Wardrobe
The orphan garment is the most expensive thing you own
The real cost of a piece of clothing is not what it cost but what it cost divided by the number of times…
· 3 min read
Wardrobe
Building a set of clothes that works together instead of accumulating one.
Wardrobe
A narrow colour range is what makes a small wardrobe look large
How many outfits a set of clothes yields depends on how many of its pieces will go with each other, and colour is the constraint that decides that before anything else does.
Wardrobe
Formality is a scale and most outfits fail by straddling two points on it
Every garment sits somewhere on a continuum from workwear to evening dress, and the ones that look wrong…
· 3 min read
Wardrobe
Layering works when the layers have different jobs
Three garments worn together outperform one thick one for reasons that are physical rather than aesthetic…
· 4 min read
Wardrobe
A wardrobe drifts because you replace one garment at a time
Clothes are bought singly and worn as sets, and that mismatch is why a wardrobe assembled from consistently…
· 3 min read
Wardrobe
Most sustainability claims describe a material, not a garment
The environmental label on a piece of clothing almost always refers to one input at one stage, which is why…
· 4 min read
Wardrobe
Judging a used garment means checking the parts that cannot be replaced
Almost everything wrong with a secondhand piece is fixable except a few structural things, so the…
· 4 min read
Wardrobe
The alteration is part of the price of the garment
Clothes are sold as though the price on the label were the total, but almost nothing fits straight off the…
· 3 min read
Wardrobe
How many shirts you need is a laundry question, not a style one
The size of a working wardrobe is set by how often you do laundry and how long garments take to become…
· 3 min read
Wardrobe
Most wardrobes are built for the rarest occasion in them
Clothes are bought while imagining a specific event, and the events people imagine are the unusual ones…
· 4 min read
Wardrobe
Made-to-measure is a pattern adjustment, not a garment built from nothing
The three ways of getting clothes that fit differ in what is actually being changed, and the price gap…
· 3 min read
Wardrobe
A dress code is a constraint, and constraints are easier than freedom
Uniforms and written codes remove choices, and the garments that result are frequently better designed than…
· 3 min read