Letting The Fates Choose Our Outfits

More often than not, things don’t go according to the plans that the hopeful versions of ourselves created in our heads. The wind changes, it starts to rain, and the fates tell us that our agenda wasn’t meant to be. It can be frustrating, trying to grasp onto control as it slips through your fingers, and we can spend the better part of our lives trying to get it, or to come to terms with not having it.

We think we’ve accepted that we really don’t have sovereignty over the course of our lives, that we’ve made peace with our lack of sway, and then the worst thing you could possibly imagine happens: a bad hair/makeup/outfit day. And suddenly, we would be completely fine if the unforgiving ground that we walk upon were to swallow us whole.

Why is this? Why do we accept our lack of control when it comes to everything but how we look? It sounds ridiculous: we’re beyond school days, and we have the privilege of choice over what we wear, but some factors unexpectedly force you down an outfit path that you didn’t want. We have the perfect outfit planned in our heads, and then you spill coffee down yourself. Or you step outside, and the elements are too bitter for what you’re wearing. It makes you realise that we actually don’t have full autonomy when it comes to clothes. There’s always this big, unavoidable factor that has the last say: there is always going to be the universe’s opinion.

A bad case of New Year’s fashion misfortune

I had an infuriating case of this last New Year's Eve. I’d picked out a fit that I was so excited for: my favourite top, my favourite jeans, which made me feel ready to take on the New Year. We had planned to go on a tour of our favourite bars, and someone spills an entire drink over me in the very first bar! My favourite jeans and top were soaked. I had to run home and change into the outfit that I hadn’t planned and rejoin my friends. I was annoyed at first, but the second the clock ticked over into 2025, I forgot all about my fashion misfortune; all that mattered was that it was the start of a New Year, and I was there with my friends.

It made me realise that we can try to grasp onto control, but sometimes we just don’t have it! We need to learn to relinquish control when it comes to fashion and accept the role of fate in helping us to choose what we wear.

The universe’s role in getting us ready

What we should do is start to see this as part of the getting-ready process! We get up, brush our teeth, have a shower, and see what little surprise the universe has in store that will dictate the day’s outfit. Will my mini dress have shrunk into a top in the dryer? Will the slick-back, clean-girl aesthetic that I was trying to achieve be ruined by the intense wind, forcing me to retreat to the wind-swept and interesting, frazzled-English-woman look that I know so well?

Does this just reveal that the dress looks better as a top? Were my baby hairs supposed to fly free? Whatever I decide in answering these questions doesn’t change the fact that that’s the way it is. I really do have limited pull over the things that I can’t control. If I need to add my outfit to the long list of things that I can’t determine, then so be it!

The all-knowing universe

Instead of letting this put us in a bad mood, we need to change our perspective. Stop seeing these minor inconveniences as unhelpful mood-ruiners, but as the universe interjecting with its higher wisdom to tell me that I don’t have the forehead for a slick-back. And I should admit that (even if it took the universe chiming in for me to realise).

These changes to your outfit may not have been what you planned, but it’s what was planned for you.

Accepting it

Ultimately, we can either let it change our moods and ruin our days, or we can just get over it, and convince ourselves that the outfit looks better now anyway! Maybe this is just me entering a newfound delusion as I cannot spend another day aggravated by changes I can’t control, but whatever speeds me up when picking out an outfit!

The wind changes, it starts to rain, and the fates use this to tell us our outfits weren’t working! What should we do? Sulk about it and let it dampen our spirits? Don’t be silly! We listen to what the fates have to say, and get on with it!