From your Clothing Critic to Consultant – how to make them transition!

30 minutes later you have finally decided what you are going to wear to an event and the deep voice of your beloved live-in critic starts their appraisal:

“You’re not wearing that are you?”

“That top gapes.”

“You cant wear those shoes!”

“What did you buy that for?”

Finally you have had enough and your fashion esteem has not only gone out the window but you wish you could follow it as the last two attempts at changing into something acceptable has made the whole family late!

What do you do? Do you just resign yourself to the fact that they don’t like what you wear and so decide to wear really outrageous stuff just to prove your individuality, or do you have a fashion parade every time you go out as a family just to make sure they approve? or is there another option? There is!

For those who share a home with a live-in critic you realise after a short space of time, that you can either be in a war zone 24/7 or you can come to the infuriating discovery that sometimes the critic is actually frustratingly right! I read an article on overcoming criticism and their advice was to simply agree with the critic – it takes the enjoyment completely out of the activity for them and the quantity of criticism decreases. So…with this in mind I decided to give it a go with the wardrobe.

Firstly I did my own personal work on my wardrobe overhaul by:

• culling all the clothes that didn’t fit – too small or too big
• culling the ones I knew just didn’t suit – either style or colour
• putting the clothes that I would fight to the death to keep to one side in the wardrobe.
• inviting one of my fashion-savvy friends over who loves helping me with my clothing dilemmas  to go through my wardrobe with me. She did a fabulous job and many more items were culled – I even came to the shocking realisation that my favourite jacket was two sizes too big – after just spouting that this would be the one clothing item I would run in and save if the house was on fire (naturally this would be after the husband, kids, cat, valuable documents etc were safe!)

So, after all the hard culling work was done, I then told hubby that all he had to do was prop himself up with pillows on the bed, relax, and I would give him a fashion parade of my clothes without the time crunch factoring in. It would take approximately 40 minutes and then he was free to go. This activity would save him countless hours of frustration by speeding up the whole process of getting ready – it would also earn him a bucket load of brownie points.

The fun began. I had given him permission to be as blunt as he wanted – i.e. “yes you do look fat in that”. I was expecting to have nothing left in my wardrobe but to my great delight he was actually really constructive. Amazingly there were clothes he did like, and the ones he didn’t were explained with valid reasons. The feminine side of my bloke actually existed! The process took exactly 40 minutes.
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Well, the criticism dramatically lessened as I took to heart the basic reasons he didn’t like certain items i.e. gaped, was impractical (didn’t cover my back properly) etc, and he didn’t want to have to endure another fashion-parade and… each time he doesn’t like something and I don’t love the item I give it away – and he sees his hard earned cash clothing someone else! He’s decided that silence is not only golden but also cheaper!

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