Every Day Occasion Wear
This month, I want to discuss Occasion Wear – not as in evening dresses and mother of the bride outfits, those outfits that cost 10 times the amount you would spend on any day to day item and wear only once, I’m talking every day occasion wear – dressing daily for the occasion that is life.
We’ve had a tough 2 years, we all had to retreat into our houses, either to work from home or experience the world of furlough, (a word many of us didn’t even know existed until March 2020). Suddenly sharp suits and shifts were swapped for pyjamas and spiked heels for slippers and trainers. We couldn’t get our hair done, we missed our beloved beauty appointments and we slowly started to convince ourselves that it didn’t matter (as no one saw us), and just as we learned the furlough word, we coined a new phrase in our daily vocabularies, “what’s the point?”, which could be followed with any of these statements –“I’m not going anywhere”, “no one sees me” or” no one else is bothering”.
It's true that we’ve never had less reason to put effort into an outfit than during the pandemic, however on reflection, how many of us can look back and remember how amazing we felt wearing the same few pairs of pyjamas all day on rotation?
Fast forward to 2022 and the trend of new trend of Dopamine Dressing, which means dressing with the intention of boosting your mood, as colour, style and texture can all have psychological associations. Getting out of your comfort zone when it comes to clothes can also trigger dopamine release.
But does what we wear really have the power to boost confidence, increase wellbeing and positively impact our mental health?
I’m no scientist, but I can certainly relate to how good I felt in my wedding dress and how I felt buying something new to wear to an interview gave me a better chance. So why do we allow ourselves to experience that feeling on so few (pardon the pun) occasions? Why don’t we desire that feeling every day?
I’m not suggesting that we all go immediately from leggings to full on sequins (although I do like a tasteful sequin), but we can take baby steps and make a conscious effort to check in on ourselves that our outfit of choice gives us that feel good factor. Sometimes the addition of a bright scarf or a change of handbag can make all the difference. As someone who has always leaned towards being overdressed (probably for confidence), learning how to Dopamine Dress casually and comfortably has been an education, but it absolutely can be done. The discovery of Magic Trousers has helped with that!
I would also recommend ignoring all the non-existent rules. There is no law that you can’t wear a lovely Summer dress on a nice day unless you are going somewhere. There is no Mum/Grandma/dog walking/working from home uniform that you need to adhere to and there will be no speeding fines if you decide to take your outfits up a gear if the result is that you feel better or more confident.
I watched Good Morning Britain recently and they were chatting with Bowel Babe Dame Deborah James’s podcast partner, she commented that they couldn’t be any more different, while the interviewee always dressed as if she was ready for Glastonbury, she said Dame Deborah always dressed as if she was about to step on to a yacht. Even as her days slip away from her, she looked beautiful in her gorgeous Summer dress accepting her Damehood from Prince William, when the whole country would have understood if she had chosen to accept it in her pyjamas.
So back to every day occasion wear. The clothes that (unlike the bridal gowns and evening dresses) are minimal cost per wear. The clothes you can wear every day that will up the ante and bring confidence. The clothes that with a wee bit of thought, will put a virtual rainbow above your head on a dull day.
Hopefully, just like the sudden disappearance of the word furlough from our language, so will our desire to protest, “what’s the point?” and we will be rotating our scarves and sequins, not saving anything for good and dressing for the occasion that is life.
