The Wardrobe Experiment

A while ago, I saw a blog where a very swish inner-city mum with one son let him dress her for a week. Cute, right?

 Well, I don't live in the city and I'm definitely not swish. Nor do I have one son.....but I did think it was a cool idea. My children are always correcting my outfits to their tastes and my eldest daughter (let's call her Sparkles), has a particular interest in styling clothes and outfits.

 Here's her styling of her younger sister with one of our dress-up dresses:


Pretty clever, huh?

 So, on Monday this week I decided to let Sparkles choose my outfit. This is her and I with the outfit she chose:

Matching outfits, of course.

The skirt is a heavy handkerchief skirt that I love.....and combined with the black/white top, I felt very fancy going birthday shopping with the family in my (low) heels and dressy outfit! Normally when I'm shopping (even when I don't have the family with me), I walk fast. Maybe I'm trying to get the most out of my time out? When I have the children with me, I definitely march on to get in and get out as fast as I can! Who knows why I power on?

Anyway, on Monday in this outfit, I noticed that I walked a lot slower. Not only was it due to wearing heels, but I think it was because I was feeling like it was a special occasion, something to be savoured and enjoyed. I felt like I was dressed for church and there's something sacred and peaceful for me about going to church. That feel was transferred to being out with my family. I liked it!

On Tuesdays, I have PT and so I elected to choose my own outfit because I knew the children would choose 'pretty' clothes and even though I love them deeply, I was NOT going to be doing PT in a dress!

 Wednesday was my second-to-youngest daughter's turn:
Pink and red!

This outfit made me cringe. I cut the skirt off from a halter-neck dress and folded the waist over and threaded elastic through it, thinking it'd make a nice skirt. It's a gorgeous deep red with white flowers. I don't have a top to go with it so I rarely wear it......but my girl chose this top from my old house clothes! It's got stains on it which you can't see in the photograph. I baulked initially, but then I remembered the promise I'd made to wear whatever they chose with pride.

The outfit was comfortable, but I will admit that I skipped a trip to Coles with the children while dressed like this! I felt carefree and a bit zany while wearing a slightly left-field outfit. It was a fun day with the children, but just too much for me to wear it to the shops.

My second-eldest daughter had her turn on Thursday:


She took about one quarter of the time as her younger sister to pull this beauty together! This is a new skirt and you can't see it in the pic, but it has a slit up the front and back. I wear leggings or bike pants under my dresses and skirts most of the time and I enjoyed wearing them with this skirt which gave it a folksy ethnic feel. The top is actually a bolero and I wore my favourite Bonds maternity singlet underneath. Classic. Simple. Comfortable.

I was able to play with the baby and toddler, teach and bake, all while feeling like a bit like an earth-mama.

With some trepidation, I asked my middle son to dress me for Friday. He can be quite flamboyant at times with his own style (think chequered fedora, Pakistani vest over a Thomas Cook shirt with jeans and joggers!) so I was a little interested to see what he'd come up with.

In about one minute flat, he'd picked out one of my most comfortable dresses which I chose solely for the ease of breastfeeding in. I don't like the pattern much at all, but it is super comfy and practical. 

He liked taking the pic as well!

I felt relaxed and bodgy in this outfit. Perfect for a Friday! I wore it out to our church family games night and felt like I was at home, playing games with loved ones and just chillin'.

So there you go - this busy mama of seven children still found time to embrace a bit of fashion fun and I enjoyed watching my children open my cupboard with an excited flourish to see what pretty things they could dress mum in.

Needless to say, I'm back in my denim shorts and top today - I love dressing up, but I'm a classic jeans-and-t-shirt kinda girl, too. I've learned this week that I can wear dressy clothes without too much effort. It really doesn't take much to look nice and I feel nice when I dress nicely.

I usually leave dresses and necklaces for Sundays when I go to church. I figure that God made me a woman, so I should honour Him by dressing so when I set aside specific time to worship Him at the start of my week. I'm happy to realise that I can wear dresses/skirts and dress up a bit without much effort and it greatly affects my mood when I do!

So, here's to embracing femininity, dressing nice to feel nice and being comfortable and stimulated in the process!


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