What to Wear When You Don't Know What to Wear (Four Questions, In Order)

From the Merve Bayindir atelier in London, a method for the mornings when the wardrobe is full and nothing in it is right.

The advice written about this problem divides neatly in two, and neither half is much use on the morning itself. One half diagnoses: you have decision fatigue, you have too much, you bought aspirationally. All probably true, and none of it gets you out of the house. The other half gives you fifteen outfit formulas, which assumes the problem is that you cannot think of a combination, when usually you can think of six and cannot choose between them.

The problem is not a shortage of clothes or of ideas. It is a shortage of criteria. Below are four questions that supply them, in the order that actually resolves things, and they come from an unlikely source.

The short answer

The rule the Queen's household used, and why it is better than a style rule

In the ITV documentary Our Queen at Ninety, broadcast in March 2016, Sophie, Countess of Wessex, was asked why the late Queen dressed in such strong colour. Her answer had nothing to do with taste. Do not forget, she said, that when she turns up somewhere, the crowds are two, three, four, ten, fifteen deep, and someone wants to be able to say they saw a bit of the Queen's hat as she went past. She needs to stand out for people to be able to say I saw the Queen.

They did not ask what suits her. They asked who needs to be able to find her, and from how far away.

That is a functional brief, and it is a far better first question than any of the taste questions the internet offers. It also explains why the hat carried it: at fifteen rows deep, the hat is the only part of an outfit still visible. Almost nobody reading this needs to be found in a crowd of thousands, but the underlying question transfers exactly. What is this outfit for, who is looking, and from where. Answer that and most of the choices make themselves.

The four questions, worked through

1. What job does the outfit have to do?

There are only a few honest answers and they lead in different directions. To be appropriate and otherwise unnoticed, which is the correct brief for a funeral, a work event or being a guest at someone else's moment. To be findable, which is the brief for a large party, a race meeting or anywhere you are meeting people you do not know. To be remembered, which is the brief for a launch, a private view or a birthday of your own. Or to be comfortable for nine hours, which is the brief far more often than people admit and which no style guide ever lists. Name the job out loud before you open the wardrobe.

2. Who sees it, and from how far away?

Distance is the variable that style advice consistently ignores, and it decides more than colour theory does. At conversational distance, texture, finish and detail carry the outfit: an interesting weave, a good button, the quality of a hem. At ten metres, none of that is visible and only three things register, which are silhouette, value contrast and one colour. At thirty metres, across a lawn or a paddock, only silhouette and colour survive. If the event is outdoors and spread out, everything subtle you are considering is wasted, and something at head height is the only reliable way to be legible.

3. What does the room actually require?

This is the question people skip, and it is the one with an objective answer. A surprising number of British occasions have written rules, and looking them up takes two minutes and removes half the anxiety. Royal Ascot requires headwear and specifies a ten centimetre solid base in the Royal Enclosure. A black tie invitation means something specific. A traditional church wedding expects hats. Afternoon tea at The Ritz forbids jeans for everyone and requires a jacket and tie for men. We have written the codes out in full in our guides to black tie, wedding dress codes, the Royal Enclosure and race day dressing. If a rule exists, let it do the work.

4. Where do you want the eye to land?

Most outfits that feel wrong are not clashing, they are undirected. Nothing leads, so the eye moves around and settles nowhere, and the result reads as hesitant. Pick one place for the eye to land and build the rest quieter. The face is usually the right choice, because it is where you want attention at any event where you are meeting people, and because everything else in a photograph is secondary to it. That is what a hat, a headpiece or a strong earring is actually for. It is not decoration; it is direction.

The everyday version and the occasion version are different problems

It is worth separating them, because the same phrase covers two situations with different stakes. The everyday version is low cost and high frequency: you will wear something, it will be fine, and nobody will photograph it. For that, question one alone is enough, and the best fix is structural rather than daily, which is to reduce the number of decisions by having two or three arrangements you trust.

The occasion version is the opposite, and it is the one that sends people to search engines at eleven at night. It is rare, it is expensive, it is photographed, and it is visible to people whose opinion you have some investment in. It also has a deadline. For that one, work backwards from the room rather than forwards from the wardrobe, because the room has rules and the wardrobe does not.

Three Merve Bayindir pieces, one for each answer

Not a formula, three worked examples of what question four looks like when it is answered. Each is hand-made in our London atelier. Prices include UK VAT.

DEMITTO HEADBAND

£750

A plush pink velvet band with a thick, comfortable base, one side carrying an arrangement of handmade resin flowers in delicate pastels with worked leaves. The answer when the job is to be appropriate and otherwise unnoticed. It gives the outfit a focal point at the face without announcing anything, which is exactly what you want as a guest at someone else's occasion. Two are in stock.

TOMMIE FASCINATOR

£1,000

A purple button-shaped fascinator on a structured disc base, sitting at the centre of the head, with a bouquet of violets in purple, pink and yellow across the top on green stems and leaves. The answer when the job is to be findable. It reads clearly at thirty metres, which is the distance at which a print dress and a good shoe have both already disappeared. Wear it at the centre or slightly to one side of the crown.

AETHER FEDORA HAT

£500

A black wool felt fedora on a clean, classic line, with freeform golden wirework wrapping the crown in loose sketched lines and an abstract metallic bow. The answer when the job is to be remembered, and the one piece here that works on an ordinary Thursday as well as at an event. Made for city evenings, gallery openings and considered day-to-night dressing.

Styling notes

Decide before you dress, not while you are dressing, because trying things on is how a twenty minute problem becomes a two hour one. Lay out the answer to question one somewhere you can see it. Choose the piece that carries the outfit first and build down from it rather than up, since it is far easier to find a dress for a hat than a hat for a dress at four days' notice. Keep the colour count to three including the shoes. And if you are genuinely stuck between two options, choose the one you can sit down in for three hours, because comfort is the variable that decides how the evening actually goes. Our guides to wearing a fascinator and measuring your hat size cover the mechanics once the decision is made.

Ordering, and what to expect

Every piece is made to order in the London atelier, part of a deliberate, low-waste way of working. When the date is close, our ready to ship pieces go out quickly instead. Every order arrives in a custom box, with worldwide DHL Express shipping included.

Frequently asked questions

Why do I feel like I have nothing to wear when my wardrobe is full?

Usually because you have no criteria rather than no clothes. Six workable options and no reason to prefer one produces the same paralysis as having none. Naming what the outfit is for reduces six options to one or two immediately.

What is the quickest way to decide what to wear?

Ask what job the outfit has to do, then pick the single garment or piece that does that job, then build the rest quieter around it. Building outwards from one anchor is faster than assembling a whole outfit at once.

How do I know if an outfit is too much?

Check the room rather than the mirror. If the event has a written dress code, compare against that. If it does not, the honest test is whether anything in the outfit is competing: two focal points read as too much where one reads as considered.

Should I dress for the occasion or for myself?

For the occasion first, since it has rules and preferences do not. Within those rules there is far more room than most people use, and that is where dressing for yourself belongs.

What if I have four days and nothing works?

Work backwards. Find the piece that solves the head, since it is the most visible and the hardest to improvise, then find the dress. It is much easier to find a dress for a hat than a hat for a dress at short notice.

Find your piece

Every piece above is designed and hand-made in our London atelier by Merve Bayindir, a member of the British Fashion Council with selections in the Royal Ascot Style Guide. Browse the full range of hats and fascinators.

Sources

HELLO!, Sophie Wessex on the late Queen's dressing, from Our Queen at Ninety, ITV, March 2016

Ascot Racecourse, official Royal Ascot dress code