18. Dressing can feel different when you do this one thing.
We all want to get dressed in things we love and to feel stylish. But in so many ways dressing has come to feel complicated. The choice of brands and shops and pace of ‘newness’ is overwhelming.
We can also focus on the wrong things when we think about putting our clothes together. From my experience, it becomes habit to focus first on the part of our body we want to hide or conceal. The bit we think about more than any other. The result can become an outfit that’s focused on hiding something rather than an outfit that feels stylish and gives you a feeling of overall balance.
The fashion industry is also happy with our complex feelings around what we wear and how we wear it. It means they can sell us more stuff. The more unsure we are, the more we buy in our search.
If I really look at the one thing I do and advise my clients to do to help break down dressing and to create outfits you love, it is to pick for your bottom half first. Even if it isn’t the bit that concerns you. Getting the fit right around the middle, which is what happens when you have a great-fitting bottom half item is the foundation for creating better outfits.
(yes, this is different if you choose a dress, so today I am just focusing on if you are wearing trousers, denims or a skirt).
Pick an Item for Your Bottom Half First
I like to think of creating an outfit as a step-by-step process of adding different layers (by layers I mean - clothes, accessories, shoes - all parts of what makes something feel stylish) in order to get different looks and create outfits that give us different feelings.
Think of it a bit like baking different types of cake - add in chocolate and you have a chocolate cake, lemon and you have lemon cake. Getting dressed and feeling ‘styled’ is choosing one ingredient over another, and adding ingredients until the outfit feels stylish to you. Feels what you want it to feel. Each item adds to the feeling or takes away from the feeling. That’s the game.
Yes, ‘styling’ is a creative endeavour, but you don’t have to be naturally creative to have fun with it and to be good at it within the realms of your own wardrobe and the things you love.
What you DO NEED is a logical place to start to free up space so you can think about the things you have creatively. When you start by choosing an item for your bottom half first - and achieve a great fit in a pair of trousers/ skirt, it means you have created the best foundation. Creating a great foundation, simply means you will feel more freedom in what you put with it, what you try and also what will potentially work because item 1 has created that freedom. If those trousers sit wrong, need constant pulling up or have unnecessary overspill it will just make you feel overly conscious & anything you add after will feel like a struggle.
Picking an item for your bottom half first simply gives you a logical place to start and build from.
Over the last 2 months, I have taken pictures of some outfits where I’ve taken this approach with my Agolde White Denim. The outfits are more summery but the theory and approach remain the same.
For Autumn, I’m excited to wear them with black boots, a trench and knits!
I have listed all items under the picture and linked anything I can but lots I have had for a long time so have linked something similar that I have seen that I also think looks great.
Outfit 1
Dressing for:
Lunch with a new friend I’ve met in Devon (only took me a year!). (Feel like I’m back in school lol).
Outfit 2
Dressing for:
Doggie stroll and drink with hubby.
Outfit 3
Dressing for:
Work lunch with hubby and a colleague of his.
Outfit 4
Dressing for:
Meeting neighbours. We live in the middle of our little (big village?/ small town? - I am never quite sure what to call it) but neighbours of ours had a little garden party (so very British) so everyone on the road could meet and chat. It was lovely. There was tea and scones and sunshine!
Outfit 5
Dressing for:
Lunch on the River Exe Cafe with hubby (we booked this when we first moved here it’s so booked out - it’s a cafe/ restaurant in the middle of the estuary that you have to get a boat to).
Outfit 6
Dressing for:
Just working from home and wanted to feel nice.
Thoughts to help with building from the bottom up:
Choosing really great pieces for your bottom half means you will feel you need fewer of them but still have so many more outfits. The key is that they fit really beautifully:
- sit at the right point on your waist, helping to create a great silhouette.
- feel supportive on the tummy.
- hit at a length that feels good for your proportions.
- are a shape that skim or gather, pleat or sit, as you like.
Feeling confident in that first item means everything flows much more easily from this place. Feeling good about this first item means you will be more open-minded with what you try and how many layers you play with. ALL THE ELEMENTS that bring clothes to life into an outfit that you have curated in a direction that feels good to you.
Let go of ideas you have built up around how you see items you own. Styling is a process of open-minded creativity. If you see items you have in one fixed way (this is worn with that), you are missing out on so many other combinations and resulting outfits. Styling is simply playing with what you have to create different directions of aesthetics thereby creating different feelings - sexy, elegant, girlie, creative, minimal.
Creating a great outfit is about little things as much the clothes. The right shoes, a quirky accessory, a red lippie. They are all layers and each adds another dimension of feeling and complexity to how you feel. Keeping it simple and taking off those extra bits is also valid. The key is it’s all a choice to feel what you want to feel.
Would LOVE to know your thoughts, if you’ve tried it, if it helps, if you enjoy this way of thinking about outfits. If you enjoyed this post and would like to share my page, I would be most grateful.
Happy styling and I am in the comments so please feel free to chat.
Speak soon,
Julie x