right again. Over time, our wardrobes become a collection of moments rather than a reflection of the lives we live today.

Over the past decade, "buy with intention", "no-buy years" and capsule wardrobes have become part of the modern style conversation. We are encouraged to consume less, choose better and resist the endless cycle of trends. The advice is sensible. Yet for many of us, it proves surprisingly difficult to sustain.

Like restrictive diets, these rules often rely on willpower alone. We promise ourselves that this season will be different. We avoid shopping for weeks, perhaps even months, until a special occasion, a stressful week or an irresistible sale quietly persuades us otherwise. One purchase becomes another, and before long we're back where we started—not because we lack discipline, but because we were trying to change our habits rather than our approach.

Perhaps the question isn't how to buy less. Perhaps it's how to buy with greater clarity.

I have never been drawn to minimalism for its own sake. Clothes bring me joy, and I don't believe the answer is owning five interchangeable outfits or wearing the same uniform every day. Life is rarely that simple. Our wardrobes need to move with us through work, motherhood, weekends away, dinners with friends and the occasional celebration. Dressing well should feel expressive, not restrictive.

The problem isn't variety, but accumulation without intention.

When we shop according to our mood rather than our wardrobe, we collect pieces that make perfect sense in a particular moment but quickly lose their place afterwards. A beautiful blouse bought for a holiday. Shoes purchased because they were on sale. A dress that belonged to the version of ourselves we hoped to become.

These pieces occupy more than physical space. They create emotional clutter. We hesitate to let them go because each carries a memory, a possibility or a little guilt, so we keep them for another season, just in case. Eventually, our wardrobes become fragmented.

We stop seeing what we own as one complete collection and instead divide it into separate lives: clothes for work, clothes for weekends, clothes for holidays, clothes for special occasions. While there will always be room for the extraordinary—the dress reserved for celebrations or the coat that only comes out each winter—I don't believe our wardrobes should feel like disconnected chapters.

The most satisfying wardrobes aren't necessarily the smallest, nor are they the most expensive. They are the ones where every piece belongs, because a wardrobe isn't built through restraint alone – it is built through intention.

Dea

Starting point

There are so many things I want to write about, so many things I want to say, and do, that everything becomes an amalgam and mush and I end up doing nothing for the longest time. Let me just start small, with this post, and see what happens if I don’t give up. I’ll take my time, sure, but I’ll show up, because this is the year I’ve started to say “YES!!” to myself and figure the rest out afterwards. I don’t mean this in a selfish way, and I find it jarring I even have to mention this - is it just me, or just us, women, with so much doubt? I’m tired of it.

The starting point has been exactly this - showing up for myself every day. At first it felt funny, like I was supposed to take care of everyone and everything else first and then, if there is time, to think of myself. I dared to switch it up back in January and I got back to writing and doing what I love in July. It took me a minute, but I had to catch up on many things I have neglected.

For the most part, I’ve realized while reading a few books on art and other such topics, I feared judgement mixed with a fear of the unknown. Then I’ve realized that cliches become so because they contain truth - so the “people will judge you no matter what you do” started to ring differently, somehow. I mentioned “art books and such topics” because this not what I normally read. However, branching out of my usual type of literature has helped tremendously, because, like in many other instances, the best ideas come from outside your comfort zone / industry.

I don’t have the secret sauce on what flipped inside me, but I guess I just got tired of holding myself back, too, when so many other things already do. I want this platform to be ours - mothers who refuse to loose themselves, women who love beautiful things, who find joy in getting dressed, who show up for themselves the same way we show up for our families. Women who want to stop hiding for fear of judgement, who want to laugh and have a good moment with girlfriends and enjoy a moment to themselves as well, without guilt.

Dea