New Year, New You |
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| Written by Carli Philips | |
 The New Year heralds a new you, so prolong the lifespan of your most stylish gear instead of banishing it to the reserved section of your closet. Get your good gear on and feel better!
Talk of New Years Eve celebrations amongst my friends tends to spark of a lot of ‘I-hate-New Years-Eve-and-I-don’t-care-what-we-do-because-it-is-always-crap’ conversations. But no matter how much my girlfriends complain about this non event event, they (myself included) suddenly perk up with talk of what to wear. Ironic really, that a night everyone professes to hate because it is simply ‘just another night’ warrants the quest for a fabulously extraordinary outfit. So this got me thinking: even though special attire makes us feel fab, why do we always save it for certain occasions?It’s fair to assume that most people feel better about themselves when decked out in their finer threads. However, most of us only don such items infrequently as we have been conditioned to reserve them for rare and special occasions. Take the famous horse racing carnival the Melbourne Cup for example: many girls willingly pay the equivalent of a small country’s annual income for just the right races outfit even though it will probably only have a total lifespan of 3, maybe 4, wears. When you think about it, spending a fortune on an outfit that only gets worn a few times isn’t the best decision modern woman ever made. And trust me, I’m not preaching to the un-converted. I’m just as guilty as the rest when it comes to letting my best clothes gather dust. So disconnected are my ‘Special Outfits’ from the rest of my clothes, they reside in a different wardrobe altogether. So I went to visit them. Far far away in another room of my house I found at least 3 items I had totally forgotten about: a Scanlan & Theodore flapper dress, a great chiffon belted number from Cue and a printed Cacharel empire line dress. Purchased at least 2 years ago (and currently reserved for weddings and bar mitzvah’s), these dresses were evidently bought in one of my more sensible fashion moments. All were wise choices: classic styles, great colours and beautiful fabrics. So why were they wasting away in a cupboard ostracized from the rest of my clothes? It didn’t matter that they made me feel great when I wore them, the fact remained: they were expensive and bought with a particular occasion in mind. I also thought that over-wear would result in them getting damaged. Was I being too precious? A quick mental scan of my 2007 social calendar revealed one engagement. This meant that my fancy fashions were destined to yet at least another few months (or if I was really socially unpopular, years) in exile. I refuse to spend over $70 on a t-shirt that I would probably wear at least a few times a week, yet I had spent hundreds on these outfits. Just because they were costly I should save them? The logic didn’t make sense. So I decided to activate the most over-used retail sales assistant catchphrase in history: “You can dress it up or dress it down.” I whipped out the Scanlan number, put on a pair of flat ballet pumps and layered it with a pair of footless tights and cotton singlet. Jackpot! My fancy attire had been re-born as daytime chic. For one week I decided to try and look my best and don a previously reserved and self-proclaimed ‘special’ item whenever I left the house. I wore the expensive buttery leather boho bag I bought it Florence, ditched my Haviana’s in favour of a pair of Grecian sandals, and stacked on my ‘night-time’ gold Turkish bangles. I did everyday day-time glam. I got compliments galore (a lady even chased me down the street to ask where I had bought the bag)…and I felt wonderful. And thus, my New Years fashion resolution was born: to treat everyday as if it was my most fashionable last. What was I waiting for? Clothes are made to be worn! I made a firm decision to ditch the glory box. I almost ate my words, however, when I got blue pen on the leather strap of my Italian purchase. But as I took 10 deep breaths I decided that Saint Augustine had a point: it was better to have worn and (only slightly) flawed, than to have never worn at all. |
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