Should I have aspirational pieces in my wardrobe?

Right before the Thanksgiving holiday I found myself in a closet audit with a client. This client had such clarity about two skirts she owned (had owned for a long time). She described her aspirations for these two skirts for her future self that it made me question whether we should have “aspirational” pieces in our closet. What purpose does that serve?

I was taught to dress clients around their goals but keep them focused on the notion of what to wear today, not in the future. In fact, if the client was focused on wearing items in the future we were to ask them questions like, ‘does it fit now? how often do you wear that now? will it be out of date when you want to wear it? Dress for the person you are today.’

From the back of a second closet in a spare bedroom my client pulled out two skirts. The skirts were flirty, pleated, A-line with big printed flowers -think of the flowers from girl’s bedroom on the Brady Bunch. One skirt had yellow, orange flowers while the other had varying shades of blue flowers. Both skirts were unmistakably made for fun summer outings like getting ice cream. These summer cuties were both timeless and ageless and that is exactly what my client was tapping into. She told me that regardless of what I though, she was keeping these two skirts. She told me she wants to wear them while playing with her grandchildren. She said that she saw herself pushing her grandchildren on a swing wearing these skirts. She wants to be a fun grandma that plays with her grandchildren and to be very involved in their lives. These two skirts embody these feelings for her- how she aspired to feel when the time comes.

Today, she is still working at her high-level DC law group and will for the next 5 years. She is not wearing the skirts to work, nor for play for that matter, right now. Both of her children are college age; no where near marriage nor starting a family.

While I still believe we should dress for the people we are today, there is room for a few pieces that I would consider “aspirational” pieces. Lot’s of people hang on to a pair of jeans they haven’t fit into for years- that has it’s own set of reasonings, but this was different. Hanging onto these skirts was about the person she wants to be, not the size she wants to be. Those are two very different things carrying two very different meanings and purposes.

Our clothes are inspirational and give us a feeling of who we are and how we want to be seen- how we want to belong. For my client, she wants to be seen as a fun, active, involved grandmother who loves being a grandmother. I was truly moved that she had this vision- a really clear vision of the person she knows that she will be. When she wears the skirts she will be dressing for the person she has become.