Guest Writer: Francesca Adams
There is a particular kind of woman I seem to be constantly dressing for, even though I am not entirely sure I have met her yet.
She exists somewhere between my Pinterest boards and the saved folders on my Instagram, in photographs of women walking through cities in oversized trench coats, perfectly fitted jeans and ballet flats, carrying vintage leather handbags as though they have somewhere terribly important to be. She drinks coffee from little cafés, reads books that she actually finishes, wears perfume even when she has nowhere to go and somehow always looks as though her life is falling beautifully into place.
I have saved hundreds of photographs of her. I have probably spent more time imagining her wardrobe than planning my actual week. And yet, when I open my own wardrobe on an ordinary morning, I am often faced with the feeling that I have absolutely nothing to wear.
The problem is not that I need more clothes. I am still trying to figure out which version of myself I am dressing for.
I think there is something fascinating about the way we use fashion to imagine our futures. We save outfits for the woman we hope to become, the places we hope to visit, the jobs we hope to have and the lives we hope to lead. A pair of kitten heels becomes an invitation to be a little more elegant. A structured handbag suggests that we might, one day, be the sort of woman who has her life organised. A beautiful coat makes an ordinary walk to the shops feel like a scene from a film in which we are finally the main character.
Of course, a coat cannot organise your life, a handbag cannot give you confidence and a pair of expensive shoes will not magically transform you into the woman you have been imagining. I am aware of this. Unfortunately, awareness has never stopped me from adding something else to my saved folder.
Pinterest makes this obvious. We collect images of beautiful wardrobes, dream apartments, handwritten journals, flowers on kitchen tables and women who seem to inhabit a permanent state of elegance. We create entire lives in little digital collages, arranging them into neat aesthetic categories as though the right combination of images might reveal the exact person we are supposed to become.
But I do think clothing can offer us something more interesting than the temporary happiness of buying something new. It can give us a way of experimenting with identity. Before we necessarily feel confident, sophisticated, creative, or entirely comfortable in ourselves, we can begin to explore what those qualities might look like.
Sometimes, getting dressed feels less like choosing clothes and more like choosing a mood, or even a personality for the day. There are mornings when I want to look effortless, as though I simply threw something on and happened to look wonderful. Other mornings, I want to look polished and put together, like a woman who answers her emails, remembers to drink enough water, and has never once had an existential crisis in a changing room.
There is a difference between dressing to impress other people and dressing in a way that makes you feel more like yourself. The difference, admittedly, is not always clear. We are influenced by what we see online, the women we admire, the trends we want to take part in and the images of femininity we have grown up absorbing. It is difficult to know where personal taste ends and aspiration begins when so much of our inspiration comes from looking at other people.
So, I will probably continue saving photographs of beautiful outfits. I will continue imagining the places I might wear them and the person I might be when I do. I will continue to believe, optimistically, that the perfect handbag could improve my life.
But I am beginning to think that the most important part of getting dressed is not the transformation we hope to achieve in front of the mirror. It is the permission we give ourselves to experiment with who we are, without needing to have the answer just yet.
Sometimes, we dress for the life we have. Other times, we dress for the life we are trying to build.
And somewhere between the two, we begin to recognise the woman we have been becoming all along.
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