Come join the virtual fashion show!

I’m at that point of lockdown now where I’m really just inventing jobs for me to do.

I took a notion the other day and pulled every item out of my wardrobe, packed away the heavy jumpers and pulled out some summer sandals because I’m nothing if not an eternal optimist. I haven’t worn a single pair of sandals yet but I’m hoping I’ll brave it any day now.

Also are you even doing a wardrobe clear-out if, halfway through the task, surrounded by a mountain of clothes you’re not suddenly overwhelmed and dismayed at the task you undertook despite being full of energy two hours previous? However, once I had everything refolded, colour coordinated and items that should have been thrown out a long time ago sorted, I really did feel much better. It’s like a good spring clean really - it is a comforting balm for the mind.

It also made me realise just how many pieces I already own and this week I have been making more of an effort to get a bit more dressed up. I’m probably not doing a 50/50 split between leisure wear and regular clothes. Going through my wardrobe also made me realise what I had suspected for some time, but had not addressed, that I have plenty of clothes in my wardrobe that are really very much underused.

Even though I get dressed up for work a lot of the time, I will reach for the pieces that I find the easiest to style or that I’m most comfortable in when there are loads of other things that I could be wearing.

I think a lot of this is this idea of keeping things for ‘best’. I didn’t think I was guilty of this but now I think I was on some level. I’d be subconsciously not picking things because I’d be keeping them for some imaginary wildly fancy day in the future. If anything this whole situation we are in now shows us that we might as well wear all our best pieces and I for one won’t be hoarding unworn perfectly good items any longer. Treat every day as your Sunday best!

I’ve also set up a home studio in my office and have started shooting some fashion videos with my pal, photographer Gill (@gillybeangirl), all done virtually of course. Mainly it’s something to do to keep us busy but also it’s making us view our wardrobes in a whole new light.

We upload a new video every Friday to Instagram with a different topic, last week it was print and this week it’s items in our wardrobe that we never wear. Then people can get dressed up and tag us in their outfits.

It’s nice to see other people’s style, get some fashion inspo and it’s just nice to chat and interact with people. You’d be surprised when you take the time to really go through what you have, how many outfits you can create with what you have and it’s great to be able to see how other people style their clothes to get you inspired.

You can check out the #gandtstyleclub on myself and Gill’s Instagram accounts and we would love to see what outfits you come up with on each week’s theme!