This is how I used to buy clothes. At least in my case I got some hard advice from a friend: I was picking pieces of clothes that were fine in isolation but didn’t really come together to create a look/fit that was me and made me look unintentional and thus less good. It also made it too easy to optimize for function at the expense of form to the point of picking things that met great functional requirements but looked bad, like technical hiking pants that met tons of needs other than looking good or fitting my body well.
In order to actually look put together I realized that I needed to take a more global approach to my clothes optimization.
Yes, I agree that if “practical problem in your life” did not include “looking good” or “goes with my other clothes” as design parameters then you’d probably end up in a situation like that. I succeeded at avoiding this problem because I specifically set out to find pants that were good for biking and looked like professional work pants (fortunately I already had some that did). This can be useful: it puts a sharp constraint on the shirts I buy, requiring them to look good with these specific pants. That limitation can be helpful in making the overwhelming number of choices manageable.
This is how I used to buy clothes. At least in my case I got some hard advice from a friend: I was picking pieces of clothes that were fine in isolation but didn’t really come together to create a look/fit that was me and made me look unintentional and thus less good. It also made it too easy to optimize for function at the expense of form to the point of picking things that met great functional requirements but looked bad, like technical hiking pants that met tons of needs other than looking good or fitting my body well.
In order to actually look put together I realized that I needed to take a more global approach to my clothes optimization.
Yes, I agree that if “practical problem in your life” did not include “looking good” or “goes with my other clothes” as design parameters then you’d probably end up in a situation like that. I succeeded at avoiding this problem because I specifically set out to find pants that were good for biking and looked like professional work pants (fortunately I already had some that did). This can be useful: it puts a sharp constraint on the shirts I buy, requiring them to look good with these specific pants. That limitation can be helpful in making the overwhelming number of choices manageable.