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If you know me well, you probably already know that I’m not a big fan of getting dressed. I love to be comfy. I celebrate days that have nothing on the calendar with a fist punch and a lingering of pajamas. To me, that’s a valid perk of a work-at-home, homeschooling lifestyle. My husband even jokes about how I will survive the day if it’s one that requires me to put a bra on.
Well friends, I think that’s actually changing. I’ve purposely waited about 3 months to tell you about this thing I was trying, because I wanted to make sure it was actually going to work. That fact is, it has worked better than I ever dreamed. Dave Ramsey revolutionized our finances and changed our lives. Mario Kondo and her Magic Art of Tidying Up changed the entire mood of our home. This is that level of awesomeness for myself, my wardrobe, my confidence, and my stress level surrounding clothes.
I first heard about this program called Get Your Pretty On from Crystal Paine’s Your Blogging Mentor group. Several of the busy moms in there mentioned it. You know I enjoy doing a Stitch Fix every now and then – mostly to avoid jean shopping – so I wondered if it was like that. Here’s what I learned.
Get Your Pretty On is run by this awesome woman named Alison Lumbatis. She was in the sweatpants rut, too, and wanted to help herself and other moms get out of the slump and feel better about themselves and their bodies. So she created this wardrobe service, basically. Every season, she creates a new capsule wardrobe. She’ll make a list like this: white tee, dark wash jeans, bright colored sweater, neutral shoes, etc. There is about 20 pieces of clothing listed, plus shoes and a handful of accessories (ex: silver earrings).
Here’s the really exciting part. You pay for the list, which also includes a bunch of other great things I’ll tell you about in a minute. But THEN, you can gather your clothes from anywhere! She provides links to certain pieces for inspiration or in case you need or want to buy new clothes. But you can easily pull things from your closet that will work. Or, hit the thrift stores! Her descriptions for each piece are general enough that anything even close to what she describes will work. I know this is true because other than the occasional piece from Stitch Fix or a clearance haul from Walmart, I hadn’t bought myself new clothes in basically forever. And yet, even for me, I was able to dig through my closet and find all but a few of the pieces she called for in her spring wardrobe.
I had been thinking for awhile that I needed to basically buy all new clothes and throw away my stretched out decade old stuff. I did actually end up going to Old Navy right before the pandemic and buying several pieces for the spring wardrobe. By using Alison’s list, though, I could have gotten by with less than I bought. I already had lots of options for tees, sweaters (I’ve learned I guess they are technically cardigans, who knew!? Lol), and dresses. But I only had the one decent pair of decent Kut from the Kloth jeans, and no shoes except fur lined booties and one old pair of flats from Walmart. With the shopping list for guidance, I was able to buy pieces – mostly on sale – that would give me the most bang for my buck and coordinate with almost everything else in my closet.
It was really funny how my husband reacted. I totally expected the cliche eye rolling and some negativity about me spending money. We are usually very frugal. But there was none of that. My husband LOVES it that I did this. He’s is 150% on board and wants me to stick with it. He naturally sees me at my scrubbiest… he’s been here for all the newborn days when how I looked was the very last thing on my mind. This getting dressed thing has been as nice for him as it has been for me. He loves me no matter what, but he likes it that I’m taking better care of my self now. Plus, I’m more confident, and that’s always attractive!
So, back to how it works. I got the list, I procured the pieces. Then Alison provides a list of the actual outfit formulas, showing how to put the pieces together. Example: medium wash jeans + floral top + tan shoes. But the best part? She tells you exactly what to wear every single day for at least two months of each season. Then the third month you can repeat or just grab your favorite pieces. Or you know, give yourself a break and wear those old sweats again, ha.
For “Round 1” which was the first 30 or so days, I got dressed in the assigned outfit formula every single day. I would get up and get dressed – which in turn got me to brush my hair most days, ha – and go downstairs ready for the day. I’d wear the clothes through our homeschool morning and naptime, and then I’d often change in to something old to work outside.
As the month went on, I started to take ownership of the outfits a little more. I’d swap pieces out or swap outfits to different days if it worked better for me. I missed one or two days the second month, when we had a full day of riding planned I switched to something more fitting for that. I started to find pieces and accessories that I really liked wearing. I’ll probably do a separate post later about my favorite pieces.
The best part of being a GYPO member, hands down, is the facebook group. You get access to a new group for each season. People post their outfits in they want, and there are albums to inspire you for each daily formula. I love that it’s not like these are models, they are real women with real bodies of all shapes and sizes. They put their unique twist on the outfits and many of them are self-proclaimed “closet shoppers” would don’t buy new pieces but intentionally pull from what they have in their existing wardrobe. They still make it work and look darn good doing it!
I purposefully didn’t tell a lot of people what I was doing. I was curious to see if anyone noticed a change in me. They did! I got comments about the clothes, but those weren’t the best ones. My mom said I seem the happiest she’s every seen me! That means a lot since, well, she’s known me forever. But the comment that affected me most was from my 8 year old son. One day around the time the second month ended I stayed in my pajamas in the morning. I was serving breakfast, kind of crabby…
“Mom, do you have a headache today?”
“No son, why would you ask me that?”
“Well, you didn’t get dressed today. You still have your pajamas on. You look really tired, and your hair is kind of messy. I just thought maybe you didn’t feel good today.”
Whoa. I did not realize until he said that how much getting dressed changes my day. It changes the whole mood in our home. It sends a message to my kids that says: mom is here, she showed up and got dressed and she’s ready. Let’s rock this day! When I don’t get dressed, I feel like it’s more of a struggle just to get through the day. I’ve heard other people says things like that and I didn’t get it, but now I understand.
Let me be clear. There will always be pajama days. I enjoy pajama days. But I don’t need a pajama LIFE anymore!
Ok, here are the nitty gritty details about how you can do this, too, if you’re up for a change. Right now Alison is accepting new signups for the summer capsule wardrobe. (Update: current Spring 2022!) It costs $39. Cheaper than a date night (especially if you have to pay a sitter for 6 kids, lol). You would get the clothing list right away and then the outfit formulas start being scheduled on June 8th. I’m already signed up and have been working on pulling the pieces together. There are some fun new pieces I’m watching for on ebay because most of the thrift stores are still closed near me. I might spring for a few new pieces, we’ll see.
I’m planning to share some of my outfits on social media now that’s I’ve let on about what I’m doing and now that you’ll know it’s not me picking out the outfits. I’d love to see what you wear, too. Even if this GYPO thing isn’t right for you right now, I would encourage you to piece together some clothes that are comfy and make you feel good. Let yourself throw out some of that really old, falling apart stuff. Well, some of you are way more put together than me, but I’m talking to the other passengers on the struggle bus. Ha!
Do you get dressed every day? Are you in a pajama season and totally ok with it? I’m curious!