Chelsea Brice talks to CM readers about all things style.
WHY GETTING DRESSED FEELS SO HARD
Even when your wardrobe is full, one of the most common things I hear from women is: “I have a wardrobe full of clothes, but I still feel like I have nothing to wear.”
Usually, they’re right about the first part.
Their wardrobe is full.
It may even be full of beautiful clothes. Pieces they genuinely loved when they bought them. Colours that suit them. Jackets that make a statement. Tops that looked fabulous in the fitting room. But when it’s time to get dressed, none of it seems to come together.
After 13 years as a personal stylist and more than 1,000 clients, I’ve learned that this feeling rarely means someone is bad at style. More often, it comes down to one, or a combination, of three things.
The first is buying individual pieces rather than building outfits.You can own six beautiful jackets, but if you only have one top that works underneath them, getting dressed will still feel difficult. You can buy the perfect pair of trousers, but if they don’t work with your shoes, your tops or the way you actually spend your days, they may remain hanging in your wardrobe with the tags attached.There is nothing wrong with loving fashion or buying something simply because it makes your heart sing. I certainly do. But a wardrobe needs connection. The pieces need friends.
The second reason is that many wardrobes belong to a previous version of the person standing in front of them. Perhaps your body has changed. Your work has changed. You’ve moved cities, entered a different stage of life or simply stopped wanting to dress the way you did five years ago. Yet, every morning, you’re trying to build an outfit from clothes chosen for a body, lifestyle or identity that no longer quite fits. That doesn’t mean you need to reinvent yourself completely. Sometimes the answer is transformation, but often it’s simply stabilisation: understanding where you are now and creating a wardrobe that supports that version of you.
The third reason is the belief that everybody else instinctively knows how to dress. They don’t. Some people have learned what works through years of experimenting. Others repeat the same safe outfits because they’re frightened of getting it wrong. Many are quietly standing in front of their own wardrobes thinking exactly what you are. Style isn’t something you either have or you don’t. It becomes easier when you understand yourself, your proportions, style personality and, most importantly, how those things work together in your real life. This is why I’ve never believed in giving every client the same list of wardrobe “must-haves” or turning every woman into an identical, perfectly polished capsule-wardrobe version of herself. I work more like a detective. I want to know who you are, how you spend your time, what you reach for repeatedly and what you constantly avoid. I want to understand what has changed, where getting dressed feels difficult and what you need your clothing to do for you because the right wardrobe for a corporate executive will look completely different from the right wardrobe for someone working from home, running between school drop-offs, attending events, travelling regularly or doing all of those things in the same week.
The goal isn’t to follow more rules. It’s to understand yourself well enough to make better decisions and to know why something works, what it connects with and where it fits into your life. When your wardrobe reflects the person you are today, the pieces begin working together and you have a clear plan, something shifts.Getting dressed starts to feel easier and that is always the goal.