Today I was asked this question and I didn't immediately have an answer. I had a reply but not an answer, because there are a million answers from the simple, so you'll look better, to the impossibly complex, so you'll feel better. Here is my story and the reason I care.
Four years ago I weighed in at a mighty 18 stone 10lbs/262 lbs total, I'm 5 foot 9inches so this pretty much classified me as needing my own post code. I spent my life hiding in baggy clothes that made me look bigger and being generally quite miserable. As far as I was concerned it didn't matter what I wore as Marquees were never in fashion. I still loved clothes but they were for other people - style wasn't something that had any relationship to my life any more. Even writing that I remember how sad that made me, but because I couldn't accept myself, I couldn't dress myself. What came next is a little bit of a chicken or the egg situation, I don't know whether I lost weight and started to dress better or started to dress better and realised I should lose some weight. I couldn't accept who I was, it didn't work for me, so I fundamentally changed it. I lost 110lbs, which is what I had to do to get to what I wanted to be. My hope for you is that you won't have to make such a drastic change to get to where you can look yourself in the mirror and say, "I like you!".
As a result I've changed my personal style so many times, I can dress any shape- as I've been an incarnation of all of them along the way. I know how it feels to wander the shops searching for anything that fits and hoping to make the best of a terrible selection. More I know how it feels to walk into a shop and feel as if you aren't welcome there, that you are unprotected and being judged. It usually isn't true but I do recognise the feeling. I've sat in fitting rooms crying because I look lumpy in everything, I've tried on. Information is power and I learnt all the tricks to disguise my ever changing shape. Through necessity I learnt how to bend trends into wearable fashion for me, but also how to make my wardrobe work, as I continued to shrink, so that I wasn't having to start again every few weeks. This is why I bang on and on about key stone pieces that can upgrade your wardrobe, as replacing 1 piece is realistic and affordable. It's also why I say that it is ok to ask for help because we don't always see what is real and dressing an imagined shape can make things so much harder.
The reason you should care about your style is because you deserve to. It's not shallow to want to look in the mirror and like what you see and sometimes its easier to start the change from the outside in. Using your clothes as a type of armour, presenting the world with the image of who you want to be, so you can give yourself the time to become that person.
So the answer is simple because caring about what you look like means you care about who you are.
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