The Outfit Formula I Stole from a Magazine in 2009

Somewhere around 2009, in the waiting room of a dentist in Iowa City, I read a one-page article in some glossy magazine — I want to say it was a back-of-the-book column — that gave me the only fashion advice I have ever consistently used. I cannot find the article. I cannot remember the writer. I want to tell her, wherever she is, that her words saved me an estimated ten thousand dollars and approximately four hundred bad outfits.

The formula is this. Three pieces. One that fits, one that is comfortable, one that you like.

That's it. Look down. Are you wearing one thing that actually fits your body — not your old body, not your hoped-for body, your current body? Are you wearing one thing that is comfortable enough that you forget you have it on? And are you wearing one thing that makes you genuinely happy when you catch it in the mirror?

If yes to all three, you are dressed. Walk out the door.

Today my three were: my favorite high-waisted jeans (fit), a soft cotton t-shirt in a faded coral (comfortable), and a long necklace with a little brass bird that my mother-in-law gave me for my thirtieth birthday and which I love (like). That is the outfit. I wore it to walk Emma to the bus and to drop Noah at preschool and to work at Miller's and to pick the kids back up and to make dinner and to be alive in.

Why this works. Most of us are walking around in a wardrobe that is two-thirds wrong. We put on the jeans that almost fit and the shirt that's a little itchy and the shoes someone said were 'cute on us' once and we wonder why we feel like a stranger in our own clothes. The formula is a check, three quick questions at the closet door, that stops the wrong outfit before it ruins the morning.

I want to tell you also: shopping less, but better, is the deepest beauty secret I know. I have not bought a piece of clothing in four months. I do not miss any of the things I haven't bought. I have, instead, mended two shirts, hemmed one pair of pants Mark wears once a year to weddings, and given away the entire third of my closet that was making me feel bad every time I opened the door. The closet is now a kind room. I have never had a kind closet before.

Run today: walking only, recovery day. I walked Biscuit three blocks while the sun was just coming up and I thought about the closet and about Grandma Ruth's bills and about whether I want to launch a Christmas scent in October or wait until November. I'm leaning October.

Worked Miller's. Mr. Miller mentioned, very casually, that he is thinking of retiring 'in a few years' and wants to talk to me later this summer 'about some ideas.' I do not know what that means. I am going to choose not to spiral about it.

Picked up the kids. Sloppy joes for dinner because Emma has been begging. Mark home on time. Bath, books, lights out by seven-thirty. It's almost six as I write this. The kind closet is in the other room. Three pieces. Try it tomorrow. Talk tomorrow. — Lucy