Wardrobe Adaptation

Wilfred blouse (similar)
H&M trousers
Zara sandals (similar)
Vintage handbag (similar)
Mango sunglasses
Mango necklace
Mejuri ring (similar)
Linjer ring (c/o) (similar)
Linjer earrings (c/o) (similar)
Location: The Manitoba Legislature – Winnipeg, Manitoba

The three months we’ve spent in quarantine – and don’t even get me started on the fact that it’s been more than three months, I could write a whole post about that but frankly, I am tired of writing about how 2020 has failed to live up to my expectations and everyone already knows, anyway – have brought all kinds of things into focus for me. Given that we’re going almost nowhere besides the grocery store and now, on relatively rare occasions, to my parents’ house, parts of my wardrobe have been totally ignored. But the things I do wear regularly are not necessarily what I thought they would be.

Yes, I spend a lot of days in leggings. And sweatpants, too – turns out that having pockets to put things like my phone and our laundry card in is extremely practical, and leggings don’t have pockets. (I am not someone who ever got excited about pockets. Not even when they started putting them on dresses. I don’t know that I’d ever used pockets regularly, until this year.) But I have also worn real clothes. I try to get dressed the weekend, just so that there is something to make those days seem different from work days.

It’s no surprise that on weekends, the sweaters in my wardrobe are getting a lot of wear. I try to rotate through them, but I do, naturally, have certain favourites. I expected I’d mostly wear them with skinny jeans, which was my pre-quarantine weekend-brunch-and-errands uniform. But I’ve rarely worn jeans since March, except to go grocery shopping. Instead, I often reach for these H&M trousers. They were my go-to work pants after I picked them up last fall. I always packed them in my suitcase when I travelled for client meetings, because while they look professional and tailored, they’re super comfortable. And lets face it, pants that are comfortable enough to fly in do not come around every day. Still, I didn’t expect them to become my go-to lounge pants in quarantine.

Life is full of funny surprises. If I’m totally honest, I don’t even remember why I thought I needed these trousers. I owned at least three pairs before I bought them, which was more than enough for the approximately two client meetings I flew to every month. But whatever my rationale was (and it was probably a fairly flimsy one – when it comes to buying clothes, I don’t usually have to make much effort convincing myself,) I am so glad that these trousers are in my wardrobe now.

The other piece I absolutely never expected to wear on repeat is this pearl-button cardigan. Full disclosure: I bought it on a whim because it was on sale and it fit the look I wanted for a particular photo. (It’s not even the right size. The size I normally wear was sold out. Since I only planned to wear it once, I decided that was fine.) Definitely not a good reason to make a purchase, but one I use more often than I care to admit. After we took that photo, it hung quietly in my closet for a couple of months, ignored, as I expected it would be. But when those not-really-hot-but-not-cold-enough-for-a-sweater spring days came around, I reached for it once. And then again, and again, and again.

Granted, my pearl obsession is very real these days – I’ve got a pearl headband, multiple pairs of pearl earrings (with two more on the way) and I recently bought boots with pearl detail. But I never expected the pearl cardigan, which seems like the most impractical of the pearl pieces in my wardrobe, to become so beloved. It’s made its way into two recent sets of outfit photos – in fact, I shared another outfit featuring it just last week. I’ve worn it in at least two more different ways, so it will definitely be making more appearances throughout the summer months.

I still miss my former life. Deeply. Time feels distorted. It is, at once, dragging and flying by because the days are all so similar. Sometimes, I wonder if I have anything to show for the past three months beyond memories of Skype calls and a collection of empty wine bottles. And I don’t really know. What I do know is that is now our normal and everything is adapting, my wardrobe included.

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