‘Your parcel will be delivered today’ xi
The chokehold of clothes xvii
Creating the Project xxvii
Preparation 1
Wishlist items 2
The rules 3
January: The beginning 11
To embrace or withdraw? 13
The urge to purge 15
Cataloguing my clothes 16
The stories hanging in our wardrobes 18
Chapter summary 23
February: The mirror to myself 25
Meeting my ‘fantasy self’ 27
The outfit in my head vs on my body 29
Signs your fantasy self is tapping your card 30
The ‘almost’ trap 31
Chapter summary 42
March: The steer into the skid 43
The allure of looking ‘polished’ 47
You’re not going to look like the picture 49
Whipped cream: An alternative to chasing polish 53
Chapter summary 58
April: The resistance 59
The perils of a change of season 59
The curious case of trends 61
It’s okay to just look … okay 63
The clutter factor 69
Chapter summary 71
May: The classroom of my mistakes 73
Buying mistakes I’d been stuck in 75
The outcome? A wardrobe that doesn’t work 80
Excuses we make to buy things 83
Lessons from items I’ve loved 86
The capsule wardrobe fallacy 87
Chapter summary 94
June: The shift 95
The unfamiliar territory of not wanting anything 97
Urgency as an indicator of mindless buying 99
The human behaviour element of fast and slow fashion 102
Slowness fosters creativity 103
Chapter summary 108
July: The breakthrough 109
From beige iced latte to punchy espresso 110
Having enough and being enough 113
Finding confidence outside of buying 116
The therapy of spending 119
Chapter summary 131
August: The holiday and the three-year-old bikini 133
Spending runways 134
There’s so much more to life and money than clothes 136
Liking doesn’t have to mean buying 137
Values-based spending 140
Adding more variety to your spending 142
The ‘yes, and?’ method 143
Understanding your buying decisions 144
Slowing down your purchase decisions 148
Chapter summary 153
September: The rebellion 155
The default option: Buy something new 157
Body acceptance, is that you?! 158
The ‘flattering’ lie 160
Ten ways to dress for resistance 163
The weight of weight 164
Weight-fluctuation-proofing your wardrobe 167
Chapter summary 172
October: The outfit repeater 173
You don’t need a new outfit for every single event 174
Outfit repeating is cool 178
Embracing style formulas 180
Chapter summary 181
November: The clear out 183
My top five most worn items and what they taught me 188
Chapter summary 191
December: The end 193
My mindful buying toolkit 196
The Rule of Three 199
My beliefs about clothes pre- and post-Project 201
Chapter summary 210
The emergence 211
The key shifts I never expected 212
Not buying clothes freed me up to do so much more 214
Buying again 216
And then I hired a stylist 219
How to be your own personal shopper 221
Dressing differently 225
Style formulas 225
Wardrobe optimisation 228
Moving forward 229
I am forever changed 233
Epilogue: The integration 241
Advice for your own Wardrobe Project 244
Four mindset anchors to take into your Project 247
Let’s keep in touch 249
Acknowledgements 251
