Seeking Knowledge: Picking out your clothes each day.

[Rain Man]

The night sky grows blue. Birds chirp. Squirrels frolic in the grass. The mid-sized yellow star called Sol peeks over the horizon.

Your eyelids flutter. Your breathing quickens. Via a process not yet understood, your brain waves initiate a new pattern and a spark of consciousness lights within your sleeping brain. Your eyes pop open, and a new day awakens.

Groggy, you look at the ceiling, think about Jessica Alba, [censored], and then after that you get out of bed and head to your closet.

What to wear, what to wear...you reach into your closet and....


So this is the question. How do you decide what to wear on a typical morning? The poll will ask whether you have a strong system, moderate system, weak system, or no system for pre-determining your clothes, according to the following definitions. However, feel fee to explain your methods.

The poll will ask if you have a...

Strong system - you have a habit, system, or plan in place so that you're choosing from no more than a few options each day. 10 percent of your wardrobe or less is eligible to be worn (or considered to be worn) on any given day.

Moderate system - you have a system, but it's pretty broad. 11 to 40 percent of your wardrobe is eligible to be worn or is considered on any given day.

Mild system - some items are not eligible, but your search is broad. 41 to 60 percent of your wardrobe is eligible to be worn or is considered on any given day.

Weak system - you look broadly. On any morning, you're pondering and choosing from 61 to 90 percent of your entire wardrobe.

No system - pretty much random. Less than 10 percent of your wardrobe is not eligible.


Consider only clothing that is in season, so we know that you don't consider shorts in winter or your parka in summer.


As for me, I've got a strong system in place. Clothing is hung up on the far right side of my closet, and every morning I pick clothing from the far left end. There are three or four pants and shirts that are eligible, and I pick the pair that matches best. If there's no match, I may go farther afield, but it's always on a left to right basis.

Sock follow the same pattern, and in fact are stored on the closet shelf, so they move right to left with the clothes.

Same with sweaters and t-shirts, which have a rotational pattern within my dresser. T-shirts go in on the bottom left and work their way up two drawers until they show up as the topmost right t-shirt. Sweaters work their way down from top left to bottom right. I don't know why I ended up with opposite systems, but it works. Underwear moves back to front in the top drawer.

Shoes have no pattern, though. I always pick out the best shoes for the outfit, but with one rule: I never wear the same shoes on two consecutive days.

What's your system?

[stumppy]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Outfit? Did you say outfit? Tell me you didn't say outfit.

I was afraid to re-read that part in case thats what he said. I was going to recommend he participate in some type of masculine activity asap while associating when men and only men. But I am afraid when he shows up at the strip club, poker game, race track or whereever the peach colored BMW might get him roughed up a bit.

[Reaper16]

Moderate system. Shirts are organized by sleeve length and color. Weather is a consideration but my main decision in the morning is do I have a specific shirt I want to wear? Or a specific pair of shoes I want to wear? Either way, my shoes must match the rest of the outfit. And with 100+ pairs of shoes, I have many options. (I only have easy access to 20% of my shoes at any given time. I have certain pairs that are used a lot and other pairs that get put into "the rotation").

[Rain Man]

But there's no male synonym for "outfit"! I don't know what else to say.

[Jenson71]

Lately, strong system. I've been wearing my Chris Martin sweater like almost every day. Sometimes I spice it up with a scarf on colder days.

[Reaper16]

I wear an outfit. Some days I dare say that I wear an ensemble. I'm straight flossin'.

[ClevelandBronco]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

But there's no male synonym for "outfit"!...

Well, there's kind of a reason for that.

[stumppy]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

But there's no male synonym for "outfit"! I don't know what else to say.

Unless it's a suit they are clothes man....just clothes. It's ok for a woman to refer to a man as wearing an outfit but we don't do it ourselves. Now go put some damn Budweiser bumper stickers on your BMW.

[LaChapelle]

grrrranimals

I have no defined system but it's definitely very mood oriented. I'm very particular about what I'll wear on a given day but it has nothing to do with any OCD issues. It's entirely whatever suits my fancy at the moment.

[stumppy]

Originally Posted by LaChapelle

grrrranimals

Get yourself some of that Lucky Tiger cologne it you'll turn into a ggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrranimal.

[cdcox]

My system is utterly depressing, once I have it all written down.

Most days I wear a pair of slacks and a shirt. I only have maybe 3 or 4 pairs of slacks in my total rotation any given season. And I'm probably wearing two of those pairs on most days. So when I pick out my slacks I try to pick a pair I did not wear the day before, with the thought of not being the professor I had back in the day that always wore the same pair of pants. Sadly, I have become that professor, except I have two pair of slacks with an occasional change up thrown in.

Shirts are more versatile. I have maybe 12-15 shirts or so that I'll wear through the rotation. I have more, but they don't get worn very often because the are worn out or I just don't like them any more. I pick among the prime 15 so that I avoid wearing the same shirt too close to the last time I wore it. But I definitely tend to wear the shirts I like the best early in the laundry cycle.

Underwear and socks are completely random. They get throw in their respective drawers and get pulled out. A few years ago I bought a bunch of black dress socks and threw out most of my old ones, so I can just grab any two black socks and they are almost sure to be a match. Same with white athletic socks. That was a good move.

Shoes -- I have two pairs of shoes to wear with slacks: a black cap toe and more casual brown ecco's. I'll pick one or the other and either my brown belt or my black to match.

On casual days I'll wear jeans (button fly levi 501's, always) and athletic shoes in place of the slacks and leather shoes. I normally have one pair of jeans at any given time that I consider nice enough to wear to work. When they get a rip or too faded, I'll buy another pair.

Dress clothes follow a similar pattern. I only need to wear dress clothes for work 3 to 5 times a month. I have a suit, and it is probably 10 years old. It still looks good, but I don't feel sharp in it any more. I generally wear it only when I need to wear a suit. I should probably retire it, but I don't need to wear a suit very often. So that leaves two sport jackets: a brown/black/beige hounds tooth and a navy blazer. The navy blazer is only a year old, so it is my go to blazer, but I mix in the hounds tooth at about a 40% rate. Slacks for the jacket have zero variety: black for the hounds tooth and which ever happens to be my newest khakis for the blazer. I have about 4 nice dress shirts and 5 nice ties that I mix and match between the two.

In summary, the clothes I have are nice enough, but I never keep enough variety in the primo rotation. I probably need to double the number of slacks, add a nice suit and another sport jacket, add a couple nice pairs of shoes, and double my shirt tie combos. I could also freshen the winter and summer casual shirt variety and retire some of the older ones. The problem is that I buy clothes so infrequently that when ever I add a new pair of slacks or shoes I like having the new ones so well that I quit wearing the old worn ones almost immediately.

[ClevelandBronco]

I think this thread quickly will reveal those among us who have been spending too much time in the closet.

[Reaper16]

Originally Posted by ClevelandBronco

I think this thread quickly will reveal those among us who have been spending too much time in the closet.

Don't hate on the more fabulous of posters.

[Easy 6]

No system... whats available that day & what looks good together.

The randomness creates the originality.

[Kyle DeLexus]

Originally Posted by stumppy

My system relies heavily on how dirty the jeans I had on the day before are. As for a shirt it depends on what I have planned. Bumming around - tshirt. Running errands - tshirt. Any type of mechanical work-dickies........tshirt. And if money's been tight I'll usually put on some polyester pants, a cheap old polo shirt, slap on some Lucky Tiger Cologne gggrrrrrrrrrrrrr, and head down to the nursing home when the SS cks come in. I really really really hate having to whore myself out like that. Espcially when old Maudeline Friederbecht gets her quarterly interest check. Her damn roommate always watches. She NEVER puts her teeth in, leaves them on the nightstand in a glass and her fricken prosthetic leg keeps falling off. I finally got tired of that crap one night and just grabbed her leg stump and started using it like a 4 speed gear shift. Feel bad about breaking her hip but WTH she ask for it rough. Anyways, enough complaining I'm sure a lot of you guys have it a lot rougher than I do.

Going to court-suit.

Have you ever propped her up on a stack of phone books and done her doggy style?