Pretty much only when they age up.... unless I don't mind the outfit they grew up into. If I don't like it, I take them shopping to pick out a few outfits that I think would suit them, and narrow it down to one that they wear until they age up again. Sometimes I'll switch an outfit in the middle of an age stage if I feel the sim needs a new "look," but those are pretty much the only two times I'll do it. So yes, some of my sims are wearing shorts in winter and sweaters in summer. In the winter they usually have appropriate outerwear anyway so I don't particularly care, and in the summer.... it still doesn't bother me

The one exception is for my young adults- unless the outfit they age up into is really, really atrocious, I don't bother changing it at all. Young adults are poor enough as it is, and their lives are a bit more chaotic so new clothes aren't really a priority. (And I was going to say they're only adults for 8 days anyway, but my child and teen stages are also 8 days long, and I do pick outfits for them... so I guess it just isn't a big deal to me for YAs)

Also, I don't have a lot of custom clothes, but I do have a decent amount of sims. If I changed everyone's outfit all the time, I'd likely end up with sims wearing the same outfit, which I try to avoid- and I already have a hard time with that! So I really should go download some more clothes, but I'm wary about adding CC since my computer isn't that great and my load times are already slow, and I'm lazy, so I haven't gotten around to it.

I had to wear shorts to school until I was 14. It was my school's dress regulations. That included the notorious 1963 winter.

As far as my Sims are concerned, I don't have Seasons, so the climate is always mild and pleasant. They can wear shorts all the time. Andrew has lots of outfits, but he doesn't possess a single pair of long trousers for everyday use. He always wears shorts -- unless he's wearing his kilt. I only once recall him wearing long trousers of any sort. His friend Mallory Mace had come round to play chess and she stayed late. Now Mallory lives downtown, so, to save her going home late, Gloria (his mum) suggested that he ask her to sleep over. The trouble was that the only place for her to sleep was in bed with Andrew. He went to the wardrobe and dug out his old Maxis sky blue pyjamas and put them on. He also insisted that Mallory wore long pyjamas too. (Hers were red.) Mallory is Romance, and Andrew wanted to make absolutely sure that she didn't get the wrong idea: they were sleeping together, but that's all they were doing! Really, Andrew needn't have worried. Mallory and he have been good friends for ages, and she knows perfectly well that he's gay. She had absolutely no intention of trying anything on with him. Andrew usually sleeps in very skimpy white undies, and a similarly clad Julian regularly sleeps over and shares his bed. Gloria (Romance) is very open-minded and doesn't mind in the least.

^^

Pretty much says what I'm going to say.

Okay, I see a couple of you are doing it right. For the rest, I can only say your sims are probably organizing right now to go on strike to force you to change their clothes. Oh, and their hairstyles. Everyone needs a new "do once in a while.

Now, if you'll excuse me I have a lot of heavy medication to take (hyperventilates)

Agreed. While in my game male sims tend to keep their hairstyle for life, females get a change quite often. I like to keep their hairstyle appropriate for the occasion too. The stay at home mom may wear casual clothing and a ponytail during the day, but come date night with her husband, might opt for something a little fun and flirty...in style of hair and clothing.

I enjoy adding small bits of realism to the game.

So that's where that smell is coming from!

Somewhat rarely, I tend to imagine that it's their favourite clothing set but a few sims have multiple sets of clothes.

When I feel like it. Some Sims wear the same outfit for quite a while; others change frequently. Sometimes, I'll go on personality as well. A Sim who really likes clothes will change a whole lot faster than one who believes, "Does it not smell too bad? Great."

I am NOT going to change the hairstyles and/or outfits in 152 families, @smorbie1 Let them try to strike - oh, boy, will they fill up the empty graveyard quickly!

I've had the same 'do for the last 23 years (and on Sims 2 scale I've started 3 life stages in that time), and some of my Sims have similar opinions. The rest get changes when they appear to want them (there are several self-employed hairdressers in town) - hairstyles change rather more often than clothing styles in SimHampton.

Sigh...I always thought you treated your pixels so well..

Well at least the COUNCIL recommends changing clothes daily and has a Gussy Up service for sims. Each sim is required to have a Gussy Up representative come to their house weekly to provide them with new clothes (which I pretend are shared among all the people in the neighborhood, so it's like they are swapping clothes. But they aren't, they are getting new clothes) and a new hairstyle.

REMEMBER, A CLEAN SIM IS A PRODUCTIVE SIM!

I'm actually dreading the point in my Handmaid neighborhood when the outfits will be assigned. Those will be selected by generation and all people of each station will have the same exact outfit. For someone like me, that will be hard.

Until recently my Sims seldom changed their hairstyle. But now I've got a couple of Sims trying to get a cosmetology badge. (I've got gummilutt's fix, so it might not take forever.) Yes, it makes it harder for me to recognise my Sims, but I suppose they've got a right to have a new hairstyle every now and then. Even in real life I use hairstyles, and to a lesser extent clothing, to recognise people; I'm not very good at facial features, unless they're very obvious. (Carbuncles?) I used to sit next to a girl at university who changed both her hairstyle and her clothing style with great frequency. I got into the habit of waiting for her to speak first, in case it was somebody else! In game it does help that I can move the mouse over a Sim to check who it is. I wish that feature was available in real life!

I have tried to keep my own hair in the same style since I was 17, but in practice it has varied a bit because some hairdressers are better at giving me what I want than others. And I have to admit that it is now a bit greyer, and there's a bit less of it than there used to be. I give most of my male Sims hairstyles a bit similar to my own, but I still try to make them different so I can tell them apart. The result is a downloads folder full of very similar hairstyles. Now that there are hairdressers they can go to, it's becoming harder. Female hairs are similar, with the average possibly a bit longer. Despite what it will do to my load times, I really need more female hair! I want everyone to look different -- and still all look different, and be recognisable, even after a visit to the hairstylist.

So I just made a new law.

No Sim in my hood will be forced to change outfits or hairstyles unless they roll a wish to do so Now that is treating pixels well, is it not, @smorbie1?

@AndrewGloria, I have hundreds of hair styles. Really, I don't know how they ended up in my downloads folder at all.

I generally try to change outfits:

As a sim gets older. Using my age mod and the system I've worked out, I know when their birthdays are and precisely how old they are (which is important for Inteen and realistic aging etc.) and I like to dress them age-appropriately. My teen sims for example start at 13 with 70-odd days left in the teen stage, and finish at 17. I like to change their outfits to show their growing maturity and to make it easier to tell older teens from younger ones. Same with the kids who go from age 4 to age 12. Usually you dress a bit differently between pre-school and year 6. I also do it for toddlers even though their aging is easier to denote because one is usually walking while the other is still crawling. And using this system I can make my middle-aged sims look it.

I also like to change outfits to match the seasonal set-up in my hoods. Some places are colder long into spring, while others warm up right away and stay warm much longer, so I like my sims to dress appropriately. (Nothing worse than shorts and tank tops when it's snowing outside.)

I also change their clothes after big life events. I have a few sims where upon becoming parents, they cut their hair and change their outfits, or grow it and change their outfits, or stay the same but do something different with their hair and make up etc. Same with going to Uni. Some sims - like some people - change their whole style when they leave home for uni, so I might change outfits then. If they're a school-leaver I might also change outfits as they're now becoming adults.

I make my sims shop for their wedding outfits, and buy those since I like their formal wear to reflect their personalities (and it's a bit disconcerting to the bride to have three of her closest friends show up in their wedding dresses to her wedding...)


I guess there's a lot of opportunity to change clothes, so I don't worry about doing it every day.

I have tried to keep my own hair in the same style since I was 17, but in practice it has varied a bit because some hairdressers are better at giving me what I want than others. And I have to admit that it is now a bit greyer, and there's a bit less of it than there used to be. :

I have a new hairstyle, too, in the last few months. I call it...HAIR!!!! It actually does look like a really short hair style now, maybe a shaggy pixie cut.

JustPetro, honey, you are making my life so hard. If you would just play your sims by my rules, don't you see how much better your life would be? The sun would shine brighter, the rain would smell better, you would lose ten pounds overnight.

Once I've got an outfit pinned for a Sim, their fashionable fate is sealed for the rest of their age span. There's something that irks me whenever I try to change an existing Sim's clothing. Sort of like tooltips inside my head that don't update properly -- I have this set picture of each Sim in my mind and get upset when their current appearance doesn't match the one that's "expected".

Do sims ever roll wants to change clothes?

My sims rarely change. At first, loading times in my game were super slow, so going to a community lot to buy clothes was quite a hassle. Now, they get new stuff if I really hate the stuff they grow up in. Same goes for hair. But I'm just not very optically oriented. I also have to admit to not having a single piece of CC clothing or hair, unless it's for a medieval hood I planned but never started. I also can't tell if sims are pretty or ugly.

I've seen pleasure Sims roll wants to change into their pyjamas. Other than that, sometimes Sims roll wants to purchase clothes.

My sims roll wants to buy new clothes or change into their underwear. I think they are exhibitionists.

I like to change hair styles fairly often. If time passes and no haircuts have been had, I change the sim's hairstyle to something longer. I had Jules O'Mackey grow her hair out through college and then slice it all off after graduation. Now that she's been home from school for a while, she's growing it back out again.

I don't change my sims clothes often. I only do it, when my adults sims first aged up and when they need a mature look as they they reach elderhood.



Sometimes they have wants to buy new clothes. So, I guess you can count that as them wanting to change clothes.

hair styles; have changed the ones of pregnancy-produced sims. if there were 2 or more of same gender and if they were close in age. mainly at Toddler & Child stages.

I have to admit Sims instantly cleaned and tumble-dried their clothes during that twirl they do when they change outfits. For example, when they change from everyday to pyjamas, the everyday clothes would get cleaned and drived as they disappeared into either the invisible part of their inventories or their wardrobe. Otherwise, putting on "dirty" clothes would surely have reduced Sims' hygeine scores?

I nearly always have to change the clothes sims age up into, they are never suitable for their character and/or the season. I like seeing them in summery clothes and winter stuff, so they change midway through spring and autumn as the weather should be warming up or cooling down. The males keep the same hairstyle ( normally decided when they are teenagers) while some of the women do like a change from time to time, especially as they get older, or change career and feel they need something smarter, for example.

about hair styles; I change the ones of pregnancy-produced sims. mainly if the sim has a sibling of same gender and if that sibling (or those siblings) "shares/share" Toddler stage and/or Child stage for any amount of time.
the hair change/changes are to different hair styles.