Jennifer Mackey-Mary: Hello, Gorgeous! 

Welcome back to another episode of The Everyday Style School: Summer Shorts–our weekly summer series sharing a quick style thought or tip to help you save money, save time, and get the wardrobe you’ve always wanted.

I’m your host, Jennifer Mackey-Mary. I’ve been dressing women for 25 years, and I’m on a mission to help you love the way you look every day. 

Friend, I want you to give yourself a pat on the back for listening to this episode today. You’ve made a very smart choice, and I’m proud of you. What’s so special about today’s episode, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. Today, I’m going to solve most of your wardrobe problems. Or at least, I’m going to tell you what’s causing most of your wardrobe problems. Yeah, I told you it was a big day.

So you ready for the truth bomb and the style tip of the week? Here it is–Most of your problems are in your pants. Now, before you think my mind is in the gutter, let me be clear. I literally mean the section of your closet that contains your pants. That’s almost always the source of your wardrobe problems. For the purpose of this conversation, we’re including jeans, shorts, and sure, even skirts…but it’s not nearly as funny to say that your wardrobe problems are in your pants, jeans, short,s and skirts. So, your problems are in your pants, it is! Let’s talk about it.

Many years ago, I worked with a client who needed more tops. Her whole pre-service questionnaire was about how she needed help with tops, which, ok, cool, we can do that. I got to her house for the closet edit, and she was all tops, all the time. Did not want to talk about pants, much less try them on. She wanted to go right for the tops. Knowing what I know, I pushed back a little, but she wasn’t having it. I finally said to her, let’s play a game where you’re the woman struggling with her wardrobe, and I’m the stylist you’ve hired to fix it. We laughed, and she agreed to at least try on the pants. And she had a TON of pants. More than just about anyone I’ve ever worked with. So we pull out the pants, put them on my rack, and get to work. First pair, we don’t need to try those on because they’re too tight. Second pair–I don’t wear those because they’re too short. Another-I don’t wear those because they’re too long and I don’t like to wear heels. Another–I don’t wear those to work because they’re too hot. On and on it went, and when we got through her impressive collection of unwearable clothes, what we discovered was that she really only had 3 pairs of pants she could reliably, consistently wear. The problem all along was not in her tops–it was in her pants. 

In our time today, I want to share 3 specific problems that are hiding in your pants, and as always, what to do about it. But let’s start with WHY this happens.

The why is actually pretty easy. In general, pants are less fun, but more difficult and more expensive to buy. Tops are easy, right? Especially if you’re buying clothes with letter sizing rather than numbers. You don’t have to take off your shoes to try tops on, and we think we’re going to get a bigger style boost by adding more tops to our wardrobes. So that’s what we buy the most of. Especially when you’re using a gathering shopping strategy rather than a hunting strategy. I’ve said it a million times–no one comes home from just browsing with the perfect pair of black trousers that goes with everything and look like a million bucks, and cost more than you probably wanted to spend, but are worth every penny. Nope, we come home with cute tops that were a good deal. Most women don’t give anywhere near the same level of time, attention, or investment to their bottoms as they do their tops. Over time, this causes a closet traffic jam. All those tops can’t go anywhere--because they don’t have the right thing to go with to create an outfit that looks like you’d like. Take my client–she actually had plenty of tops, but she couldn’t make good outfits out of them, so in her mind, she thought she needed more clothes. And because she could see 30 pairs of pants in her closet, she assumed that wasn’t the problem. Can you see what I’m saying? We overbuy in category a because it’s easier, cheaper, and more fun, ignore category b, then get stuck because we can’t make outfits, assume we need more clothes, and shop for more category a. It’s a cycle that needs an intervention. Clearly, the answer is buy more bottoms, and we’ll get there, but first let’s talk about 3 specific problems you might have in your pants. Maybe you have one of these, maybe all three, I don’t know.

First, the number. Most women do not have enough wearable bottoms in relation to how many tops they have. And the wearable thing is important. If your pants are too tight, too loose, too long, too short, too hot, too casual, or too dressy to wear, you don’t actually have pants. Remember, your wardrobe is not all the clothes you own, it’s all the clothes you can and do wear. There isn’t a set number of how many bottoms you should have in relation to your tops, and that’s hard to gauge because tops can be layered, or worn on their own, so how would you even count that. One site said you should have 1 bottom for every 2 tops, but I think that might be overdoing it…if you need a rough guideline, shoot for a ratio of 3:1, or if you’re just starting to build out this category of your wardrobe, maybe 4:1. Again though–there’s no set number. If you feel like you’re constantly running out of pants before laundry day, or that you have to wear the same pants more often than you’d like, chances are you don’t have enough. Not having enough bottoms affects how functional your wardrobe is. When you don’t have enough pants, you get that closet traffic jam, and it’s really really hard to get dressed

The second problem in your pants is variety. What I’ve experienced over the years is women have black pants, gray pants, and jeans. Maybe some tan or white or navy if they’re feeling frisky, and maybe one or two washes of denim. We also tend to choose the same silhouettes over and over, which makes sense if you know what works for you, but also makes your wardrobe very one-note. If the number of bottoms you have affects how functional your wardrobe is, the variety in your bottoms affects the versatility. Every woman I worked with wanted a versatile, mix-and-match wardrobe, but all they had was black pants and medium wash boot cut jeans. So yeah, all the tops went with all the bottoms, so I guess it was versatile from that perspective, but it all looked the same, which isn’t really the point of a versatile mix-and-match wardrobe. The point is to have fewer things that all go together, but look different, which is really hard to do when half the outfit is the exact same. In turn, the basic bottoms-only wardrobe strategy causes women to buy a whole lot more than they need, because you’re basically depending on 50% of your outfit to do 100% of the style work. You get bored of your tops faster, and you naturally buy more, trying to inject some variety into your wardrobe. But like I said earlier this only fuels the cycle and causes closet gridlock. 

The final problem that might be in your pants is the fit. Maybe this one should have been first on my list of problems because it’s so important, and most women don’t have great-fitting pants. Pants that don’t fit well make your whole outfit look frumpy. I don’t care how stylish and trendy your top is, when you pair it with ill-fitting pants, it’s not going to look good.  And when I say fit, yes, I mean are you wearing the correct size, which a lot of women aren’t, but also, is the length right, is the rise right, is the cut right for your body? Are there folds of fabric where there shouldn’t be, or whiskers and drag lines where there shouldn’t be? A good top can’t save bad bottoms. This was one of my biggest issues with Stitch Fix back in the day. I had clients who had all these super cute tops and jackets, but they couldn’t wear them because when they paired them with their saggy jeans, or too short trousers, the tops no longer looked stylish or on trend. So what did they do? Buy more tops./ Just like the other two issues we’ve already talked about, fit causes a specific issue, and in this case, it’s the quality of your outfits. 

Those are the big three problems hiding in your pants. Now let’s talk about what to do about it. What I don’t want you to do is hit the stores or the internet and start buying bottoms. Before you do that, you have to figure out which problem you need to solve, because like we’re saying all summer, solving the wrong problem leads to wasted time and money, and closet chaos, right?

First, take inventory. How many bottoms do you have that you can and do wear for the season you’re in – both calendar and life-wise. If you’ve got great pants for working in an office, but you don’t work in an office anymore, don’t count them. If you have lots of great lined wool pants, but it’s summer, don’t count those. How many pants or bottoms do you really have, and is it enough?

Then look for variety, ask yourself, are you stuck in a basic bottom rut? If you buy lots of tops but your style is still lackluster, look to see if you have color or pattern, or a variety of silhouettes to shake things up a bit. A good exercise is to randomly pick a top from your closet, and then make at least 3 distinctly different outfits just by changing the bottoms. That’s how you get a versatile wardrobe that doesn’t depend on buying more than you need.

Finally, look at the fit of your bottoms with a critical eye, checking for extra fabric, gapping, pulling, pooling. Put on a neutral, basic top that you know fits well and looks nice, and then try different pants on. Take pictures–it’s much easier to see fit issues that way. Make friends with a tailor—the better your pants fit, the more put together, polished, and stylish you’ll look, and the more use you’ll get out of the clothes you already own. 

If, after doing all that, you realize you need more bottoms, different bottoms, or better fitting bottoms, then you can add pieces to your wardrobe, and you’ll save money because you’re solving the right problem. 

That’s all for this episode of Summer Shorts. I hope it encourages you to focus as much on your bottoms as you do your tops–it’s an absolute wardrobe game changer. Remember, your everyday matters, so get dressed for it.  Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you next time. 

Jennifer Mackey-Mary [outro]: And that's a wrap. Thank you for listening today. If you're loving the Everyday Style School podcast, I'd like to invite you to become a member of the Style Circle. It's our monthly all-access membership that gives you everything we create to make style easy, so you can save time and money, have easier mornings, and more confidence all day long. You get our seasonal capsule wardrobe guides, all of the masterclasses we offer, and our exclusive members-only podcast, The Everyday Style School Extra Credit. Plus, you're invited to the Facebook community, where you can get even more style support and inspiration. I would love to get to know you and support your style journey. It's just $19 a month, less than the cost of a clearance shirt you're never gonna wear. Come join me and make your everyday style easier.