The Intimacy of Getting Ready By Veridiana Gordilho

There’s a part of fashion that no one really sees. 

Not the outfit you post, not the one you wear out, not even the one people compliment. I mean the part before all of that: when you’re alone in your room, trying things on, taking them off, and deciding who you’re going to be that day. And I don’t think we talk about that enough. 

When we think about fashion, we usually think about the final result, but in reality, most of fashion happens in private, and it’s a lot less put-together than it looks from the outside. It’s standing in front of your closet for way too long. It’s putting on an outfit, staring at yourself, and immediately changing. It’s having three options on your bed and not being fully convinced by any of them. 

And for a moment, those versions of you exist, and then, they don’t. That’s the part I find the most interesting. 

There’s something really personal about the versions of yourself that never leave your room. The outfit that almost worked. The one that felt right for five minutes and then didn’t. The one you liked, but didn’t feel confident enough to actually wear out. No one else sees those, but they still matter. 

I think getting ready is less about “finding the right outfit” and more about figuring out how you feel. Sometimes you go in thinking you want to dress one way, and then nothing looks right until you completely change direction. Other times, you already know exactly what you’re going to wear before you even open your closet. But most of the time, it’s somewhere in between. 

It’s also a space where you can try things without being judged. You can put together an outfit that doesn’t make sense, wear it for a few minutes, and then take it off like it never happened. There’s no audience, no expectation: You are just you testing things out. 

I think that in moments when not everything is perfectly styled and you're not fully sure whether the outfit you're wearing makes sense, it's when personal style actually develops. When you’re experimenting, adjusting, second-guessing. When you’re trying to make something feel like you, even if you can’t fully explain why. 

From another perspective, this ritual is also more emotional than people admit. What you wear is usually connected to how you feel, even if it’s in a subtle way. There are days when getting ready feels easy, almost automatic. And there are days when nothing looks right, and it’s not really about the clothes, but about your mood. Sometimes you want to feel put together, sometimes you want to feel comfortable, sometimes you want to feel noticed, and sometimes you want to disappear a little. And getting ready becomes a way of navigating that. 

Even small details, such as jewelry, a belt, and shoes, can shift how the outfit feels. You don’t always notice it consciously, but it changes how you carry yourself for the rest of the day. That’s why I think the process matters more than we give it credit for. Because by the time an outfit is

“done,” most of the thinking has already happened. The final version is just what survives all the decisions you made before leaving the house. 

And one thing about that process is that it is MESSY. It’s not aesthetic in the way we’re used to seeing fashion online. It’s not perfectly curated or visually consistent. It’s a mix of doubt, instinct, habit, and mood. It doesn’t always lead to something you love, and sometimes you leave the house still unsure. But I believe that’s kind of the point. 

Although this process is private, it shows and creates versions of you that might not show up in photos, but they’re still part of your style. And maybe that’s what makes fashion feel personal in the first place. Not just what people see, but everything that happened before they did.