Frock Advisor

New Year new me, my wardrobe is bulging but I've nothing to wear. How is that possible and what do I do about it?
As ever the New Year gives us pause to reflect. For 358 days, we've muddled through life with a half-cocked sense of control over how we present ourselves. Now, with seven days of fallow grazing and excessive sloth, we choose to vent our dissatisfaction on our wardrobe. Our wardrobes. We think of them as if they were an entity existing entirely outside our control. We populated them; we made the choices, good and bad.

The problem is that, with a little time to spare, we pick at loose corners exposing previously concealed sins.

Accentuate the positive. Now you know there is a problem, do something about it and this is how.

Go up to the bedroom and close the door. Open the wardrobe doors and pull everything out. Clothes, shoes and accessories, everything on the floor or the bed. Now, go through them piece-by-piece and ask yourself some critical questions. Have you ever worn it? Have you worn it in the last year? Does it fit you? Does it work with anything else you already own? If the answer to any of these questions is no, then that’s the pile that needs repurposing. For now, let it create it’s own mini-mountain on the floor. Of the rest, you’ll probably find that the Pareto principle applies. For those not familiar with this handy rule, when applied to your clothes it means you wear 20 per cent of your wardrobe 80 per cent of the time.

Break down the remainder into dark (black, navy and grey), light (white, cream and nudes), and accent (brights, textures and patterns).

These three new piles will represent the breakdown of your wardrobe and show you where you under-buy and over-buy and serial buy. If you have a penchant for, let’s say, cardigans, and have amassed 12 very similar ones, this will become very clear during this process. Serial buying what’s easy for you is not the path to a fully functional wardrobe.

When you’ve been honest about what is actually of use, carefully replace them in your wardrobe with all the hangers facing uniformly towards the back of the wardrobe, grading the colour tones from light to dark. Anything you’re not sure about, face the hanger in the opposite direction.

During your next review, if the hanger is still facing the wrong way you’ll know you haven’t touched the garment and it’s definitely curtains for it.

Pink seems to be everywhere, should we be blaming Celine or Disney?
We, as women, must be feeling very secure in our position in the world to have so wholeheartedly fallen in love with the most feminine of colours. Pale pink blasted onto the fashion stage last season when Celine presented its definitive cocoon coat. Tales from the boutique trenches told of women, when making their winter coat purchase, repeatedly asking "do you have it in pink?". The power of this dominant garment has, in no small part, led to the colour of the year being named as Pantone 18-3224, henceforth to be better known as Radiant Orchid. We've moved on from the gentle softness of baby pink, to a bolder and less compromising hue, a cold bright fuchsia, which carries a lot of blue.

Although it is a colour straight off the ballgown of a Disney princess, it owes more to a bold fashion movement and an unleashed air of gay abandon. The pink pound is alive and well.

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