I'll Wear My Party Dress If I Want To

At my elementary/middle school, we had a dress code from JPK (that's Junior Pre-Kindergarten or age 3) until 2nd grade and a uniform from 3rd grade on. For my dress code years, particularly JPK - Kindergarten, I often went to school in a party dress. My mom has since explained that this wasn't the case for my first few weeks of JPK but then, upon noticing some of the other girls coming in dresses, she asked their moms about it. The rationale was more or less that we were at an age where we were growing quickly so why not make sure we actually wore these beautiful dresses our parents had paid for, wash/send them off to the cleaners, and repeat. It's kind of genius, no? So we joined the bandwagon and soon it was bows and smocking all day err day. 

Recently I've taken a similar approach to my daily wardrobe. I am not the girl who works from home in PJs. I get dressed in real clothing every day. That said, when I don't have a meeting or client-related event, my outfits typically include jeans or shorts. However, lately I've found myself wanting to wear my summer dresses and skirts. Not the super fancy ones that in my youth made their way onto the playground, but those that would fall under the "Wear to Work" and "Day to Night" or even "Date Dresses" categories on a shopping site -- More shopping sites should have a date wear category, just sayin'. The first time I did it, I felt almost awkward about it, why dress up to just be with myself? But the more I thought about it, dressing up for yourself is exactly what I should be doing every single day.

Treating yourself well is paramount to happiness and wellbeing. Sometimes I buy a fun patterned pair of workout crops or a tank with an inspirational saying to make me feel a little more badass and help me get through a tough session, wasn't dressing up a bit for work more or less the same? I decided it was and haven't questioned my outfit choices since. There's a whole portion of my wardrobe that hadn't been getting the love it was used to and I missed showing it that love. Now, I mix it up; some days it's shorts and others it's dress time, with perhaps a few swipes of mascara for good measure.

Would you dress up if you worked from home?