Explore Your Creative Side with a Wear Your Wardrobe Challenge

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If like me, you sometimes feel bored with your wardrobe, perhaps it’s time to give yourself a Wear Your Wardrobe challenge.

It’s a name I made up right now, so it’s super official.

I’ve been focusing on being intentional and pursuing peace this year, so I decided to take some action by doing a DIY style analysis and a wear my wardrobe challenge.

The challenge has become a handy little method to boost my creativity, recognize what I own, and deal with my iffy items.

My style analysis also gave me helpful touchstones for this fun challenge, too!

I thought that you, my dear fabulous reader, might be interested in doing one yourself.

You can live intentionally with passion and purpose as God’s beloved. You can do this by leaning more into the unique styles that only YOU have!

Let’s dive in!

The Rules

Again, I made these up, so modify as works for you!

• Wear all of your clothing once for a full day, no repeats
• This doesn’t include: out-of-season clothing, “hibernated” clothes (more about that another time), go-to bottoms (example: I have two pairs of jeans), third pieces (i.e. jackets, kimonos, cardigans, vests, etc.), shoes, underwear, and accessories
• Once a piece has been worn and laundered, one of these things happen: it goes back into the closet, it’s moved to a donation pile, it goes into an alternations/modifications pile, or it goes in the trash.
• If you get uber messy because #lifehappens, you always have the freedom to change and try again another time if you so desire.

Wear Your Wardrobe vs. Closet Clean-out

Of course, you can always just do a good old closet clean-out. You know, you pull out all of the clothes in your wardrobe, then sort them into three piles: keep, donate, and trash.

If you haven’t done this before, here’s a couple really great resources about closet clean-outs:

• Frump Fighters: The 5-Day Closet Cleanout Challenge for Moms
• Inside Out Style: 8 Tips to Help You Declutter Your Wardrobe

I have nothing against closet clean-outs. I do it every now and then, too.

Closet clean-outs are so helpful for quickly:

• Removing torn, damaged and worn-out clothing
• Clothing that is too big or too small
• Items that you know immediately are “meh”

For me, it’s all too easy when I do a closet clean-out to think, “Oh, this shirt is so pretty! Of course, I’ll keep it.”

I admire the piece, pop it back in my closet, and then do the maybe-possibly-not-really going to wear it dance.

Goals of a Wear Your Wardrobe Challenge

• More fully use and enjoy my wardrobe
• Visually see what clothes I’m continuing to pass over
• Analyze why I’m passing over certain clothes. Why am I resisting them? Are they clothing orphans? Can they be altered? Do they need to be donated?

Outcomes of my Wear Your Wardrobe Challenges

Thus far, I’ve done two Wear Your Wardrobe challenges – one during hot weather and one during cold weather.

Some fairly obvious outcomes have included:

• Nailing down why I wasn’t wearing items in my wardrobe
• Donating or trashing clothes that just weren’t working and weren’t fixable. I let go of clothes clung in all the wrong places, rode up where they don’t belong, etc.
• Re-finding some gems that got buried
• Enjoyed remixing my standard bottoms (like jeans and shorts) in multiple ways

Why I wasn’t wearing items

During my Wear Your Wardrobe challenges, I pinpointed why I don’t like wearing something and/or avoid it. A few “why’s” included:

• Concerns about showing too much skin when I bend over or a little person tugs on me #everydarnday
• Armholes keep showing my bra straps #feelfrupy
• Button hole gaps #feelsloppy
• Boxy shape
• Clothing orphan – color or cut doesn’t play well with the rest of my wardrobe
• No pockets!
• Awkward sleeve length

My, my, don’t I sound picky?

Isn’t this true, though? Don’t most of us have those pieces that aren’t quite right? We just don’t know what the heck the problem is.

We pull said piece out of our closet. It’s a perfectly fine piece, why won’t I wear it? Then we pop it back in the closet.

Marie Kondo is on to something when she advises only keep things that spark joy. Totally!

I’ve realized, though, that in order to grow in my understanding/relationship with my stuff – I need to know the why.

Why I’m drawn to something. Why I’m not.

Honestly, I think this could apply to much of the stuff in our lives.

DIY alterations

The most unexpected outcomes were related to my DIY alterations.

Recently, I was reminded (for the millionth time) that I don’t need to wait for someone’s permission to make a change in my life.

This includes my wardrobe.

Heck, I already bought and paid for these items.

An Every Day Style podcast recently highlighted how much donated clothing doesn’t get used. (Note: this link may not connect the exact right podcast. Sorry!)

Curious about how much donated clothing actually gets repurposed? Here’s some crazy stats!

With this in mind, how can I be more sustainable with my clothing? Can I try to alter them on my own?

Totally!

Over the months, I had fun tailoring my clothes to work better for me. Even if I wasn’t 100% successful, it was empowering!

Some DIY alteration outcomes:

• Cutting off sleeves that ended awkwardly
• Cutting off and hem-taping skirts and dresses that were too long.
• Cutting out the t-shirt necklines that felt awkward.
• Sewing in naps to many cardigans so I could button it without gapping. It’s also nice to wear the cardigans as is now!
• Dyeing clothes, including my trench coat and denim jacket
• Nipping in the waist for 20 something shirts and sweaters.
• Hemming overly long pants
• Sewing button-up shirts shut. I don’t like them open over other shirts and I don’t like them gapping. Take that, button-up shirts!

Just a head’s up: the majority of my sewing was by hand with basic stitches.

I wish I’d taken photos of before. I didn’t think I’d actually write about this, so… sorry.

Recapping the wear your wardrobe challenge

As I’ve shared, doing your own wear your wardrobe challenge is one of the easiest, cheapest ways to experiment with your wardrobe.

By challenging yourself to wear your wardrobe each day, you might:

• Realize how much (or how little) items you have
• Rediscover some gems
• Have fun remixing items in unexpected ways
• Finally let go of items that aren’t serving you, because after a day of wearing it has confirmed what the problem is.
• Or go a little crazy and try fixing the simpler issues
• Feel more empowered!

If DIY alterations isn’t your thing, that’s okay. You can totally donate or trash items as works best for you.

I hope the idea of pursuing your own Wear Your Wardrobe Challenge was helpful to you!

You can live intentionally with passion and purpose as God’s beloved. You can do this by leaning more into the unique styles that only YOU have!

It’s your turn. What kind of wardrobe challenges have you tried before? Want to try?

I look forward to hearing from you!

P.S. Want some crazy simple steps to start living intentionally? Grab the Embrace Your Potential Playbook. It’ll help you zoom in on your God-gifted personality and give you practical tips to be more intentional, passionate, and purposeful as God’s beloved so you can become the best version of yourself.