Three months ago, I bought a dress I had been looking at for years. Every time I came across it, I imagined all the places I would wear it: dinners, birthdays, trips, the kind of spontaneous plans that always seemed more exciting in my head than they did in real life. By the time I finally bought it, I was convinced it would become one of those pieces I reached for all the time.
Three months later, it is still hanging in my closet. Not because I stopped liking it—I still love it—but because I have been saving it for an occasion that never seems to arrive. Somewhere along the way, I realized the dress belonged to a version of my life that exists more vividly in my imagination than in my routine.
I think most of us have something like that. Maybe it is the blazer you buy before getting the job you want, the heels you swear you’ll eventually feel comfortable wearing, those jeans that you think will fit you so much better when you finally grow an ass—give me a fucking break!!!!—or the vacation outfit waiting for a trip that keeps getting postponed.
We tell ourselves we shop for who we are, but our closets often suggest otherwise. They are full of small investments in the people we hope to become.
Fashion has always been tied to aspiration. Few things let us experiment with identity as easily as getting dressed, and that’s part of what makes clothes so emotionally charged. An outfit can shift your mood, your confidence, or simply the way you carry yourself for the day. Even when nothing around you changes, the way you see yourself sometimes does.
The internet has made that feeling even stronger. We scroll through beautifully curated lives where the clothes and the lifestyle seem impossible to separate. A linen dress starts to represent long summers by the coast. A structured coat somehow feels connected to having your life together. After seeing those images often enough, it becomes easy to believe we’re buying more than clothing.
Of course, a dress cannot create the life that goes with it. But it can reveal what we’re drawn to and the version of ourselves we’re intrinsically chasing. Looking at the pieces we rarely wear says just as much about us as the ones we reach for every morning.
Maybe that’s why closets can feel surprisingly emotional. They don’t just hold memories of who we’ve been; they also hold ideas about who we expected to become. Every unworn piece carries a small story about a future that felt close enough to shop for, even if life eventually moved in another direction.
The older I get, the more I think personal style lives somewhere between reality and aspiration. The most interesting wardrobes aren’t built around fantasy; they’re shaped by real lives, habits, and experiences, with just enough room to leave the door open for whoever comes next. That’s probably why getting dressed still feels so personal. Every outfit is part reflection, part possibility.
Image credit: Phillip Harrington; ‘Audrey Hepburn‘, 1952