Misplaced Joy and Getting Dressed

What to wear after a year of not getting dressed?

It’s my 45th birthday today. Yesterday is the one-year anniversary of getting diagnosed with Long Covid. I have not dressed myself in 361 days, other than switching between my husband’s old jumpers, compression leggings and pyjamas every few days. I currently only have the energy to shower every 2-3 weeks, so the natural order of refreshing myself for the day doesn’t really flow.

For my birthday, I am giving myself the gift of hope in the form of clothes.

I recently started a Joy Quest, a project to find joy in this season of sickness and stillness. I started with the joy of music, which had been too much for my sensitive brain until recently. The next step in my quest is to be inspired to wear clothes again, with the hope of actually having the energy to get dressed.

So much of our identity is expressed in the clothes we wear, as the original Misplaced Style project confirmed for me. Clothes can be a source of happiness, enabling us to break free from the ordinary and embrace the extraordinary. I’m in need of something extraordinary in my quiet, lonely room. But if a woman gets dressed in her bedroom and no one is around to see it, does getting dressed matter? I guess I’ll find out.

For my birthday present to myself, I am curating a small collection of secondhand clothes to wear on my path to recovery.

This idea came after noticing the increasing number of people offering thrift-bundle-as-a-service to time-poor consumers who want secondhand clothes, but don’t want to walk the racks of thrift stores. Thrift bundle/style box videos that reveal the mood board inspiration and the resulting bundle of clothes can receive hundreds of thousands of views. KG is behind this viral video and her service is so popular it’s booked out for the foreseeable future. Do you watch these videos? Have you considered getting a thrift bundle? Maybe we could start a list of recommendations for good “style boxers”?

I have been inspired during my convalescence by artists who found creativity in solitude. Frida Kahlo and Henry Matisse created art from their sickbeds, and Georgia O’Keeffe took her broken heart to New Mexico to live alone and paint. I can’t paint, but I can be inspired by Georgia’s style.

Georgia O’Keefe

The mood board for my DIY curated collection is a modern-day Georgia O’Keeffe.

Modern Georgia mood board

Georgia favoured simple silhouettes, natural fabrics, and a restricted colour palette. She wore denim and relaxed dresses in daily life and smart, spartan outfits for photographers.

If she were around today I think she might be a fan of Bode, she might add a simple bow as adornment, and she’d continue to wear workwear casually.

I am using online secondhand marketplaces to source my collection, as I can do that from bed. I’ve already started curating and I look forward to sharing the result when I’m finished. I hope the excitement of wearing new-to-me clothes will help me find the energy to get into them.

This is a birthday present not wrapped in paper but in hope and the intention to reclaim myself.

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Last newsletter I promised a series on everything I learned during the Misplaced Style project. I then had a big setback in my recovery and have only just right the ship. I’m finding that I can’t make promises in my current state, so I hope you understand that I will write what I can when I can. I really appreciate your readership. If you’d like to give me a birthday present, please share Misplaced Style with someone who may like it x