A complaint I often hear from my clients is how they feel they’ve spent their entire lives simply “acquiring” clothes—almost as if their wardrobe has just sort of appeared out of the ether with very little meaningful input from them. Sometimes, it’s literal: gifts, hand-me-downs, or even donations are difficult to turn down, especially when there’s no other options for things to wear. Sometimes, it’s indicative of living on autopilot: doing what you’re told, maybe in more ways than one, without stopping to consider what you actually want out of life, or at least out of your pants. Maybe you blinked and realized your wardrobe is little more than a graveyard of your past selves with nothing of you now. Or maybe you struggle to find something to wear when you want to do anything more than the bare minimum of protecting your body from the elements.

What do you do when it feels like your personal style just kinda happened to you?

When Accessibility Leaves Few Options

For those who can’t simply walk into a store and find their size, who perhaps don’t even have any stores available to walk into at all, or for whom shopping online is difficult for one reason or another, your style ends up being, well, whatever you can get your hands on.

I’ve had a lot of clients who, for some reason or another, simply feel left out of fashion. And while inclusivity has gotten somewhat better over time—thanks to the internet—even if they’re now able to afford options now, the issue of actually finding them arises. How do you start looking for something that never even really existed to you until now?

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What I’ve Added:

• In Rome: three Intimissimi cashmere layering tops, a scarf

• In Athens: three vintage blouses, a crochet tie front top, a belt, a tote bag, another scarf, several pieces of costume jewelry, two cotton button ups made locally

• In London: four secondhand button up blouses, a pair of flats, a cardigan, several more pieces of costume jewelry, an evening bag

The list of what I’ve gotten rid of, though, is much, much longer. I’ve gone from my two suitcases to just one carry-on, a backpack, and a personal item. The very first thing I got rid of was four of the five pairs of shoes I brought.

I know.

The thing about Albania, is a lot of it is paved in tiles. They’re beautiful—specifically, in Skanderberg Square in Tirana, the tiles have been collected from all over the country, and represent a united Albania, the rich culture, and the . They’re also marble, and incredibly slippery, especially when it rains. Four of the five pairs were impossible to walk in without risking slipping. I gave them away via Facebook Marketplace.

As soon as the weather began to warm up consistently, I shed all my winter clothes. Partially because I don’t need them anymore, but also because they kinda needed an upgrade. As I spent the last ten years in Los Angeles, my winter wardrobe was very tailored to milder winters, where I didn’t really need layers. After buying the much needed cardigan in London, I realized I actually do quite like the layered look on me—which I haven’t really ever before—so, when the weather starts to cool back down, I’ll revisit.

I also got rid of a couple of skirts, which is heartbreaking, because skirts that fit my stringent requirements are hard to come by, but, I don’t miss them because, well…

I’ve Changed

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Never mind how truly great of a look it is for him (it may or may not have reignited the crush I’ve had on him since I first saw Face/Off aka the best film of all time), I love what he had to say about it:

You could easily read this as just a guy putting on a costume (which, as I’ve written before, is a totally valid way to treat your wardrobe and your style), but, to me, it’s something else (“Of course it is, Lakyn,” I hear you saying as you roll your eyes.). To me, this is a man—a person, even—using clothes to step into a new part of their self and their life. For John, it’s going from the person in front of the camera, being observed and taking direction, to the person calling the shots who’s responsible for bringing a story to life. A huge transition, no doubt—the kind of transition that kinda begs for a major change elsewhere, not just to help with the shift, but to honor its significance.

Like a beret.

Now, I’m not a very spiritual person…until it comes to clothes. I believe the way we dress has the power to put us in alignment with the person we truly are, and vice versa. Yes, sometimes we need to work very hard to determine who that is and what that looks like, but, other times…it comes to you.

Like a beret.

In the same way we can look at someone else’s life and feel a draw toward a path we’d never considered before meeting them, we can look at a piece of clothing and feel a draw toward a kind of expression we never considered before, and in following that draw—that urge—we can unlock what I feel is a higher level of being but is really just cuter outfits (same thing, though, right?).

What we have to be mindful of, though, is figuring out when that call is based in something real, and not just a fleeting trend or a fantasy we’ll never really act on. When you feel this urge to try something so completely new and left-field, is it because you like the idea of being someone else, or because you’re actually becoming someone else?

On Becoming A Scarf Person

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I’m not saying measurements are “nice to have,” or something optional to make shopping easier, I’m saying that if you don’t know your measurements (and how to use them), you are doing yourself a disservice that can and probably often does result in frequent returns, wasted money, and ill-fitting outfits. Not to mention, if you’ve ever shopped vintage or secondhand online, you probably know that number sizing of the past is nowhere near what it is today.

That said, the inconsistency in women’s clothing sizes simply cannot be overstated. I once wrote in Why Does Fast Fashion Suck?:

“You’re a size 4 in one brand, but a size 12 in another, but a size 14 in jeans from the second brand but only if they’re dark wash, and a size medium in jackets but sometimes a medium fits like a small and it just doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

I dove into the reasons why this happens in that article—a combination of poor patternmaking, lack of quality control, distance from manufacturers, and good ol’ human error—but not the solution. Most would say said solution is obvious: universal sizing, but I don’t think so, as I said in The Perfect Industry:

Universal sizing is not a reasonable ideal to chase, nor would it solve the fit issues that, let’s face it, are simply inevitable when it comes to mass producing clothing. We know this because we’ve tried it: in 1939, the USDA published a study of women’s body measurements including stature, hip height, neck-base girth, waist girth, bust girth, shoulder length, forearm girth, posterior hip arc, and trunk line, with the goal of averaging this data in order to create a standardized size chart.

The problem—beyond the near impossibility of being able to gather enough data to represent every single unique body shape—is that…no body is really average. Maybe you and I have the same waist circumference…but do we have the same distance between our waist and our hips? Our shoulders may be the same length, but are our arms? Our inseams may be the same but we could be different heights. Body measurements are not enough to build a full range of sizes: you need to take proportions into account, as well, and if every single brand sizes their garments based on an average of all those measurements and proportions, then everyone who’s more than a couple of inches off from that average simply will simply not be able to fit clothes off the rack.

I want to briefly note here that size and fit are different, and when I use each word, I am referring to two separate concepts: Size is simply whether a garment can actually get onto your body, and the designations that let you know the likelihood of that. Fit, however, is about whether you feel comfortable and can move freely in that garment, and—most importantly—that the garment itself hangs as intended, with seams in their proper place and no excess tension or sagging.

In my, perhaps, unpopular opinion, we do need individual brands to have their own size charts, for the most part. We need fewer global brands making millions of every style, and more brands catering to their own niche—with some brands providing a variety of fits—available locally, with tailoring and alterations accessible at the point of purchase. Maybe some brands will work better for short torsos, with others more ideal for apron bellies, and some with options to accommodate both large and small busts: In an ideal world, you know what fit you need, and brands present the information necessary to decide whether their particular fit is for you and/or if it can be altered.

That, unfortunately, is merely a dream for a dream future in a dream world. And dreams don’t help you find clothes that fit, today, in the real world. In the real world, sizes are just a single number that represents another group of numbers, and which numbers align with your numbers is far more important than what that single number ultimately is. What matters is knowing how to use all those numbers.

Measure Yourself

So, how do you take your measurements?

First, you need a cloth measuring tape. I recommend looking locally at your nearest fabric and craft store, the laundry aisle at your nearest drugstore or big box retailer like Target, or, ordering from a site for sewing supplies like Wawak. They’re almost always less than five bucks and there are even extra long (up to 120 inches) versions.

The main measurements you’re gonna need for womenswear are the bust, waist, and hip. If you wear pants, you’ll also want your inseam. Here’s how to figure yours out:

Bust: Wrap the measuring tape around the fullest part of your bust---right over the nipples. For the most accurate and useful measurement, ideally, you should wear whatever bra you’d typically wear, especially if your breasts hang lower than your armpits (which is true for, like, most of us).

Waist: Bend over sideways: wherever your torso “hinges” is your natural waistline. This will typically be about 1-2” above your belly button.

Hip: This is the fullest part of your butt. Be careful to not pull the tape too tight, otherwise, you might not be able to move in whatever you purchase using that measurement!

Inseam: By far the most awkward measurement to take, you’re gonna wanna put the measuring tape pretty much right at your crotch, and measure down the inside of your leg to your ankle (or, wherever you want your pants to hit).

If you have difficulty with wrapping a tape measure around yourself and/or reading the measurements, you can also try the string method: get a long piece of string and knot it around your measurement points—be careful not to tie it too tight, you want it to be able to shift around your body, or to fit two fingers behind it (same with the measuring tape)—make sure the knot is secure and snip off the excess, then you can cut the string off, measure it like normal and voila, there’s your body measurement.

Measure Your Clothes

Taking your body measurements is just one method to help you pick the right size(s) when shopping online. But for those who have particular needs/preferences, or don’t want to measure their bodies, or—in some cases—just want to get a little more specific, there is another way: measure your clothes that fit (the way you want them to). This will get you a rough measurement that’s ideal for those who wear more tailored clothes, but unfortunately, absolutely will not work with clothes that stretch as stretch factor varies from garment to garment, even those with the same percentage of elastane/spandex.

If you’re not sure which of your clothes fit properly in order to use them for measurements, I wrote about how to figure that out.

For the easiest, basic measurements, you’ll want to measure pit-to-pit on a fitted shirt for the chest/bust, and across the top of your favorite pants for your waist/low-waist/high hips (depending on where you typically wear your pants). As this is only half the full circumference, be sure to double it.

If you don’t wear your pants at your waist, getting an accurate measurement for the natural waist is a little more difficult. Measuring at the narrowest part of anything that fits your waist the way you like is going to be your best bet, typically a dress or possibly a well-made blazer. Remember, no stretch.

Hips are also a bit difficult to measure this way, because laying pants flat typically doesn’t accommodate for the fact that the back is (usually) wider than the front to allow for the curvature of the seat (your booty). What I would do, especially if you have a very curvy booty, is fold your pants in half, with the back facing up, making sure to get it as flat as possible (no bumps, no bulging, no folds), and measure across the curve, multiplying it by 4. Consult the diagram, below.

Please note, this is a very rough measurement that will leave you with room in the seat.

Measuring your clothes is not just useful for picking a size, it’s also useful for deciding whether you should buy something at all. Measure how long your favorite skirt is, so that you don’t buy one that’s way too short to cover your butt. Measure the inseam on the jeans that hit you in just the right spot, so you don’t buy pants that make you look ready for a flood. Measure the oversized shirt you already have (measure from where the sleeve meets the underarm for the “pit to pit” or approximate bust measurement) so you don’t buy an “oversized shirt” that ends up making you look like Winnie the Pooh. Measure the shaft height on your boots (from where the heel meets the shoe) so you know those knee high boots actually, you know, go up to your knee.

Keep these measurements in mind while you shop, and don’t buy anything where the measurement that matters most isn’t listed and doesn’t match up.

Understand The Garment

So, what happens when your measurements put you all over the map? Your bust aligns with a size 18, but your waist is a 12, but your hips are more of a 20. Here, you have to actually look at the garment, as the body measurements that matter most—and the degree to which they matter—are entirely dependent on how it’s intended to fit. Take a dress like the one below, for example:

This dress has what we would call a “free” hip measurement, meaning it’s very flowy and therefore will accommodate any size booty—and while it’s fitted in the bust, it’s also meant to hit at the natural waist, so, lower belly fat will also fit with very little issue. Here, the most important measurement in determining which size you want is going to be your bust—as that’s likely the largest measurement that the dress has to fit over—while the hip measurement doesn’t really matter at all. So, you would choose whichever size is intended to fit your bust measurement. Compare that to something like the dress below:

This dress is fitted along the entire body, which means, while you still need it to fit over your largest measurement, that could be your bust, midsection, or your hips, depending on your unique body. So, you’ll want to pick whichever size aligns with your largest measurement. But, look at this dress:

This dress is not particularly flowy nor particularly tight, but, because it’s got a fairly straight silhouette, you want to make sure it not only fits over your biggest measurement, but also leaves room to actually hang freely, otherwise, it’s not going to look the way it does on the model. If your largest measurement is in your midsection or hips, you may actually want to size up, if you want that very loose, relaxed fit.

Basically, ask yourself: where is it tight? Where is it loose? Or, in the case of something like the jumpsuit below, where is there a little “margin for error?”

On this jumpsuit, there’s elastic at the waist, which, even though the fabric itself has no stretch, will give you a little room to size down if your waist measurement is within 1-3” of a given size (but the measurements match everywhere else). Ideally, you’ll be provided with both the stretched and unstretched waist measurements, though, to be absolutely sure.

All that said, my fellow busty babes will know: sometimes, fitting your largest measurement means the garment is baggy and loose everywhere else…unfortunately, only a sewing machine can fix that…or a well-placed belt…or a few safety pins.

Size Charts vs. Garment Measurements

Size charts are for bodies, garment measurements are for clothes: they’re both useful, but in different ways. Let me explain:

A size chart tells you what body measurements are intended for a brand’s clothing. They essentially say “if you want our clothes to fit you the way they do on the model, these are the measurements you should have.” And each number is typically the biggest intended, meaning, if the measurement given is, say, 42”, and your own measurement is 43”, even if there’s some stretch in the garment, it’s almost always better to go the next size up, unless it's a very loose garment. Some size charts make this a little easier to decipher with a range, like “41-43.” Again, if there’s stretch in the garment, it’s important to not try to cheat, as the upper end of the range is usually the largest measurement that can comfortably wear the garment without risking too much tension in the elastic (leading to it wearing out faster) or tightness in the actual fit.

Garment measurements are, well, just that: they tell you exactly what the dimensions of the garment are and give you the freedom to essentially pick your fit. For instance, while my bust measurement typically (not always, but often) puts me in a US size 18/20 according to most size charts, I prefer a blouse with a bust measurement about 4-6” bigger than my own, for the drape I feel I look best in, so, I’ll pick whatever size has that measurement. If a top is meant to be very oversized, sometimes that means sizing down, but, it also occasionally means sizing up. The numbers on the tag are meaningless: it’s the dimensions that matter.

Something to take into account with garment measurements that most people don’t realize—especially with clothing that has no stretch—is ease, or extra allowance in the garment beyond the measurements of the intended wearer so that they can, you know, move and bend and breathe.

Even if you want a garment to fit your body closely, you do not want to go with something with no stretch where the measurement is exactly equal to yours. You usually want at least 2 inches of wiggle room. That’s ease. Different brands, and even different garments will have different amounts of ease. What helps is knowing how much you personally need to feel comfortable, and to ensure that any garment measurements you use to determine your size match up with that.

It’s kind of a common theme, here, isn’t it? Knowing your preferences. If a garment or brand does not fit your preferences and it’s not something you care to/can get altered, it’s okay to move on. Likewise if a brand is wildly inconsistent with their own size charts or doesn’t provide enough information to make you confident that their clothing will fit you: Skip!

Remember, you are not a size, clothes are a size, and they either fit you, or they don’t. If they don’t, it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you, you just need a different size.

While I’d never wear any of these outfits, today, I don’t feel anything negative about them, or the girl wearing them, nor am I embarrassed about the fact that I partook in past trends. In fact, I love being able to look at a photo and pinpoint exactly what my life was like and what was popular at the time based on my outfit; I love being able to see how my preferences and priorities have shifted and changed; and—perhaps most importantly—I love revisiting my past choices to evaluate if there’s something new I can take from them, today.

The phrase “I can’t believe I ever wore that!” simply doesn’t exist in my lexicon, and I don’t think it should exist in yours, either.

The person you used to be didn’t have the same access to information or experiences that you have now: they had a whole different set of influences, priorities, resources, even self-awareness, and made the best choices they could with them. By judging those choices too harshly, we risk flattening the growth we’ve made since, which can then limit how we continue to grow moving forward. But, when we get curious about them—and look at our old selves not just with new eyes, but with the goal of understanding who we were in those moments—we can turn our past fashion “fails” into a better fashion future.

That’s not to say we can’t be a little embarrassed about our, let’s say, less successful style risks. I made and wore a headband with fake bangs attached, I’m no stranger to questionable style decisions. Rather, I want us to reframe the shame we can sometimes feel around looking less than perfect in the past. After all, learning from our mistakes is one of the most important parts of life—as is reevaluating whether our mistakes were actually mistakes in the first place—but, we can only do that with hindsight, and hindsight requires time.

To get a bit personal, I’ve been considering what my future looks like as I search for a new home in a new country. While I’ve never really felt a strong connection to my home country, I’ve been trying to understand how I feel most connected to myself, and it’s required me to look back at how my expression has shapeshifted over the cities and neighborhoods I’ve lived in and what that means for my priorities. How do I feel the safest? Where? Why? For me, the answer boils down to, of course, how free I feel to dress however I want, but also what makes me want to dress in certain ways. Thinking back to certain outfits and remembering my state of mind and the state of my life I was in when I wore them, I’m starting to understand what I truly want—how I’m truly at my best.

I can’t apply this process to helping you figure out your most ideal place to live (sorry!) but, I can help you apply it to your wardrobe: How can we use our past style(s) and what we once wore to better understand where we’d like our closets to be, and how to get there. And, through all this newfound understanding, what can we learn about ourselves?

If you don’t really have a lot of old photos of yourself to look at, try writing down all the outfits or individual garments that you can remember wearing and roughly when. There’s plenty of information to be gleaned from the things you’ve found most memorable.

Learning

As we grow older, we tend to learn a little more about what we like…and a lot about what we dislike. Even as our needs change, the roots of our preferences tend to be consistent, though, it’s not always obvious how. Whether you seek to relive your past or bury it, you’ve got to know exactly what you’re working with. What can you learn from your old self?

Pattern Recognition

When you were at your best, how did you dress? What about at your worst? For both our highest highs and our lowest lows, most of us go for the path of least resistance—for better or for worse. When I think back to times when I was grieving, or dealing with a long-term illness, or going through a break up, I like to compare them to the times when I was feeling free, flush with cash, or falling in love. For me, there’s a constant thread of using accessories, either to sort of distract from my hardships, or to cheer myself up, or to feel like myself. The reasons are always different, but the outcome is always the same: way too much jewelry.

What’s most interesting to me is how consistent these instincts can be, even when everything else is shifting. It’s not always obvious—it can even feel a bit random—but, there is a logic to it, and that logic is an integral part of who you are and your style.

Do you have any style coping mechanisms? Or, are there things you default to for special occasions, happy times, or when there’s an exciting prospect? When you feel out of control in life, do you dress to feel more in-control and commanding or to disappear? What items do you reach for when you want to feel better? Are there pieces you only wear when you want to be seen or admired? What’s your “default uniform,” when you’re short on time…does it feel good? How can we change it to make it feel more like you? Are there clothes or accessories you avoid during certain emotional states? Why?

These are not necessarily problems to be fixed. The point of exploring your patterns is to understand why you reach for the things you do. Do the patterns make sense? Or have you just been running on auto-pilot?

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Vintage lovers talk about how the synthetics of the past felt and held up much better than the synthetics of today, but, that vintage fabric quality does still exist. It was expensive then, and it’s expensive now. The problem is, in the sea of brands that put profit above quality product and overcharge for crap quality, it’s growing increasingly difficult to figure out whether the expense can be justified.

What makes things even more difficult is the fact that fiber content alone doesn’t really tell you anything about how a garment came to be or what it will feel like to wear or even how it should be priced. There’s synthetics that feel like silk and cost just as much, and there’s natural fibers that feel like sandpaper and cost a few cents per yard. Any fabric can be sewn beautifully (or poorly) and the labor it takes to do so, in all but a few very specific cases, is what makes up the majority of the cost to make anything.

I would love to return to a time when most of the clothes available on the market were made of natural fibers, but that doesn’t mean no synthetics at all: it means a major reduction in how much clothing we produce (and purchase); it means investing more resources in what we do with our clothing (and our plastic, and our plastic clothing) once we’re done with it including more effective and efficient recycling methods as well as management of microplastics; and it means both brands and consumers making better choices that increase the overall quality, wearability, and longevity of our wardrobes. Textile production accounts for just 1-2% of global petroleum consumption, so, while reducing our dependence on fossil fuels can start in our closets, it shouldn’t end there.

This article doesn’t seek to tell you why you should or shouldn’t wear certain fabrics—there are plenty of reasons to want to avoid synthetics, and you don’t have to explain yours to me or anyone else. But, synthetics are not just cheaper alternatives to natural fibers: they can do things that natural fibers can’t, and it helps to understand what those things are and why certain decisions are made when it comes to making clothing. I’m only here to educate, because educated consumers are better consumers.

So, what traits can synthetic fabrics have that natural fibers don’t, and what are the actual, legitimate reasons for using them?

Please note: Any specific brand mentions are not endorsements of said brands.

Stretch and Support

If you look at the material tag on your average bra or shaping garment, you’ll likely see a mix of polyamide, aka nylon—a fiber that was invented to replace silk in parachutes and that can literally stop a bullet—and elastane—a fiber that can stretch up to 8 times its length and snap back without losing its shape. Compared to the rigid structure of a corset or the literal cage-style construction of a bullet bra, today’s bras and shapewear are relatively—perhaps a bit deceptively—simple. Yet, they’re able to support even the largest busts and “snatch” (aka redistribute body fat) while remaining lightweight, flexible, and machine washable.

There are silk and cotton bras, of course, and they’re growing in popularity, but, it’s worth noting, if you require quite a bit of support, even silk and cotton options like the ones by Molke will often still feature bands made of rigid but stretchy powermesh, elastane/elastic, or nylon, because proper support comes from the band, and without a band that can both support several pounds of weight and mold to your body without getting stretched out easily, your bra will simply not be able to do its job for very long. 100% natural fiber options tend to have limited size ranges for this reason.

Another thing that was difficult to achieve before synthetics? Compression. That is, safe compression. You can use bandages and wraps to apply pressure post-surgery or to alleviate arthritis or other joint/circulation issues, or to flatten/bind the breasts, but, doing so improperly can cause a whole host of issues. Compression garments (including waist trainers!) in a range of strengths (measured in millimeters of mercury) are, for all intents and purposes, medical devices that wouldn’t be nearly as possible or accessible today without synthetic materials.

Shape and Texture

In 1909, Mariano Fortuny—no doubt inspired at least in part by the pleated linen gowns worn by wealthy Ancient Egyptians—filed a patent for his method of creating what’s widely considered the very first plissé fabric.

To achieve this texture, the pleats were meticulously folded by what had to be incredibly nimble fingertips while the fabric was wet, likely sewn temporarily to compress and hold the folds tightly in place, then set with heat. Fortuny (and his wife) used this technique to create the iconic Delphos gown, some of which still exist, today, pleats perfectly intact after a century. And if you threw one in the washer, the pleats would almost entirely disappear. That’s not the case with most plissé garments we see today—which are made of synthetics, usually polyester—and it’s because synthetics can be permanently set using high heat to essentially melt them into shape.

Synthetics are pretty great at holding shape without needing heat, too, which is why they’re so resistant to wrinkles, and why even super lightweight synthetic fabrics can be cut and sewn into unique, voluminous shapes without needing any additional internal structure to keep its form. Sometimes, all you need is a small percentage of synthetic fibers: 16% polyamide that’s been combined with 84% cotton on the skirt below by Rohe (left) and the pink polyester lining on the cotton dress by April and Alex (right) are both enough to help provide the stiffness needed for an exaggerated shape, but keep the garment lightweight enough for casual wear…

Of course, sometimes designers just have a vision. And that vision requires development of an all new textile. Norma Kamali’s drapey shirt dresses come to mind:

As someone who has owned three of these dresses, the fabric is….weird…in a good way. Somewhere in between neoprene (scuba fabric) and the slinky jersey Diane von Furstenberg’s wrap dresses are made of, it drapes beautifully with light stretch and feels substantial without being heavy, is cool to the touch, and neither wrinkles nor frays, allowing for a raw edge detail that’s more cool than cheap looking (as raw edges tend to be). The site calls it a poly habotai, habotai being another name for Chinese silk, so, it’s a poly meant to replicate silk, but, it doesn’t feel like any silk I’ve ever felt before. It’s important to note, though, you wouldn’t know any of this unless you actually felt it, as the material tag simply says what it is: 100% polyester.

Color and Print

There once was a time when you couldn’t afford to wear your favorite color.

Contrary to popular belief, we’ve had the ability to make vibrant, colorful clothing for a long time—like, since 5000BCE—, but it wasn’t cheap. The plants, insects, and minerals used to create these dyes were so scarce and required such extensive labor to process that only the wealthiest could afford to wear certain shades of red, blue, or purple. Dyes that were colorfast—i.e. wouldn’t fade easily in the sun or with regular laundering—were even harder to come by, so, if you were someone who had to perform manual labor, and therefore wash your clothes a lot more (as well as spend a lot more time outside) you were more likely to opt for muted, more accessible colors that didn’t need to be reapplied so often after washing—another thing we deeply take for granted.

That all changed with the development of synthetic dyes, most of which are now derived, in one way or another, from crude oil. Applying these dyes to synthetics—using, as usual, high levels of heat—creates color and print that is as close to permanent as we can get, but, even the best dyes will eventually fade from a natural fiber, especially if washed and dried regularly on high heat (ironic, right?).

Brands known for their bold, saturated colors and natural fibers like Nooworks recommend that you only wash your colorful garments when they absolutely need it to preserve the vibrancy, whereas even a synthetic of average quality can be washed hundreds of times without losing color.

Somewhere in between texture and color, we have metallic fabrics which, naturally, were originally made by hammering metal into thin sheets, cutting them into ribbons, and weaving them with or wrapping them around other fibers. Can you imagine if the only way to achieve something like the skirt below (by Dressed In Lala) was by using pure gold?

Protection and Performance

We’re constantly making advancements when it comes to fibers, both natural and synthetic. Athletic brands like Nike and outdoor-focused brands like Patagonia spend millions of dollars developing fabrics that can do more: keep you warmer while staying lightweight, keep you drier while staying breathable, and provide compression while supporting the full range of movement required for vigorous physical activity.

To add even more protection, seamless bonding machines I mentioned above can be used to make garments that are protect the wearer by fusing fibers together rather than using traditional seams to join pieces of fabric: when dealing with clothing that may be submerged or that is meant to withstand extreme cold or high winds, even the tightest stitch can allow water or cold to penetrate, or turn into a stress point that could potentially break under pressure.

Natural fibers can, of course, be knitted in a “tubular” style that reduces seams, but, they may not be suitable if conditions also require other properties like hydrophobia (so it won’t absorb water) or impermeability (so it can’t easily be torn). Merino wool can be used for performance, but, it’s important to note that it is not hydrophobic but rather hygroscopic, so, it can absorb a certain amount of moisture and remain dry to the touch, but it doesn’t repel water completely making it unsuitable for extremely wet conditions without additional layers of protection. And neither cotton nor wool are ideal for activities in very jagged/rough environments as both can snag quite easily.

Care and Cost

You may have noticed a bit of a theme through this article: it’s not necessarily that certain features are outright impossible in natural fibers, but rather, they would require much more care to maintain and—in many cases—carry a much higher price tag than most consumers are used to.

When it comes to cost, it’s not always about shaving a few pennies off for a higher profit margin: Marcelo Gaia of Mirror Palais explained in a TikTok video that one of the reasons he made the midi version of a beaded silk mini dress in polyester rather than the original silk was because of the cost of the additional hand-beading as well as a desire to make it completely sheer, which is a bit harder to do with bias-cut silk, especially with the weight of all the embellishments.

As a designer, you should know how fabrics work: which fabrics can perform in which ways, which ones will provide the best wearability while also staying true to your vision. You should also know what your customers can bear, and little decisions add up: maybe you can sell a $1,500 silk dress (as MP does), but, you may not be able to sell a $2,500 or $3,000 one, regardless of the fabric (outside of a few very special pieces).

Beyond just price point, designers must know what their customer will bear in terms of care. Buyers who are used to lower prices are also used to lower maintenance: they’re a lot less likely to hand wash or hang dry their garments, meaning that 100% cashmere design has to become 50% cashmere mixed with nylon to ensure it’s wearable after being tossed in the washing machine and dried on high heat.

Fabrics like acetate—which I’ve not mentioned, yet—are annoyingly common as linings, but require a lot less upkeep as they’re resistant to moths and mold, making them great for those pieces that get worn rarely like evening gowns or suits. Clothes are so inexpensive and accessible now that we’re much more likely to buy these things new for each event, but, these textiles were developed in a time when you only had one or two “nice” sets of clothes, and couldn’t afford to just replace your good dress because it was full of holes after a year of simply hanging in your closet.

When it comes to The Great Polyester Debate, what it comes down to is intention. Synthetics were never intended to just be cheap stand-ins for “better” fibers: they were invented and developed for a reason—they exist to solve problems that many of us have forgotten we ever had. The issue isn’t their existence, it’s the massive scale at which we use them, but, that would be true of any fiber: we cannot produce enough cotton, linen, silk, or wool to keep up with the demand for clothing we have, today. The resources required—the water, the farmland, the soil, the labor—are all finite, and we’re already pushing the limits.

When we reduce fabrics to “natural good, synthetic bad” we lose the nuance that allows us to make smarter choices. A well-made synthetic garment can outlast a poorly made natural one. A thoughtful blend can offer properties that neither fiber could achieve alone. And a high-quality textile, natural or otherwise, reflects time, skill, and intention—things that are increasingly rare in a climate that prioritizes speed over all.

I have long said that sustainability is not just about what our clothes are made of: it’s about how much we make, how much we buy, how long we keep it, and what we do when we’re done with it.

At the end of the day, you don’t have to treat your clothing as disposable, regardless of the fiber content.

So don’t.

There is literally nothing I or anyone else can write that will make you better at making clothes than just making clothes. However, if your goal is to make (and design) clothes at an incredibly high level—like, couture level—, there is a such thing as making the wrong clothes, or, making clothes in a way that doesn’t really grow your understanding of the craft. I don’t say that to discourage you from making whatever you want, but to encourage you to take what you want a step further wherever you can. As someone who’s been sewing for the majority of my life, I know firsthand that the process of getting good can be long and intimidating, but, there are ways to get out of the “homemade/DIY” zone a little quicker. Things like:

1. Using proper finishes. It’s dramatic, yes, but it breaks my heart when new sewists lament not having a serger/overlock machine and ask if their work will ever be professional because of it. Yes, sergers are great for knits and fabrics that fray if you look at them too long, but, when it comes to sewing regular woven fabrics…they can be a bit of a crutch. Learning how and when to use techniques like bias binding or flat-felled seams or French seams so your pieces are finished will take you so much further than a serger and look so much better than adding a zig-zag stitch or using pinking shears. Nothing against those, of course.

2. Sewing straight. One of the very first exercises my first sewing teacher (shout out Ms. D’avignon!) had us do in class was sew (sans thread) along pieces of paper with large patterns and letters printed on them. She would then turn them over and grade us based on how well we followed the lines. If we were really terrible at it, she’d make us do it again until our “stitches” were passably straight. Of all the things I did over the course of that class, I consider that to be the most valuable, because—and I cannot stress this enough—your stitches matter. Don’t get me wrong, being a little wobbly is fine and expected. But, it can get to a point where crooked stitches or lack of uniformity can actually change the way your garment looks (especially when it comes to hems or topstitching) and even sometimes how it behaves on the body.

3. Asking questions. You don’t know what you don’t know, but every sewing issue you’ll ever have has already been had, explained, and fixed somewhere online. You just have to seek out the information. When you encounter a problem, ask about it. Specifically Google. Most likely Reddit. “Why does the lining of my shirt keep showing/popping out?” That’s how you learn about understitching. “Why is my bias cut skirt hem crooked?” That’s how you learn to hang your bias-cut pieces for 24 hours before hemming them. Don’t just guess at it and try to fix it yourself—or, worse, leave it. This is how you learn, and how sewing well becomes second nature.

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There are three things that go into every garment that, on their own, would take years to understand fully and decades to truly master: textiles/fabric, patternmaking, and, of course, the actual construction. I’m going to cover how to start learning about them in a way that can not just help you as a future designer or sewist, but even just as a fashion lover and observer. As I personally learned to sew before YouTube was really a thing, I’ll be sharing the best resources I personally know: books.

Textiles

What’s the difference between cotton voile and cotton poplin? What properties do the various synthetic fibers have and why might you choose one (or a blend) over a natural fiber? What would you need to do to pair denim and, say, silk chiffon in the same garment? Learning the properties and behaviors of different fabrics—weaves and knits, not just fibers—is the most important part of creating a garment that’s wearable. And this is not something you can glean from material tags on clothing alone. You have to touch stuff—specifically fabrics—and you have to know what you’re touching. Unfortunately, with physical fabric stores clothing left and right (RIP Joann, I didn’t love you, but I didn’t wanna see you go), that’s getting a lot harder to do.

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In the grand journey toward your fully realized personal style, it’s easy to get caught up in adjectives and aesthetics, sometimes even fantastical ideas of what you think you want to wear to the point that you’re ignoring—perhaps even denying—what you do wear. Obviously, there’s a lot of reasons those two ideals—how you want to dress and how you actually dress—may not align, but, if you’re constantly chasing something different and unable to focus on what’s in front of you, you could very easily end up stuck in a rut that doesn’t actually exist.

This is why it’s so important to constantly be checking in with your wardrobe: going through your clothes, putting things together in new ways, and trying to push the boundaries of your comfort zone, as well as using an app like Indyx (or Whering or Stylebook) to document your experimentation (you can also flat lay or put your experiments on and take pictures—that counts!). That said, I know it’s difficult to look at your wardrobe with fresh eyes when you only have the eye(s) you’ve got. That’s why I’m here.

I’m going to walk you through how you can determine your overall look by breaking down how I seek to understand someone’s look when I’m working on a Lookbook via Indyx.

And, of course, you can click here (and use code lakyncarlton for $10 off) to book your Lookbook (or Mini Lookbook) with me if you fancy having my eyes on your closet.

The Evaluation

No matter the size of your wardrobe, there’s a lot to see, and I want to take in as much as I can before I do anything else. The beauty of viewing a/your wardrobe on Indyx (as opposed to, say, in your closet) is in The Quick Scroll. You can literally glance at your wardrobe and immediately get an overall “read” on what’s there, such as: What colors are most present/consistent? What fabrics and details stick out immediately, like lace or linen or metal hardware? What brands keep popping up? And—most importantly—what stands out? In a sea of black cotton and denim—what are these bright pink trousers doing here? Or, in a largely colorful and print-heavy closet, why your only winter coat black? I’m not judging, I’m just asking. And you should be asking yourself: what doesn’t make sense here? And how can we make it make sense? More on that in a bit.

On the second scroll, we’re gonna dig in just a little deeper: What’s the ratio of tops to bottoms (to one-pieces, if applicable)? Where are the accessories? What kinds of pieces do we see repeated over and over again, like wrap tops or oxford shirts or high-waisted jorts?

It’s important to also take a look at the outfits you’ve already made: what are the formulas? Not just “sweater + pants” but, are you more of a little-on-top-big-on-bottom person, or the inverse? Do you tend to wear layers or keep it more straightforward? How do you pair colors and prints? And how can we take this to the next level while still honoring how you tend to like to see yourself?

Finally, we’re gonna pick some personal favorites—a mix of those standouts and more foundational/basic pieces—and look to see how you’re styling them and what, if anything, we could change. Say you have something blue that you consistently style with black, or a print you only style with certain solids, the goal is to consider pairings that may be less obvious and, of course, make it a point to utilize pieces that aren’t being loved as much as they should.

The Looks

A Lookbook on Indyx comes with 10 looks, and a Mini comes with 3. I think most people’s look can be fully summed up somewhere in the middle, but the number isn’t so important: it’s about the intention. It’s easy to get caught up in just trying to prove your clothes can make a bunch of outfits; we want to make sure those outfits are you and that starts with how we build each one.

Make It Make Sense

Sometimes, a piece stands out in our wardrobe because it’s not really us but spoke to us nonetheless; other times, a piece stands out in our wardrobe because it’s so incredibly perfectly us, but that magic hasn’t struck twice. Styling your standouts means figuring out which camp they fall into.

For the standouts that aren’t really you, can you make them meet you where you are? Say you’re typically very minimalist, but you splurged on a random multi-colored psychadelic printed blouse: what if you tried styling it the way you would any neutral or simple top you already own, with jeans, dainty jewelry and the shoes you wear everyday? You don’t have to become a different person or try to reinvent the wheel.

When the standout is so you, though, it’s worth taking the time to first figure out why. Is it the perfect topper to any outfit? Is it that elusive “going out top” that makes you feel sexy even after a huge dinner? How can we capture that vibe in all your looks? Maybe it’s the neckline or the sleeve length or the rise on the pants. When you get down to basics, you might realize you actually have a lot of pieces just like that one that, on first glance, didn’t fit in. Focus on styling those, and see just how easily your look starts to shine through.

A Formulaic Approach

Outfit Formulas are, hands down, the most important part of your look. Two people can have almost identical wardrobes, but, the way they put things together can be night and day, and still, even that’s not the complete picture. Just look at how different a cardigan + tank top + trousers can look, and how these are two entirely different vibes for two entirely different people (or days, as the case may be):

Outfit Formulas usually manifest in your wardrobe in one of two ways: As a foundation that you build on top of or as a framework you play within. The foundation is simple: you have your base, and then the things you add to change your look day to day. So, say, a button up and jeans is your foundation, and depending on the day, maybe you add a blazer or a sweater, or tuck your jeans into your boots. The basic pieces are the same, and what you add is typically functional. Usually, you can push the boundaries here by just combining your basics in a different way: new color combos, mixing patterns, changing out the shoes, or just adding different accessories. Again: you don’t always have to reinvent the wheel.

Sometimes, though, you may encounter what I call The Summer Problem, aka, how do you make a cool outfit when your coolest outfits are way too much to keep you cool in the summer? Others might know this as “I-can’t-wait-til-fall-so-I-can-really-dress” Syndrome, or The “It’s-too-damn-hot-for-all-these-clothes” Effect. It’s a tough problem to have, as it often necessitates incorporating separate warm-weather options and formulas, or, simply living with lackluster summer vibes.

I believe, though, it’s situations like this—a limitation that could require new clothes but doesn’t have to require new clothes—that ultimately help you define what your look is, and it’s where I feel creating (or requesting) a Lookbook assists the most in forcing you to really sit down and just make outfits, and, in this case, we need the outfits we make to answer a question: What are those pieces actually doing for you (besides, presumably, providing some sort of practical function)? Are they adding structure? Contrast? Weight? Polish? Drama? How can we tweak your base formula to meet that same goal? Come on, mama/papa/theytha, let’s experiment!

When it comes to formulas that are more of a framework, it’s less about the pieces and more about how the pieces relate to one another. The most famous, of course, is big-pants-little-top but there’s also structure + slouchy, cropped layer plus long lines, even neutral plus pop of color.

The beauty of the framework is that it’s flexible, but, if you’ve grown very comfortable in your formulas, it may be difficult to figure out where to go. This is where I like to focus more on the styling, rather than the combinations. Can we tuck it in? Can we button our shirt differently? Can we cuff our pants or pop a collar? The power of the jujj cannot be overstated, not just in how it can change the way our clothes look and feel on us, but also in how it can change how our clothes look with each other. If you button your shirt at the top, maybe you wanna untuck your shirt. If you untuck your shirt, maybe you’ll feel comfortable wearing a more fitted skirt without feeling too sexy/dressed up/exposed.

It’s a bit harder to communicate this in a flat lay or a screen, though. Which brings us to what is, arguably, the most important part of the Lookbook.

The Breakdown

Longtime readers know: I love asking why. Breaking down our choices—the good and the bad—is what helps us do better. When I’m doing a Lookbook, this is the part I leave for last. But you should be doing it twice: once when you put the look together, and again when you put it on. To start: Why are you putting this together? Why do you think it’ll work? What might make it not work? How is it similar to what you normally wear? Is there anything that makes it different from what you normally wear?

And once you have it on: Does it look how you imagined? If no, does it still work? If yes, what’s your favorite part of the look? Can you recreate it with other pieces in your wardrobe? If no, why not? If yes, is it your look?

What makes a look? Your look is your throughline. It’s what you reach for no matter the occasion: the proportions you repeat, the colors you love, the combinations that make you look in the mirror and say “damn, I look good as hell!” When you slow down enough to see it, and allow yourself to experiment within the parameters of your existing wardrobe without the pressure to buy something new, you allow your closet to really come together as more than just a collection of outfits, but a fully realized reflection of you.

You don’t have to chase your look, just like you don’t have to create your personal style: you just have to allow yourself to see that it’s already there.

Making educated choices is the first step to shopping more sustainably and, indeed, more ethically, but I’m of the mind that all knowledge is good knowledge (so long as it’s accurate), so, even if your motivation has nothing to do with your approach to fashion as a consumer, it’s still worth engaging deeply with the thing that, again, literally everyone in the majority of society has to engage with on some level (yes, even shopping exclusively secondhand or making your own clothes is engaging with fashion—why wouldn’t it be?).

Your very first step in getting fashion will be in understanding clothes. Not just the basics like “what are pants?” (depends on where you are in the world) and not just the incredibly deep, nuanced topics like the different ways to cultivate cotton in order to make a t-shirt that costs $5, $50, or $500. I mean, like, what’s an epaulette? Why were they created and how did they go from a functional detail on military uniforms to pure fashion?

Get Literate

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of going to a physical store, feeling the clothes, looking at the insides, and trying things on. Unfortunately, anyone who’s ventured into your average boutique or even department store lately can tell you that what’s most readily available is rarely the best quality, and if you’re a certain size, have certain tastes, or even just in certain parts of the world, it can be difficult to find options you’d like to wear at all, let alone something you can learn from. And how would you learn, anyway, when retail workers outside of luxury (and sometimes within luxury) are rarely educated on what makes a garment worth buying beyond how it looks?

Unfortunately, when it comes to acquiring this kind of knowledge, it’s going to have to largely be self-guided via the Internet. Luckily, the best way to guide yourself through the internet to learn these things is kinda fun—that is, if you consider looking at beautiful things you (most likely, but, maybe could, I don’t know your life) can’t afford “fun.”

A long (long, long) time ago (in 2023), I extolled the virtues of online window shopping in order to better recognize quality markers in clothing. Today, I’m going to extol said virtues once more, this time in order to learn the vocabulary of fashion.

As always, I recommend doing this on designer/luxury sites, specifically Moda Operandi, Net-A-Porter, and MyTheresa, because these sites feature detailed descriptions of the garments they sell, and relatively unposed images that you can zoom in on to better see, you know, what they’re talking about.

I like to start on Net-A-Porter and just browse. Eventually, something will jump out to you that you don’t quite understand. This blouse by Heirlome immediately grabbed my attention:

This style of top is not particularly unique, no, but that’s not the point of this exercise: let’s find out what it is and use that as a jumping off point for further study.

On Net-A-Porter it’s called a “Cummerbund cropped gathered silk-georgette blouse.” Already, I would be adding “silk-georgette” to the list of fabrics to look up, perhaps next to another silk top like this, which looks incredibly similar (it’s even by the same brand), but that’s fabricated from a completely different silk weave (crepe) to acquaint myself with the difference between the many forms silk fibers can take. This knowledge will also come in handy to help understand why, according to the official Heirlome site (always follow up with the original designer!) the body of the top is what’s made from silk georgette, while the cummerbund (also worth looking up if you didn’t immediately recognize it as menswear-inspired) part is actually silk crepe de chine (likely because crepe de chine is more opaque and easy to make more structured to create the somewhat stiffened cummerbund look without losing the overall lightness of the top).

I would go through this process for any garment that catches your eye: look up the fabrics, the details, the shapes and any other words you don’t know that are mentioned to learn definitions, functions, and histories of these features, as well as get familiar with the many different variations of these techniques.

It’s important to note here that some very specific techniques don’t really have a name, so to speak, at least not one you would hear outside of a sewing workshop. Or, they’re a combination of techniques that you simply have to train yourself to perceive. Like this blouse by Sharon Wauchob.

You might be tempted to try to figure out exactly what that technique at the neckline is called. The description just calls it “artfully gathered and ruched around the shoulders,” and that’s what it is, with either a thick cord or elastic, but there’s really no good way to search for exactly how that’s done without, you know, knowing what it’s called. Pinpointing these sorts of things will just take time and research, but, as you learn the basics (and the not-so-basics), you’ll start to be able to connect dots on your own. And that’s the whole point!

Pick A Lane

So, what’s your goal? In order to even start to understand the vast world that is fashion, you must first “niche down.” Do you want to get good at identifying runway looks and collections? Do you want to eventually design and construct your own garments? Are you interested in the history of textiles and silhouettes and the things we wear? What you want to learn determines where you start but your best bet is always going to be starting small, focusing on what you care about, and allowing your passion for everything else to build over time. Trying to learn everything all at once will, at best, just not stick, and, at worst, kill your interest before you even really get going.

How you arrive at your “niche” is personal, but, if you haven’t already got some inclination toward what it may be, you may find it helpful to consume more media—thoughtfully, of course.

Editorials in fashion magazines can get you interested in designers; old movies (or movies set in the past) can spark an interest in fashion history; and sewing and design content may inspire you to get out there and do it yourself. Whatever your path, hone in on the details first. What are you most excited about? What specific thing would you like to work toward? Be clear about your goal. There’s always time to refine or expand them, later.

This first installment of “How To Get Fashion” will focus on building your knowledge of fashion houses and designers.

(Fashion) House Hunting

Outside of streaming music/movies, there are only two apps I’ve ever happily paid a subscription for: Instapaper (the best app for saving articles to read later) and Vogue Runway. I love having access to, not just the shows, but detail shots, as well as reviews—which are a great source for starting to learn how to think about clothes. But, Vogue Runway is by no means the most extensive runway resource out there. In fact, it pales in comparison to, say, Show Studio or Now Fashion when it comes to smaller, lesser-known designers. And none of the sources I just named are nearly as exhaustive for shows before, like, 2010.

FirstView, the best runway archive you’ve probably never heard of, was started in 1995 by two runway photographers, and their catalog goes deep. To compare: FirstView has photos from 75 shows from 1995; Vogue has only 31. FirstView also shines when it comes to recent shows, including hundreds of graduate collections and lesser known designers from Fashion Weeks outside of the big four (Paris/London/New York/Milan) like Barcelona, Sao Paolo, and Muscat. And it’s all free to view!

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I have meticulously documented everything, starting with everything I actually wore:

As you can see, outside of my “outfit-outfits,” I have my go-to “basic” outfit (black sweater, black skirt) that I’ll typically throw on for travel days or running errands. You’ll also notice a few “single item” days—with just a sweater or t-shirt—which are the days I don’t really leave home at all, though, I’m not just Winnie The Pooh-ing it out here: I do typically pair them with leggings or pajama shorts. I try to avoid having more than one of those days within a single week, but, I did have a cold at one point: you can probably guess exactly when.

Am I bored yet?

I’m getting there, but not with my clothes. I have certain combinations that I am legitimately excited to wear every time I wear them—my red cardigan + red skirt, my yellow cardigan + paisley skirt, my blue jumper + blue skirt (clearly there’s a theme, here)—but, even for all my accessories, I’m getting close to running out of ways to sort of “refresh” them. Unfortunately, the things I would love to add the most to create some different options—a new coat/heavy jacket, another pair of boots—would add too much bulk to my suitcase, so, I’ll likely be on the hunt for some jewelry and maybe a new belt or two for the time being, until I’m able to properly re-home some things.

That said, once the weather gets warmer (and stays warm), I’ll likely reevaluate my winterwear and switch out the majority of my knitwear: I didn’t think I’d reach for my fitted jumpers/cardigans as often as I do (I planned to wear them for more “special” occasions), but, it turns out I love a tighter fit now, so, the more oversized ones will have to find a new home and I’ll get to save a little space in my suitcase for my next additions—more on that below.

Did I pack enough? Did I pack too much?

According to Indyx, I’ve made 84 unique outfits from my 92 unique pieces—including jewelry, shoes, accessories, and purses. That’s 12 weeks’—three months!—worth of outfits with no repeats, and that’s not even fully accounting for, say, fall or spring where I’ll be repeating plenty of outfits either without a coat or with a light jacket, or a good chunk of my warm-weather clothing I haven’t touched yet. So, mathematically, I’d say: yes, I did pack enough. But, did I pack right?

When it comes to skirts, I have 10 total, with 5 that I consider suitable for year-round wear, but, I think I’d really like that to be 6, maybe even 7. One of the more summery skirts will probably have to find a new home, and I’ll replace it with a more year-round version of another. I will not get rid of my linen, though. I’ll need it for Vietnam.

I mentioned my knits above, but, I didn’t mention that, of the 6 sweaters I packed, as of today, there are two I hardly wore—I’m talking one time each—even though they were in heavy rotation back in Los Angeles. I’ve already rehomed one after wearing it out once and realizing it wasn’t really practical (it’s very cropped) but I’m attempting to make it a point to use the other more.

My shoes, purses and accessories (including jewelry) are a little harder to gauge right now. I have three purses: one yellow, one red, one turquoise, and I intend to find a replacement for the yellow as it’s just too rigid in my suitcase. I have two pairs of shoes I haven’t worn (one needs to be repaired) that are just too-season specific and may have to be rehomed. And, as I already said, I’d like a new pair of boots as the ones I have are fine but not great for rain and there’s a lot of rain here in Tirana.

And finally, my blouses have hardly seen the light of day. I wore one on New Year’s Eve (in Paris! Evidence below.) but, it’s been just a tad too chilly to wear a blouse on its own. I think I’ll try to track down a layer to wear between my light coat and a light blouse but, I’m not big on layering, so, I’ll likely end up just getting a slightly heavier coat (not too heavy, though—I still don’t plan on traveling anywhere where the temperature is consistently below freezing!).

The above is—besides a super cute outfit for ringing in the new year—a good example of what I wear to go “out-out.” The poofy, layered skirt is exclusively worn when I want to look a bit “dressy” but, as much as I love it, I may swap it out for a more fitted (and easier to fold) option, as well.

How do I pack everything?

I have two suitcases, both by Italian luggage brand Mandarina Duck: the cabin trolley and the medium trolley. They fit all my stuff with the tiniest amount of room to spare (that I used for all the skincare I got in Paris).

In my carry-on, I make sure to pack at least a week’s worth of outfits: three skirts, and all my sweaters (except for one I’m usually wearing). That goes in the zipper side. On the other side, I have some belts, the pink packing cube with all my bras and underwear, a pair of flat shoes hidden underneath, my makeup, and in the big white “toiletry” case, I have…

…my jewelry (as well as some extra stuff like earring backs, replacement nose rings, and some spare glasses).

This case is heavy. And so dense with (costume) jewelry, it gets flagged in my suitcase every time I go through security. But, even though it is somewhat impractical, I have no plans to switch it out with something less bulky at the moment.

The larger suitcase is for, literally, everything else: my warm-weather blouses, skirts, shoes, my purses, my boots and two more pairs of shoes, my other belts, and my skin and body care.

I’ve learned that I really hate having two suitcases, especially such a large one as it’s incredibly impractical to carry and even occasionally too big for the boot of a taxi. I believe my solution lies in getting a new personal item that will fit the underwear cube, a pair of shoes, and my belts, to free up room to put more clothing in my carry-on. I’ll keep an eye out for that, here, and, as I write this, I’m planning a weekend in Rome, so, I’ll be able to go in-person to Mandarina Duck (it’s an Italian company) to potentially purchase something that matches.

For those curious about the packing cubes: I use them exclusively for organization. I don’t think they actually save any space, even compressed. When I re-calibrate and re-pack, I’ll likely get rid of them all except for the underwear cube.

How am I cleaning/maintaining my clothes?

I didn’t realize so many people had me pegged as some kind of chronic de-wrinkler, but, I’ve gotten asked several times if I packed a travel steamer. The answer is no. In every place I’ve stayed so far, there was both an iron/ironing board and a place to hang my clothing, so, I’ll typically unpack the few items that are most prone to wrinkling, iron them and hang them after every wear so I don’t have to do it again. I can foresee wrinkles becoming a bigger issue as I switch to my more linen-heavy summer wardrobe but, for now, it’s not an issue, and I do owe some of that to the beauty (yes, beauty!) of synthetic-blend fabrics.

You may be shocked to learn that I chose most of my sweaters because they contain some amount of synthetic fibers. In fact, while I was initially downsizing my (surprisingly large for someone who lived in a place like Los Angeles) knit wardrobe, I purposely (but sadly) culled my heavier wools, cashmeres and full cotton sweaters from my capsule because they were all natural fibers. And besides the extra care required to maintain them (that I simply don’t want to do), they all just take so much time to dry.

As you may know, outside of America, dryers are not very commonplace, meaning everything I have must air dry, and synthetics simply dry faster than most natural fibers—especially when comparing knits. Here in Tirana, it’s both cold (around 45F/9C) and humid (humidity is at 71% today, and it rains quite a bit in January), so, it’s already kind of an uphill battle to dry my clothes quickly. My blended jumpers (typically cotton/nylon and occasionally viscose/nylon) take about half a day or less to dry in the sun whereas my 100% cotton underwear can take a whole day, even though they tend to be much smaller than a whole jumper.

When I swap out my jumpers, I’ll be going from thicker, oversized styles to thinner styles that can naturally dry faster without any synthetics (so, merino wool or silk blends). Still, my priority is both speed and ease, and I really don’t see myself rolling my cashmere up in towels or letting my wool rest for (at least) 24 hours between wears, anymore. That energy is taken up by handwashing my bras (something I will simply never stop doing, especially since my bra size is so hard to find).

At the risk of sounding gross, I do laundry whenever I have enough clothes that smell bad—usually every two weeks—and only my tops and underwear. My skirts get spot-cleaned—they’re too large to fit in these tiny washers, anyway.

What do I wear to sleep?

Before I set out on this journey, I watched and read a lot of people’s experiences with packing for long-term travel. One thing they consistently mentioned was sleeping in their clothes. This was simply not an option.

I packed an oversized t-shirt and pajama shorts, with an extra pair of leggings that double as “it’s really cold” pajamas and an “it’s really cold” layering piece under my skirts (that I haven’t really had to use yet).

As the weather warms up, I very much look forward to downsizing. While I’m not really a hot weather kinda girl, this adventure is all about growing and changing and I just may become one, if only so my suitcases are easier to repack.

Over the past five new years—and I do mean January 1st, or at least very close—I’ve: launched a new business, began co-habitating with a partner, stopped co-habitating with a partner, revamped and relaunched my business, and, now, I’m typing this on a plane to Paris where I’ll be kicking off a year living on an entirely new continent…and also revamping and relaunching my business. I’m not new to this, baby, I’m true to this.

One thing I rarely ever wait until the new year to do, though, is change up my style or wardrobe. While I may need an “excuse” to sign a new lease or buy a new domain name, I’ve never needed a reason to, say, get rid of all my crop tops or stop wearing pants, so, style-related New Year’s Resolutions are not really my ministry, though I’ve written about them before.

What I prefer to do when it comes to my wardrobe is ascribe myself a little theme for the year: something to keep in mind every time I get dressed that’s more of a vibe than a goal. I’m not looking to make some checklist to follow, I’m looking at my reflection (multiple times a day) and asking myself: Do I feel [insert theme here]?

This year, my theme is Polished. As I embark on this new journey, living the majority of my life out of a suitcase, what’s important to me beyond ease and versatility—which I already figured out before I even started packing—is not looking like I’m living out of a suitcase. For me, that means no (or low) wrinkles, keeping my clothes clean, making sure I’m always wearing jewelry (I’m wearing three necklaces currently on this flight), and not sacrificing my overall preferred aesthetic for something that, in theory, should be more practical (I tried sneakers and they just don’t work for me, sorry!).

I find my yearly themes work best when I know they’ll be tested. Will I be able to maintain my own standards in the hot and humid climate of Malaysia (which I’m planning to visit at the end of the year)? Will I have to suck it up and buy sneakers again? Will airport security flag my bag because of my jewelry case every single time I fly? I don’t know! And that’s the fun of it. The idea of being potentially thrown out of my comfort zone is what makes things worth doing for me. It’s what gives both my life and my wardrobe meaning. In coming up with your theme, think about how your outfits can make you feel fulfilled and like the best version of yourself. Write it down on a Post-It, stick it to your mirror and ask yourself: Do I Feel…

Elevated

Sometimes, you do just want to wear leggings, I get it. But leggings doesn’t have to mean lazy. How can you elevate your look so even your comfiest outfits still look and feel “nice?” Add accessories? Change your shoes? Get a nice coat? Put on a better bra? This is the kind of theme that may necessitate upgrading, replacing, or even adding certain things in/to your wardrobe.

Focused

There’s nothing wrong with having eclectic style that feels a bit “all over the place”, but, if it feels like you don’t really have a style that speaks to who you are at all, it may be time to hone in on what you want to look like. What characteristic do all your favorite outfits share and how can you apply that to every outfit? What’s your overall style mantra? What are you wearing that’s not actually really your vibe at all? This one may require getting rid of some stuff.

Excited

If I hadn’t gone with Polished for 2026, Excited would’ve been my choice. There’s something so great about wearing something that truly makes you feel happy. It could be a jacket you got an amazing deal on. It could be a dress you always get complimented on. Maybe even a ring you bought on your last trip abroad. Make it a point to wear those things you have that just make you smile. You might have to stop saving said smile-inducing items for a “special occasion.”

Sexy

It’s always heartbreaking for me when I get a new client who feels they’ve lost their sexy, but, my goodness, does it feel amazing to help them get it back. If you’re dealing with major body changes, a new (or old) illness, parent duties, or anything else that makes you feel like more of a plain loaf of bread than the hot tamale you are, it’s worth introducing a little sexiness day to day—and I don’t just mean showing skin (though that can help!). What about a pair of lacy underwear only you’ll see? Or a swipe of juicy lip gloss? Or a fresh set of sharp red nails? This one could lean more into beauty than style.

Confident

Confidence is one of those things we (meaning me, a stylist) talk about a lot but it can’t be taught, quantified, or even faked (‘cause if you really think about it, faking confidence requires the confidence you think you’re faking, you know?). I can tell you what feeling confident means for me: clothes that I don’t have to adjust or pull at or retuck throughout the day; supportive undergarments; clothes that serve as conversation starters; shoes that don’t make me walk weird. If confidence is your theme for the new year, there may be a wardrobe overhaul on the horizon for you.

Regardless of the theme you choose, it is, as always, imperative that you question everything: why does this make me feel the way it does? Why doesn’t it make me feel the way it doesn’t? Be honest with yourself, and with the reasons you chose the theme you did. I know I said it’s more of a vibe, not a goal, but there should be an end goal to stay consistent throughout 2026, to 2027, and beyond.

Oh yeah, and happy new year from Paris!

Or, it would be, if I hadn’t been taking care of it over the course of this entire year.

You see, I’ve been planning and plotting this major move since late 2024, and y’all have been along for the ride the whole time, from when I talked about how to start your wardrobe over and how to focus your wardrobe building; to when I encouraged you to keep an outfit/wardrobe journal (like I have for the past two years) in order to hone in on what you love to wear and what you actually need; to talking about how to determine where to spend your money as I budgeted for my new additions; and, finally, to when I first mentioned I’d be making a big move and how I was shopping to prepare.

Throughout this process, I have downsized my wardrobe from nearly 300 items to less than a quarter of that (not including my jewelry), planned over 80 outfits (and counting), and packed essentially my entire life into two suitcases. And now, I feel qualified to tell you how to do so, too.

This advice will be most useful for those who are also planning on leaving their home country semi-permanently to travel the world in the near future, but, you could also think of it as another way to approach refining your capsule wardrobe or, at the very least, packing for an extended trip.

I’m going to assume, if you’re reading this, that you’d like your style to be at the forefront, so, your first task is to figure out what that is. I taught you how to pull the capsule out of your existing wardrobe by finding what’s essentially your uniform—something I did and have been wearing non-stop for the past few months. From there, you can take your uniform—or your basic outfit formula—and distill it to its most basic form. What matters most to you? Is it your accessories? Lots of color? Do you just wanna wear fun pants everyday? Do you want to get away with wearing as little literal fabric as possible? What’s the primary outfit formula you’re building around? That’s your foundation. What’s the focal point? That’s the non-negotiable. With that framework in place, you can dig into what I consider the three main stress points for creating a wardrobe that’s meant to travel with you indefinitely: weather, the extras, and shoes.

Climate Challenges

When figuring out how on earth I was going to pack for a year of travel, my first step was figuring out where I’d want to go based on my (ideal) extremes. What temperatures and conditions am I actually comfortable with? How do I need to dress for less optimal conditions like rain? With this in mind, I was able to come up with ways to adapt my go-to formula in ways that still align with how I want to look and (most importantly) how I want to feel.

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As of writing this, I’ve given 106 items over to consignment via The RealReal, ThredUp, Buffalo Exchange, Crossroads, and a local place called Trove. Some have sold, some have been returned, some are waiting for someone to take a chance on them.

For those unfamiliar with what exactly consignment is: it’s where a store or platform either pays you for your items up front and sells them for you, or takes your items and pays you for them as they sell. Most have a tiered payout schedule where the higher something is priced, the higher your cut, but not all.

The thing to remember about consignment is that it’s probably not your best bet if your goal is to make as much money off your stuff as possible. By outsourcing the labor it takes to photograph, list, sell, and ship items through an online platform, or taking it to a physical shop that has to pay for rent and employees, as well as storage, marketing, and, occasionally, transport for items that don’t sell—I am opting for convenience, and that convenience comes at a price.

In addition to the cost of resale-as-a-service, most of us go to sites like The RealReal or ThredUp, or walk into Buffalo Exchange or Crossroads with the express purpose of getting super cool stuff for 75-90% off retail. So, when it comes time to consign our super cool stuff, you just kinda have to accept that it’ll be priced at…75-90% off retail.

I’m not saying this to be preachy (for once). These are things I myself had to internalize through this process. Would I have preferred to make more money off my super cool stuff? Absolutely. Was I prepared to do the work to ensure I received the most money for my super cool stuff? Absolutely not. How much did I actually make? Keep reading and I’ll tell you.

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Which one sounds more difficult? Which one sounds like it might take more time and labor (and, therefore, money)?

Obviously, this is a metaphor for tailoring.

To be honest, I’m sad about the state of tailoring. Not the artform itself or those that work within it, but the way our society (and I do largely mean Americans, here) seems to view it. At best, the average person seems to view tailoring as completely unattainable—cost prohibitive and completely inaccessible, which, yeah, can be true (but if you’re thinking this way in a major city, I need you to get it together). At worst, people seem to think it’s completely unnecessary and that, instead, brands should just make 30 different lengths and cuts per size for every single garment that will miraculously fit every single person (on Earth) right off the rack. Reality is, as it tends to be, somewhere in the middle.

Yes, tailoring should be way more accessible, and I don’t just mean in terms of price: Physical retailers should provide it, there should be more skilled artisans of the trade able to work independently and make a living in more places, more people should be capable of the most basic tailoring/mending skills (or at least in community with someone who is), and we should, at some point, figure out how to do effective tailoring on a wider scale via the internet (though, I’m not really holding my breath for that one). It’s not just about fit, either. Obviously, having well-fitted clothes is important, but, tailoring is more than just taking things in and letting them out: it can also involve changing aesthetic details, repurposing previously loved garments, and repair, all to keep our clothes wearable for longer.

Let’s talk about some things you may not have realized a tailor can do. By the way, I’m using “tailor” here to refer to sewists who work on garments that have already been made, but, you can also use it to refer to those who create garments from scratch.

All image sources are linked. Most are pulled from tutorials, so, if you know how to sew, you could plausibly do any of these fixes yourself!

You already know that most garments can be taken in: nipping in your jeans at the waist, making a skirt or pants legs fit a little tighter, and shortening a hem can all range from super easy to annoyingly tedious, but, rarely impossible. Did you know, though, that you can sometimes solve the problem of “what bra do I wear with this?” by just having a bra sewn into your garment?

In fact, there’s actually a lot of ways you can alter a garment to give you a little more support, like adding darts to better shape to the curved parts of your body, shortening straps or taking shoulders up (both helpful for super low necklines or to raise a low waistline), or adding power mesh for light compression. These are all pretty common fixes to help formal gowns and dresses fit better, so, you should have no problem finding a tailor to do them. What can be a little more difficult to track down is someone willing to make purely aesthetic fixes, like, say, completely changing a neckline, both for more modesty…

…and for less.

Maybe a new neckline will make you more likely to wear that dress that’s been collecting dust in your closet. Maybe it should be something else entirely, like a skirt or even a set. You can do that, too.

It’s hard—with what little seam allowances we’re given these days—to invisibly let out a garment, but, there are ways to do so somewhat discreetly, especially under the arm. If you shop vintage regularly, you may have seen a garment with a gusset, or, a triangular or diamond-shaped piece of fabric added into seams to give the wearer a little more room to breathe and move.

This is especially a great solution for those with jeans that are a little too tight in the crotch or thighs leading to the dreaded chub rub.

If it’s already too late for the chub rub, though, that can be fixed, too, and you can ask for reinforcement to be added to prevent it happening (or at least happening so quickly) again.

Gussets can sometimes be made of a stretch material and added to the sides of a top or blouse to help fit a larger bust (add extra snaps between the buttons to prevent gaping while you’re at it) or tummy and accommodate some body changes. To accommodate size fluctuations even further, you can also add adjustable elastic, straps or buttons, especially on pants or skirts.

You can fix a worn/stretched out elastic waistband by removing it and replacing the elastic or, depending on how much excess fabric there is, making it into a regular waistband or even wrap style instead.

All your old skinny jeans that fit your body but not your style could be turned into skirts…

…or taken from high-waisted and baggy down to a mid-rise that fits perfectly (this usually shouldn’t require replacing the zipper (length should be taken from the crotch, not from the top), but it depends on the jeans).

One of the most important skills a tailor can provide, though, is repair. Adding patches, replacing a button or zipper, and fixing busted seams is useful, but have you heard of reweaving?

This is a highly specialized skill done by taking matching fabric from a hidden part of the garment hand weaving threads together to essentially “erase” holes in fabric. It’s also referred to as French weaving or reknitting for, you know, knits, if you wanna find someone who does it near you. If you’re in LA, you can go to the best to ever do it. Because it’s so, so specialized, though, invisible mending (as it’s also sometimes called) can run you, on average, $200 per hole. You may be able to find someone who specializes in visible mending near you, particularly the sashiko method….

….or even something a little more colorful…

…to turn what’s old (and holey) into something new, again.

Last post, I talked about how annoying it is when people emphatically proclaim that the price of clothing has an absolute ceiling (equal to how ever much they’re personally willing to spend) without any idea of what contributes to the price of clothing. It got me thinking, though…do people actually know what makes certain things “luxurious?” Not obvious things like gowns or Birkin bags. But, the fashion-related things we encounter everyday and take for granted. Is there really a such thing as a “luxury” t-shirt? Why are bras so expensive for so little fabric? Are all designer jeans just charging for the honor of wearing the brand? I wanna answer those questions, starting with—as you’ve probably deduced from the title—the humble t-shirt.

First, some parameters: we all know that the location and conditions in which something is produced can drastically affect the price. For our little thought exercise, we’re gonna keep those two factors equal. Let’s just pretend that one brand is a premium brand, and the other is a brand that advertises how their garments are “made in the same factories as [premium brand]” while cutting the corners that actually produce a premium product—banking on you not realizing that a single factory can produce things at many different levels of quality (*cough*Quince*cough*).

This also isn’t a business newsletter, so I will not be going into the overhead and expenses—rent, utilities, shipping, storage, web hosting, marketing, etc.—that also contribute to the markup and final price of a garment and can vary wildly from brand to brand. What I’m going to focus on is the materials and details that can command prices above a reasonable base price. So, let’s talk about the price floor for a t-shirt.

Yes Friends is a UK-based (Scotland, specifically) brand that, for all intents and purposes, has cracked the code. They sell quality, ethically produced, Fair Trade organic cotton t-shirts for as little as £12 (that’s about $15 USD but the price jumps to $22 when you switch to USD because of f*cking tariffs). Is it a good t-shirt? The reviews say yes. But, it could always be better, starting with the material.

Cotton is way more complex than you might think. How it’s grown, how it’s spun into yarn and how it’s woven into fabric all contribute to its price. Lately, organic cotton—which accounts for about 1-3% of the 27 million tonnes of cotton grown yearly—has become a bit trendy. But is it premium? It depends.

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But now that I have a “brand” to “protect,” I can’t be running around calling people idiots because of their (sometimes) innocent posts. I am a kind, responsible netizen…but I still exist online, which means I still see the idiotic posts. Often hundreds of the same kinds of idiotic posts every single week, especially in my fashion-trained algorithm, and I have to resist the urge to reply with what is, to me, common sense, but that to an idiot might come off kinda mean, especially if I say it the way I think it, which is in a kinda mean way.

Today, I’m gonna respond to some incredibly common and somewhat inane questions and complaints regarding clothes the way I want to.

“It costs more to tailor my clothes than they cost to buy!”

I need you to understand that what you paid for your clothes doesn’t have shit to do with your tailor.

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A little while ago, I wrote about all the things to consider in order to build and run the “perfect” fashion brand in terms of ethics and sustainability. But, that’s all they are: things to consider. Without regulation—and consequences for violating said regulations—there’s really no reason for any brand to do things the right way outside of, like, having a conscience. Unfortunately, having a conscience is not particularly profitable.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though: over the past couple of years, there has been some progress in addressing the many ills of fashion. Many countries and other governing bodies have introduced and even passed laws that, if properly enforced, will absolutely make a difference in the way we produce and engage with clothing. Today, I wanna talk about the steps currently being taken…and how we can (and should) take it even further to build the best fashion industry we possibly can.

Materials and Production

I’ve said it before: cotton is not very sustainable if forests are destroyed in order to grow more of it. Recycled materials are not that sustainable if the chemicals used to dye them are dumped into rivers and other water sources. Even linen is not as sustainable if it must be transported thousands of miles to be processed, another few thousand miles to be sewn and another few thousand miles to be sold. And absolutely nothing is sustainable if it’s just going to be dumped in a landfill—it doesn’t matter if it biodegrades or not.

Currently, only about 13% of our clothing is recycled or reused, globally. The rest is disposed of, to the tune of about 92 million tons a year. Almost 1% of that waste—1.2 million tons—comes from California alone, which is why, in 2024, Gavin Newsom signed the Responsible Textile Recovery Act into law. This law requires companies that sell—not just manufacture, sell—clothing/textiles in the state of California to form a “producer responsibility organization” and make real efforts to collect, repair and recycle their products. This is a fantastic step in the right direction that places the onus where it belongs: on the corporations producing all this crap. But it doesn’t go quite far enough.

In addition to forcing companies to take responsibility for their products after the consumer is done with it, we also need clear and mandated reporting on just how many of those products are being produced, and focus on raising the standards for what they’re selling to us in the first place in order to prolong the use of those things and reduce both waste and consumption. Though it appears to be in the process of being rolled back (bad move!), the European Union Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles recently mandated that any company selling textiles in anywhere in the European Union must meet standards for durability, non-toxicity, and recyclability. Similarly, in France, specifically, the Anti-Fast Fashion Law penalizes brands for producing “short-lived textiles,” and forces brands to provide clear information about the environmental impact and country of origin of their products, with a financial penalty for violators that will be used to fund sustainable fashion initiatives in the country. I’d love to see this expanded to some kind of mandate on the minimum quality of finished products: a durable fabric can still have wonky hems, a fabric free of PFAs can still be sewn with such loose stitches it doesn’t stand up to wear. Do I think we should be examining and evaluating every single garment? No. I think auditing a small sample from stores and warehouses every so often would be enough, and also influence brands to tighten up their quality control no matter the price point (hello, Miu Miu).

Labor

Things like forced/child labor bans, ending piece rates, and safe working conditions are both extremely obvious and incredibly difficult to make happen in the fashion industry. There’s lots of promises made, lots of pledges signed, and a whole lot of outsourcing the problem to suppliers who then employ manufacturers who then occasionally employ cheaper manufacturers—all to maintain plausible deniability.

The problem—and it’s one I’ve pointed to before, as well—is that the vast majority of the sustainable fashion conversation is focused on fabrics and not the people who are making all this clothing. I knew we were—as the kids would say—cooked when I saw H&M had launched an initiative Sustainable Supplier Facility focused on carbon emissions from factories and not, say, the sexual harassment, misogynistic firings, and slave wages in their own factories and those of their suppliers.

Here in the US, the FABRIC Act was created to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act by establishing a nationwide garment industry registry for all manufacturers in order to hold bad actors accountable and to guarantee a minimum hourly wage (rather than per piece rates) to all workers, which, in my opinion, should be used to mandate that brands provide information for every supplier responsible for their garments from fabric mill to recycling (something the EU is also tackling with RFID tracking tags). I think this, in conjunction with a global database and union for garment workers to calculate and ensure a livable wage for all workers (similar to the goals of the Asia Floor Wage Alliance) is exactly what the industry needs.

Fit Inclusivity

Universal sizing is not a reasonable ideal to chase, nor would it solve the fit issues that, let’s face it, are simply inevitable when it comes to mass producing clothing. We know this because we’ve tried it: in 1939, the USDA published a study of women’s body measurements including stature, hip height, neck-base girth, waist girth, bust girth, shoulder length, forearm girth, posterior hip arc, and trunk line, with the goal of averaging this data in order to create a standardized size chart.

The problem—beyond the near impossibility of being able to gather enough data to represent every single unique body shape—is that…no body is really average. Maybe you and I have the same waist circumference…but do we have the same distance between our waist and our hips? Our shoulders may be the same length, but are our arms? Our inseams may be the same but we could be different heights. Body measurements are not enough to build a full range of sizes: you need to take proportions into account, as well, and if every single brand sizes their garments based on an average of all those measurements and proportions, then everyone who’s more than a couple of inches off from that average simply will not be able to wear clothes off the rack. Is it a little annoying that you’re rarely the same size in two different brands (to say nothing of two different garments from the same brand)? Yes. But, when some brands size based on longer legs and some shorter; and others size based on a larger ratio between the waist and hips and others hardly any ratio; and others size based on large busts and some based on small ones….that does mean everyone has a better chance of finding the brand’s sizing that aligns with their measurements and fits a little closer to perfect.

In The Perfect Brand, I said that individual brands could best combat this with a made-to-order model, but, that’s not very realistic for every brand and pretty much impossible for brick and mortar stores. So, how do we address fit issues on an industry level? We do away with “sizes” altogether (in the conventional sense) and replace it with measurements!

I stumbled upon a vintage size tag like this (not my photo) a while back and could not get over just how genius it is. Garment dimensions for online stores is a no-brainer, but having that info available right in front of you when shopping in-person is perfect, not to mention a huge timesaver. And, to be clear, I’m referring to the dimensions of the actual garment, not the body measurements it’s “meant” for.

The last time we mandated anything regarding garment tags—outside of children’s clothing which has all kinds of required tracking and certifications, for good reason—was in 1960 when we required every garment to carry a sewn-in label (not just a hang tag that could be removed) detailing material content. I think we’re well overdue to improve the size tag.

Of course, this would require brands to not just tighten their quality control, but also make labels for every individual garment and size, which can get pricy. For those brands that have so many styles that this sort of labeling would be a nearly impossible task…

Collections and Marketing

Stop making so much sh*t.

This Fashion Week, I couldn’t help but notice (and mention) how many designers were showing collections of 40, 50, even 60 looks. And it’s not as if each look is one piece: most ensembles were made up of at least two unique pieces, some up to 5 or 6. Chill out!

In a perfect world, there would not only be a registry for every design a brand sells—for copyright reasons, as we still cannot protect fashion designs from being copied in most of the world—but also a limit to how many new styles and items you can sell in a single season. But…that’s not very realistic.

What is realistic, though, is addressing the way these collections are marketed.

Once again, the EU comes in clutch with their new anti-greenwashing laws banning false claims about a product being “climate-neutral”, or having a “reduced”, or “climate-positive” impact, limiting sustainability claims (including “eco-friendly” and “recycled” labels) to only those that have been certified by official authorities with real evidence, and promoting repairability and creating a new label for products that are guaranteed to have a longer lifespan. Similar laws have passed or are in the works in Canada, the UK, and California.

If we’re going to force all claims to be backed up, though, we should also make it so the general public understands what that even means. I have no solution for that one, short of bringing back Schoolhouse Rock or, I guess, tapping influencers to make videos about sustainability. But, even still, just because consumers know what sustainability is doesn’t mean they’re able to make what can sometimes (not always) be a more expensive choice. Which is why raising wages across the board and across every industry and every country is one of the most sustainable things we should do.

If you’re interested in making a difference somewhere along the fashion supply chain, Remake, The Garment Worker Center, and Solidaridad are some great organizations to look into. But, you know what makes the biggest difference?

Subscribing to my Substa—no, I’m kidding, you can always start being more mindful about where and how you spend your money, wear what you have, and take care of everything—even after you’re done with it (i.e. don’t just dump it at a thrift store where it has an 80% chance of ending up in a landfill). Or, as Vivienne Westwood said: “Buy less, choose well, make it last.”

That’s not to say that I don’t tune in to the shows—I absolutely do. Hell, as much as I dunk on legacy houses, even I still have my favorites (Hermes, mostly) whose collections I save to my phone and use as home screen wallpapers. I didn’t think twice about paying for a subscription to continue using Vogue Runway. I’ll always like looking at pretty fashions. But—despite my deep love of fashion—as someone with a focus on sustainability and ethics, the concept of Fashion Week has largely lost its luster for me.

Nevertheless, when one of my favorite fashion people/YouTubers Zoe Hong invited me to be a part of a Fashion Week roundtable for her channel with some other fabulous fashion people, I jumped at the chance…I may have burned a few bridges, though. And I’m probably about to burn some more. Because, even though I had an absolute blast talking about clothes (and I always will), I still find myself even more disillusioned with Capital-F Fashion after this season’s shows. Why? Well—

What Ever Happened to Inclusivity?

You know it’s bad when Victoria’s Secret ends up being the most “inclusive” major fashion show of the season—with a total of 7 plus-size (by industry standards) models out of 29 total (plus a pregnant Jasmine Tookes). By percentage, the number of mid- and plus-size models was up this season, but that increase was very noticably absent when it came to the major brands, with Rick Owens showing zero non-straight size models compared to sixteen just last season.

As always, though, it’s the independent designers leading the charge and being the change we need. Tyler McGillivary, Kim Shui, Sunnei, Yaku, Chapova Lowena, Di Petsa, and Xuly.Bët featured the most size diversity, with some of them actually showing a majority of their looks in sizes larger than a US4. You can see a full breakdown by city here, but, I’ll tell you right now: it’s dire.

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Growing up, neo-soul was a huge presence in my household. I know Jill Scott’s first album front-to-back, and Alicia Keys’ first two. My mom would go back and forth between gospel artists like Yolanda Adams and Mary Mary to Erykah Badu, Sunshine Anderson, and Heather Headley on Sunday mornings. I hid a burned Floetry CD in my room because my mom thought their song “Say Yes” was too vulgar for me to listen to (but she would blast The Whisper Song while driving me to school—you know, that woman never made sense).

Listening was one thing, though. Something within me switched when I finally saw the artists that, until then, I’d only heard.

One year, my mom got a job at DFW Airport. She had to be there at 5am, every weekday morning, to drive a shuttle bus. That’s not really important. What’s important is that, because she had to be at work so early, she had to drop me off at my grandma’s house around 4am, where I was meant to sleep on the couch in the living room for a couple more hours until I had to get ready for school. But, I could never sleep, so, instead, I would turn on the TV, and what’s on at 4am? Music videos, of course.

It wasn’t my first time seeing music videos, of course, but it was my first time—across VH1, MTV, Fuse and BET—seeing such a diverse array of visuals. I knew what video vixens looked like, I knew what my favorite pop stars looked like, but, until then, I didn’t really see what the neo-soul artists I knew so well dressed like.

At the time, all the trends around me were very much inspired by hip hop. But I couldn’t really afford Air Force Ones or Baby Phat (as much as I wanted to be Kimora Lee), so I kinda had to do my own thing: thrifted handkerchief skirts and flowy dresses with big belts and a lot of outfits that my classmates would call me trying to look “white.” I thought I dressed like Lynn from Girlfriends, which, now that I think about it, probably tracks…since she was half white. The neo-soul girls, though? They dressed like me. The fabrics were flowy, the jewelry was chunky and organic, the vibe was down to earth and, for my Goodwill budget, approachable.

Neo-soul isn’t quite as abundant today, but you can hear—and see—its influence, as well as its evolution, almost in realtime. In music, I see it in Corinne Bailey Rae’s newer, punker sound; I see it in FKA Twigs’ undefinable sound, I see it in Solange—just in general. What I see is a melding of influences, building on the past to craft a new vision of the future, and going outside of the box of what’s expected from Black women in music. And that, in and of itself, is a big part of what both neo-soul as a genre and Blackness in general mean to me, culturally and spiritually: taking what you have and putting a spin on it. It’s that, more than anything, that influences my own approach to fashion and style.

The beauty of neo-soul as an artform is that it was never really about standing still: the exploration, the experimentation, all of it was about pushing things forward. And yet, the sound itself inspired you to slow down. To really sit with what you were hearing. To pull apart the layers and find yourself within them. I think that’s what resonated with me so much, back then, and what still resonates with me now—it’s why, when I think of the music and the legends who made it, I can’t help but think about the fashion, too.

Because the fashion wasn’t just about how it looked, it was about how it felt. And it felt organic and non-performative in a way that you didn’t really see at the time. It was so undeniably Black in a way that was recognizable to us and only us. Where the world demands Black people shift shapes to fit into certain boxes, it was something of our own that, to this day, hasn’t truly been co-opted the way so much of our art has.

Losing D’Angelo feels like a door closing. Not just on a genre of music, but on a way of being. On a type of creativity that is truly uninterested in consumption. On a kind of slow-burning artistry that is truly hard to come by in a time shaped by algorithms. We’re seeing and feeling these losses everywhere, in every artform, and we haven’t even begun to understand the pain left behind.

I didn’t really have a point in mind when I started writing this, and I’m sure that’s fairly obvious, so, in lieu of a neatly wrapped conclusion, I have a request: Please create. Slowly, with intention. And if you must acquire and collect, make sure it’s things that have been made with care and heart. Don’t just consume art or music—engage. Indulge. Let it sit in your spirit. Let it shape you. Feed your soul.

But, I wasn’t always really able to do so intuitively—especially when moving to Chicago sucked every color out of my wardrobe except black and leopard print (leopard print is a color, yes).

As I eased back into the rainbow, I had to come up with some rules for how things go together…and then I had to break them, through experimentation and, occasionally, laziness: after all, some of my favorite color combinations have been realized from observing two pieces of clothing thrown together on the floor.

I see a lot of wardrobes, and as much as I revel in hearing “I never would’ve thought of that!” I want you to start thinking about it! And so, while I will get into those rules, as always, the point of this article is to serve as inspiration for experimentation. I have provided some examples, as well as some tips on how to search for more, but, pictures on Pinterest are not and never will be a substitute for getting in your wardrobe and playing dress up!

Matching vs. Co-ordinating

Listen, I would never say this man ain’t fresh. I don’t know about where you’re from, but where I’m from in Dallas, matching your shoes exactly to your shirt/outfit like Mr. Derrick Lambert did here was the height of fashion. In my youth, I had a pair of hot pink and white sneakers that I exclusively wore with white pants and a pink top in the same shade anytime I wanted to pop out. If I tried to wear them with anything else that didn’t match just right, it was tacky, at least according to my mom. But we don’t have to live like that, anymore.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with getting matchy-matchy, especially if you happen to own multiple things in the exact same color, different shades of that color or— even better—different textures of that color.

But, that’s not the only way to style color. Let’s talk about a few more.

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