For more than a year now, I have been working for a fashion company. And perhaps due to this fact, my fashion sense has been slowly evolving, and I find myself changing my wardrobe more often than before. So far I like it.
See, the thing is, I didn't have a varied wardrobe back then. Years ago, when I was still an active cult member, I had quite a few suits. It's a cult which requires "modesty" when it comes to dress, so women only wore skirts, and men only wore suits. Nowadays, apparently men aren't even allowed to wear tight pants, due to the insistence of one particular cult ruler. Anyway, I had suits, I had long-sleeved shirts, and I had neckties. Tons of neckties. I also had a few casual items of clothing, but that wasn't the most prominent group in my wardrobe.
Then I left the cult, but at the same time, I was in academia. In academia, people don't really pay attention to how you dress. Academics tend to think that they would rather pay attention to your CV, rather than to how you look like. Sounds ideal, but at the same time naive. I remember attending a dissertation defense about a decade ago, and the candidate didn't even dress cleanly. Instead, he was wearing some jogging pants, stained with some unknown food item, and defended his dissertation that way. Sometimes, academics can be so detached from the rest of society.
Not that I didn't care for what I wore and how I looked like. But I did have quite a few items that were old, historic, and quite a museum piece. I thought that if it still looked good, if there were no holes yet, then why should I stop wearing them?
This attitude slowly changed recently. I noticed that I still had some shirts that were bought back when I was in the Philippines, which meant that those items were at least a decade old. And yes, if you look closely, the fabric looks worn. So I started replacing my wardrobe, and since I work for a fashion company, this task was easy. The 40% discount definitely helps!
Now I look at my wardrobe and the oldest item there is perhaps just 4 years old. It's definitely of a different composition compared to how it was a decade ago. And it also helps that I am not a student anymore, and I have more than a student budget. Back when I was a student almost a decade ago, I have been itching for a lifestyle upgrade - perhaps this is what that meant.
