How Your Clothes Are Making You Look Frumpy
How Your Clothes Are Making You Look Frumpy
You can have a closet full of perfectly good clothes and still feel like your outfits look frumpy.
Sometimes it isn’t one obviously outdated piece. It’s the combination of clothes, shoes and colors you’ve been relying on for years. The same style of pants. The same tops. The same shoes. The same black, white and navy you’ve always considered your neutrals.
Nothing necessarily looks wrong, but nothing is giving your wardrobe a fresh, current look either.
And this is where wardrobe basics matter more than you may realize.
The right basics don’t just give you something simple to wear. They give the rest of your wardrobe a more current foundation.
Your Basics May Be More Dated Than You Think
A basic can stay in your closet for years because it never really goes “out of style.” But that doesn’t mean the version you own still looks current.
Think about the jeans, casual pants, tees, button-up shirts, cardigans, and everyday layers you reach for all the time. Changes in fit, length, shape, and proportion can make newer versions look noticeably different from the ones you bought years ago.
You don’t need to replace everything you own every time styles change. But if most of the pieces forming the base of your outfits are dated, it becomes difficult to make the overall outfit look current.
Updating a few of those basics can change far more outfits than buying another statement top that only works with one pair of pants.
Your Shoes Can Make the Entire Outfit Look Frumpy
You can put together an outfit you like and lose the whole look with the shoes.
This is especially easy to do with shoes you’ve owned forever because they’re comfortable, practical, and seem neutral enough to wear with everything.
But shoes have silhouettes too. Toe shapes, soles, heel shapes, materials, and overall design change over time.
Having a few current everyday shoe styles in your wardrobe makes it easy to update the clothes you already own. Instead of needing a completely new outfit, sometimes the missing piece is simply a better shoe to finish it.
Black, White and Navy Aren’t Your Only Neutrals
If you’ve been building your wardrobe around the same black, white, and navy for years, it may be time to rethink what a neutral can look like in your closet.
There is a much wider range of neutral colors to choose from, and expanding beyond the few you’ve always worn can immediately give you new color combinations and make familiar clothes feel different.
This is another reason your wardrobe basics matter. When you introduce different neutrals through the pieces you wear most, you create a more current color palette without changing your entire wardrobe.
You don’t need to stop wearing the neutrals you already love. You simply need to know you have more options.
You May Have Plenty of Clothes but Not the Right Supporting Pieces
This is one of the biggest reasons a wardrobe can start to feel dated.
You have the patterned blouse, the colored pants, the printed skirt and the jacket you loved when you bought it—but you don’t have enough current basics to wear around them.
So you keep pairing those pieces the same way you always have.
This is why adding more clothes isn’t automatically the answer. What matters is adding the pieces that make more of your wardrobe wearable.
A current pair of jeans can work with multiple tops. A simple button-up can work with several bottoms and underneath layers. A neutral everyday shoe can finish outfits across your closet. A basic top in a neutral you’ve never considered before can give familiar pants and skirts an entirely different look.
Those pieces may not be the most exciting things hanging in your closet, but they can be the reason everything else starts looking better.
A More Current Wardrobe Can Start With the Basics
If you feel like your clothes are making you look frumpy, you don’t necessarily need to get rid of your wardrobe and start over.
Look at the pieces doing the most work in your outfits.
Are your everyday pants and jeans current? Do you have simple tops that work with several bottoms? Do you have layers that change the look of what you already own? Do your shoes make your outfits look current, or do they make them look dated? Does your neutral wardrobe extend beyond black, white, and navy?
These are the pieces to focus on first.
TheClassic Wardrobe Basics eBook shows you the clothes, shoes, and accessories that can give your wardrobe a more current foundation, introduce more neutral options into your closet, and help you create more outfits with the clothes you already own.
Because sometimes the clothes making you feel frumpy aren’t the pieces you need to replace—they’re the pieces you’re missing.
Click here for the Classic Wardrobe Basics eBook
Click here for the Coastal Essentials eBook
💛 I’d Love to Help
Are you looking to dress more current and update your wardrobe, but don’t know where to start? Fill out the form below for more help.