Notes on Styling | 37 | Putting a thing into the world.
Style Design - A process & journey helping women to find out more about themselves.
I’ve been asked quite a lot over the years things like, ‘what makes you a good stylist?’ or ‘what makes you different as a stylist?’ and it’s something I’ve reflected on a lot. My response to the first is, before the clothes part begins, I just really really care about the women I get to help and I have worked really hard at how I do that. I don’t just want them to look different, I want them to feel different. Secondly, what makes me different as a stylist? I think I can see into someone’s heart when choosing clothes for them and I do this from a place of real trust. When you have trust you find people will be braver in their choices. Where creativity flows, confidence grows. And so 2 years ago I began to develop a different Styling journey, which I call Style Design. I started this Substack so that it would give me a place to share and explore this journey and idea with you. The approach I take is not what I would call traditional coaching or traditional image-based styling but by using clothes as my tool, coaching and deep personal understanding and reflection is achieved. I like to call it a personal metamorphosis through clothes.
Today, I finally tell you a little more about that journey and look forward over the coming months to sharing much more (in between all the little fashion bits I also love to share!).
I hope you enjoy. Jx
Hello lovely reader,
I remember when I was a little girl watching my Mum get dressed to go out on an evening. I have a memory of a black jumpsuit, accessories with sparkle and bling and the smell of hairspray wafting along the hall as she got my sister, brother and I clean as pins for our babysitter. I remember always being so excited to see what she would wear. I would drink in every bit of her outfits, her confidence to wear something so daring as a jumpsuit, how she made the colour black look so elegant. It was the hair too, highlighted blond and wisped back at the front into an 80’s roll, pale pink lipstick and a black bag with a silver chain. I cherish this memory more now as she is getting older. This sense I got from her that style was more than the clothes, it was a putting together of things that carry with them a sense of who you are.
It’s only in the last few years I’ve seen how it truly impacted my journey in styling. I’ve always tried to work with an instinct built upon the little things someone would tell me about themselves. Little things that weren’t about rules or proportion (though sometimes they are the thing that mattered the most) but more about what seemed to light them up - just like my mum having that black jumpsuit hanging in her wardrobe ready for those evenings. When I began to develop this idea I called Style Design, I also thought a lot about how her clothing choices felt to me to be aligned with her natural way as a person.
The Things that made her, her.
When we were young, my Mum was always busy, a multi-tasking master. But she could also be fun and silly, quirky my dad would say. She seemed to me to love efficiency. She was very efficient and organised in everything she did. I wonder how much of her efficiency came from having 3 kids and was a learned rather than innate trait but nevertheless, it formed part of her. There was a precision and order to things with my mum and therefore our day and our clothes reflected this. Little piles would be left on top of the aga before bed ready for school the next morning. I would say day to day her style was natural, kind of cool (the quiff) and neat. She looked after herself.
Then when time allowed and on those special evenings when she did leave us to go out with my dad, I saw this other side to my Mum. The Magpie. How she loved the glamour of getting dressed up but still made it sit well with this understated, natural, beautiful mum I knew and loved. To me, she had mastered the art (as most of the stylish people we know do) of dressing so all of her felt like it came through in what she wore and she was able to express this whether she was dressing up or down. But what amused me was the moment she got home, all the jewellery would immediately come off, wedding ring, the lot. Even her nail polish. The moment she stepped through the door. She couldn’t stand it all annoying her as she got busy in the house again. (And it’s very funny and fascinating to me that I am now the same). This is the bit when it comes to our style that really fascinates me. Marrying up the different parts of ourselves gives us a real understanding of who we are and with that comes a an acceptance of those quirky characteristics and how they make us who we are.
I used to think of my Mum’s style (or did in later years) like a sliding scale of natural, cool and neat, with this glamour she played when she wanted. She could dial it up with the bling or dial it down with denim. But she never wore anything too floral or twee. She knew who she was and how to express this no matter the occasion. Nothing too fussy was every worn.
There have been times in my own life when I have thought about my Mum as I struggled with my own sense of style. I was 26 when I started out in fashion and I felt this pressure to look like I fit into ‘fashion’. I felt this need to look creative and colourful and always with a heel. I saw fashion as the Sex and the City stereotype with out there details and colourful contrasts and I enjoyed playing this game with clients. I won’t ever forget to pain of the pair of heels I wore on Dragons Den when I was just 2 years into owning my business. It’s all very ironic when I look at what I know to be the true meaning of style now as my 41-year-old self. But I also understand how those are the times in our lives (yes, even when you work in fashion) that form part of learning more about who you truly are and who you want to be and your clothes form a big part of helping you do that.
Then I met people like Sue, who just by being themselves and working in fashion, I saw that it was ok to do it my way. You won’t ever please what everybody expects of ‘someone who works in fashion’ she would say. Do you and your tribe will find you. And as I began to learn more about what I felt best in, I slowly began to immerse myself in the ways I could help women come around to this way of looking at their clothes, to figure out their instincts so they could begin to let go of versions of themselves that didn’t serve them.
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Style Design - Putting a process around this way of building true style confidence.
There are two lines of thought I had for a long time about only using traditional image-based styling and why I began to create this new process of Style Design.
The frustration you can feel at how the rules (dressing for your body shape, our most suited colour direction, proportion, scale etc) put us into boxes that don’t serve us. Most are just another way to make us feel bad about ourselves for not being a ‘standard’.
But to ignore the sensibility of all the rules is to go the other way - to just think we can all naturally choose beautiful, interesting clothes and creatively style them each day is the other extreme. Few women have this natural confidence in their style and in putting clothes together - never mind is ‘creative’ a thing they even want to be?
Beyond these two extremes, I see Style Design.
An exploration and a carrying forward of the parts that work for you, through the lens of who you are and what you love; giving you a really unique style roadmap -
connecting to a style aesthetic that looks great to you.
descriptive words you can use to describe your look.
an understanding of your style energy pattern - knowing why certain things matter to you in how your clothes feel (more on this below).
a focus on brands/ shops that will help build you a great wardrobe.
styling ideas to try.
an outfit-building process (I call it your outfit map) that makes getting dressed and putting your clothes together so much easier.
A 45 look styling board with outfits for you to shop but that help you see your new style coming to life.
It’s true and not a surprise that we have been learning and gathering our sense of style and our beliefs about what we can and can’t wear from the life experiences we’ve had, our surroundings and from people who influence us. And things stick no matter how helpful or unhelpful you know them to be. When I began to look at styling through a new lens I realised that these habits and beliefs we have formed about ourselves can’t be reasoned with rules alone. You need to connect the dots for yourself by having a deeper understanding of what matters most to you.
It is around this time, I began to think of how I could create a framework around this idea and it was Covid that gave me the time to explore this. That was when I delved into a course (with Sue) in The Chinese 5 Elements, which has been one of the things that has helped me the most to see how going on a personal journey first with who you are can help you see what you want your clothes to look and feel like.
If you’ve ever had acupuncture or have an interest in Chinese medicine, you might already be familiar with the 5 Elements. There is a long-held belief that human energy patterns come from Natures 5 elements. The elements (Wood, Fire, Water, Metal & Earth) are used in a range of holistic treatments to understand the human body and human design better. Each element is linked to certain body organs, emotions and much more.
Understanding which of the five elements has a dominant effect on you (we each have 2 that impact us a little more), can give you insight into how you interact with the world around you. If you’re unsure about who you are or what you want, if you're feeling imbalanced, low in energy, or simply out-of-whack, understanding the elemental influences at play is an amazing way to understand what you might need to change to shift these feelings and come back to yourself. We relate them to styling because each also has colours, feelings, emotions and style instincts we can associate with them. They can help so many things make sense in why and how you might be struggling to connect to your style.
(You would have been living life much more in tune with your most natural elements when you were younger but life can knock things off course and the work is in reconnecting to your most natural self).
People ask me, is Style Design a coaching or styling process? The approach I take is not what I would call traditional coaching but by using clothes as my tool, coaching and deep personal understanding reflection is achieved. I like to call it a personal metamorphosis through clothes.
I use the 5 Elements as part of the Style Design process as a way to help you to understand your most natural self again. That will then tell you about the aesthetic, the types of clothes, the details that matter to you and your approach to buying that will feel most naturally you. Alongside this, identifying your 3 Style Words supplements this approach. They too help you apply your elements because your Style Words will feel aligned with your Elements. Both help you see more clearly brands that fit, colours and ideas that fit, details that matter and items that will be real wardrobe heros for you.
Both add to building a solid picture of the direction your style should take.
Who is Style Design really for?
Style Design is for those who want to understand who they are and redefine the relationship they have with themselves using their style as their tool.
I was really thinking this week about the things I am hearing most often from clients who I feel so far it’s really helped. Things like;
‘I always buy the same things because I don’t know what else to buy’.
‘I love fashion but it’s become a minefield of choice and so I stick to the same shops.’
‘I have just gone through this huge change and I don’t know who I am anymore.’
‘Who am I outside of …my work/ being a mom/ dressing this way for so long?.’
Shifting from one way of looking at yourself and your clothes to a new & fresh way, takes focus, exploration, play and time - that’s what Style Design is truly about. Taking the time to make a real change. It can’t be achieved on a shop floor in one afternoon (though play on a shop floor is always good!) but it is an approach to building a Style Aesthetic you will really love, connect with and feel at home in.
But it is in the impact to your day-to-day life afterwards is where the magic lies, how I want you to feel at your wardrobe doors when I am gone!
Style Design is the difference between these two Style Directions below.
(Click on each look to find the links on my Styling Boards).
Take the same Jeans (that might suit both clients) but buy for two completely different style directions. With Style Design, client ‘a’ discovered her dominant elements are Wood & Metal (needs movement, ease and practicality alongside an elegance and neatness in her clothes) Her style words Effortless, Elegant and Fun.
Client ‘b’ discovered her dominant elements are Fire and Water (needs fun in an outfit alongside a feeling of creativity and layers) and her words are Creative, Layered & Elevated.
And I am still learning from my beautiful mum. Her confidence has ebbed and flowed over the years for sure but this too reminds me of the realness of the journey we take with our clothes. Life moulds us one way or another, what we need and want from our clothes changes. But who we are deep down is always there. It isn’t always about feeling stylish but if you have that deeper connection to who you are, you can much more easily allow your style to feel more casual and still feel good. You have the power and ability to interpret it as feels good to you.
Style design is led by you, with you. It is not about what I like but about uncovering what you love and why. It’s not just about clothes but the feeling your clothes give you, the picture you are building, the way it shifts how you see yourself and how you feel more in tune with the everyday process of putting items together until the outfit you land on feels great and really makes your day better because of the confidence you feel.
I love that this little home here on Substack lets me share Style Design with you, explore the ideas I am building within the process, and hopefully make you see that your style is there just waiting to be explored.
I have created a section for the pieces I write specifically for Style Design so they can all be found in one place. I will soon write more about the 5 Elements, all the parts of the process and much more.
Thanks for reading and for being curious about your clothes. Let them be the thing that helps you feel great in your day to day life.
Julie x
Thank you for mentioning me Julie. Another great post with fabulous insights. Using the 5 Elements completely changed how I worked and dressed. I’m so glad it held the same magic for you.