Ritual Dressing

leaning into who you are

A few weeks ago I shared why I haven’t been a fan of capsule wardrobes. If I were to summarize — it’s the way capsule wardrobes are presented as universal to us all that I take issue with. If you missed my article, you can read more about it here.

So if capsule wardrobes aren’t the way to go, what can we do? Enter what I like to call ritual dressing. The best part? You already have the answers, ritual dressing is just the process to discovering them.

Pinterest can be helpful in figuring out areas of our style we want to explore. This is a small compilation of things I’m into — it includes a mix of items I already own with a few I’d like to expand towards.

What is it?

Simply put — it’s what you reach for consistently, the ultimate encapsulation of your style. I like to think of it as taking the difficult, sometimes mundane task of getting dressed every day and turning it into our own unique ritual. It’s not just the act of putting on clothes anymore, but taking into account what we are putting on and why we might be reaching for those items more often than others. Being present in this task and taking note of the what and why will help us identify our habits and patterns. Knowing these, we can begin to conceptualize our baseline.

How do you achieve it?

We achieve this daily ritual by wearing what we enjoy. You probably already do this, I find it’s usually what I end up putting on when I “don’t know what to wear.” The key here is to take account of what these clothes are. They are your base, your comfort zone, the building blocks of your ritual from which you can then start to expand from. 

I’ve found that taking pictures of what you’re wearing every day is a great way to build awareness of your baseline. These daily pictures become a helpful visual cue for identifying the patterns in how we dress.

I’ve noticed that I like to reach for simpler outfits, adding smaller elements to make the look feel more elevated. In this case, I added a chunkier belt and a more feminine shoe to give my look more dimension.

Okay, tell me more.

Once you lean into ritual dressing, it quickly becomes apparent what your go to style is. When we feel comfortable with the idea of where we are, we can slowly start to expand from this base and evolve towards a style we aspire to. 

Oftentimes, when we don’t love our style, we try to drastically change everything all at once which can be overwhelming. I’ve found that the most helpful thing you can do if you’re looking for a change is to slowly add new items, mixing and matching until that aspirational style we’re striving for feels natural for us. 

Once we feel like we’ve successfully incorporated one item, we can move on to another phase of experimentation and try something else that’s new. I love this approach because if we deviate too far from our base with one item, we can always take one step back in our ritual and restart at our baseline.

Rather than going all in with a capsule wardrobe filled with items we’re told are a “must have,” ritual dressing encourages us to take our time and evolve our style at our own pace. It’s like a choose your own adventure story!

Outfits I can put together quickly are important to me. I like to have interchangeable pieces that compliment each other when getting dressed.

Questions You Can Ask Yourself In Your Ritual

• What items in your closet are you consistently reaching for?

• How would you describe your baseline outfit?

• Can you identify a few items you’d like to expand towards in your ritual?

• What colors are you wearing? Are there colors you have and don’t wear? Are there colors you don’t have and wish you did?

• Are there things you don’t wear that you want to? Can you identify why you are not wearing them?

• What impacts how you get dressed?

• Does everything in your closet bring you joy?

• What do you have a hard time parting ways with? Can you identify why?

• How do you want to show up for yourself everyday?

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What’s your ritual? I’d love to hear what you enjoy wearing and how you’re hoping to expand your style in the future.

xx Ofelia