Do you feel like lockdown changed you & now you should dress differently?

[Beeth0ven]

Just that really.
I looked at all my old work clothes the other day and I really couldn’t connect with the person who bought & wore them. They seem so alien. I feel different and like those clothes are a thing of the past and a person I no longer am. Can anyone else empathise? Will I simply get over it or is it deeper?

I feel like it's a hassle to look at my old clothes, most of which I have grown out of and there's too much, but also nothing that inspiring. So I'm feeling like I want to give most of it away to the charity shop, and just have a few nice things I like, maybe dresses which are comfortable but also look good.

Every Friday lunchtime I go for my “lockdown posh frock walk”, even if it means a big duvet coat over the top. I get dressed up and go for a walk from home to nowhere in particular before going back to working from home.

My weekends feel better for it.

Nothing will change for me for the forseeable future - I'm still wfh. Looking forward to getting out in the evenings a bit and maybe dressing up.

I don't feel as interested in clothes as I did before - trying to buy fewer, good quality clothes and only buying what I love.

have been wearing normal clothes for while now - with my descent into loungewear and leggings in lockdown 1, came a half stone increase in weight. I lost the weight and the loungewear.

I like that idea StarlightLady

More like changing back - I worked in a smart-ish office, so I had built up a more formal wardrobe that was normal for me, so I'm probably drifting in a more casual direction as I doubt I'll be in the office more than 3 days a week.

I've become much more adventurous in lockdown and have really enjoyed trying different outfits and make up looks, purchasing pieces that are different to my usual style and even sourcing beautiful fabric to make my own clothes again. The last 12 months has reignited my love of fashion - I feel like I'm in my twenties all over again!

As a side, I've noticed there's loads of high heels for sale on FB market. It looks like everyone is getting rid! 😂

Yes I have completely changed my “style”

I used to wear smart dresses and shoes for work/town

A year ago I got into denim shirts, trainers and a hoodie or sweatshirt.

Walking boots or trainers

I dress for the weather now, and for comfort

Not sure there is a way back for me

It’s as if I subconsciously denounced my “proper grown up clothes”

I do wonder if the fashion pendulum will swing back to super fitted clothes, high heels, designer stuff again once the pandemic is over?! To celebrate the end of lockdown?

I have always dressed smartly. Ie thought nothing of wearing nice skirt, tights and brogue type heels to take the kids to tennis or something. Now every time I go to try and dress a it smarter I feel stupid. What’s the point? Only gonna shove a parka over it to shiver in a playground. I hope it will come back to me.

For me it’s the weather. If the weather would hurry up and warm up I would be in my brighter spring/summer dresses again. This time last year it was so warm we had paddling with pools out! I am so fed up of my warm winter coats.

The one thing I am struggling with is wearing something other than trainers. I walk absolutely everywhere and used to do this in an urban way too when I was, say, in central London for the day for work. Now I can’t be arsed to walk in anything but trainers. But I still want to walk. Usually at this time of year I would have graduated to bare legs with my dresses but chunky boots. Now I am still in dresses but with black tights still, trainers and big puffy coat.

I've been embracing nicer fabrics but more casual style. So for example, I invested in some silk pjs - they are gorgeous and so comfy! Also my current favourite top is dark green velvet but is cut like a sweatshirt. I don't need to buy much right now, so I've treated myself to a couple of things that feel nice and special but are still comfortable. I cannot picture myself in tight things and high heels!!! Maybe it'll happen...

I said this to my colleague today. I need a full review. My whole wardrobe looks like it belongs to someone else. I also need to shift a stone.

I think like a pp said, it's just worth waiting a while to see how all this lands though. I can't really imagine wearing all my formal work stuff ever again - even the directors are in jeans in the office.

Quoting myself: ()

So I'm currently obsessing over this new need for plain and simple, utilitarian, living-with-a-pandemic-forever clothes. Even with summer coming, it all feels a bit bleak.

Go me.

Bought a flowery frock today. Big puffy sleeves. Almost empire line. Goes with nothing I own. Won't fit under a jacket. But it's so pretty, and devil-may-care and what the hell ...

@MayIDestroyYou

Quoting myself: ()

So I'm currently obsessing over this new need for plain and simple, utilitarian, living-with-a-pandemic-forever clothes. Even with summer coming, it all feels a bit bleak.

Go me.

Bought a flowery frock today. Big puffy sleeves. Almost empire line. Goes with nothing I own. Won't fit under a jacket. But it's so pretty, and devil-may-care and what the hell ...

Link please

Well, I would, if it were here. But I'm not putting up a link now - and risk all the alternative sizes being sold out before I've even tried mine on ...

I don’t think work from home or more casual dress codes is the only thing but think our ‘new normal’ shopping habits would also have to change and I don’t think mine will.
You can’t reliably buy tailored/fitted or very dark clothes online without seeing them in person and trying them on. Or without knowing your measurements and online retailers describing them in the blurb which doesn’t often happen. I hate all the packaging waste and delivery waste of repeated returns.
If the future is more typically going to be dressing via online shopping then maybe the future is also brighter/lighter colours which grab our attention onscreen and poorer quality fabrics fitted with some stretch (or cut in loose, relaxed shapes) to help to fit everyone. Maybe more emphasis will be put by retailers on some accessories like bags because these don’t need to be fitted. Who knows though fashion or what people will want can’t really be predicted.

I keep thinking, silly thought really, the clothes that are locked away somewhere that were "the fashion" this time last year, and presumably have not all been sold yet, are they still "the fashion" this year?
Does fashion go in a line so to speak, so there has been a break, but it is still fashionable. Or are all the unsold items, now deemed so last year?

@MayIDestroyYou - have just read through this thread and iwantthelinktothepuffsleevedresstooplease! 🤩

OP, I am torn, style-wise. I’ve been through a long phase of buying some great new (old, vintage, slow fashion) pieces and thinking I will wear fabulous clothes I’m everyday, post-lockdown life. And, on the other hand, I’ve also absolutely craved a very simple, stylish, understated capsule-style wardrobe. #someonehelpmeplease

P.S. My current answer is to find a happy medium - to get rid of the mediocre stuff, get some great quality basics and pair them with a nice vintage piece...

I think I'm in a different point to many of you as I've been back in work in the office for a while, and as my role changed a bit, for the second lockdown I was in as a key worker with my dcs at school. (I counted as a key worker first time round but could work from home).

I went to get my joggers out yesterday and they just remind me of the unhappy time of juggling home schooling and work. I threw out a load of old long sleeved t shirts I lived in, and I've put the hoodies back in the drawer with the gym kit for wearing to /from exercise.

I need to lose around about 2kg to look good in my summer work wear wardrobe from 2019, but I want to get back into those.

It could be the more relaxed fit clothing is here to stay, but so many of us don't have happy memories mixed up with these scruffy clothes.

I'm meeting friends for drinks tonight (thought best to wait to the 2nd night!), I want to put on full makeup and might even dig out the heeled boots.

@Arrowheart

I've been so bored over lockdown that I started buying 1960s vintage dresses from ebay in an effort to find myself and become more quirky and stylish. Being 47 and not in my 20s, rather than looking like a sexy Twiggy I look like a drunken Grandma who has had too many glasses of Sherry at Christmas.

I've done similar but with fifties Lindy bop and hell bunny type. Given that I'm sixty soon and five foot I will look like a giant puff ball not Audrey Hepburn

I've just been thinking about what to wear when I eventually go back into the office.

I used to try and wear something smart; pencil skirts, heels, pretty tops and cardigans etc. and never wore jeans - even though most other people did. I liked to feel smart because most of the time at home was spent cooking/cleaning and I would therefore wear "house clothes".

Don't know if I can be bothered dressing up again though - I have been in flats for a year - trainers and slippers mostly. Uncomfortable shoes have no place in my life now.

I do feel that I look better in dresses/skirts though. I can't seem to pull off a cool, casual look. More of a "I have given up" sort of style. Spending lots of time on this message board for tips to try and sort myself out.

I don't feel alien but if going to an office is only a couple of days per week once the pandemic ends then they will last a long time (yay!).

Yep, the heeled boots are being dumped for the snow boots. Its freezing here but we are going out for drinks.

Seemed like such a good idea when we booked it several weeks ago...