Notes on Styling | 40 | The yin & yang of styling with your elements.
What intuitive & element-led styling looks like for me.
Dear lovely reader,
You never know where a week will take you.
I write this to you from a German Hotel. I am here to celebrate the life of a colleague of my husbands and a beautiful lady I had the pleasure to get to know over the last few years. Her name is Claudia. A wonderful lady who loved and lived her life to the fullest. She helped him bring his business, Water Babies to Germany and as you do, with new business start-ups, big adventures were had. You learn so much about someone’s outlook on life in a start-up. She was fun and crazy, always optimistic and so very caring and passionate about the things she loved.
And so it feels wrong to talk about clothes today.
They are only clothes.
I know this.
But they are also a tiny thing that gets us through some of life’s hardest things.
They are a little thing that makes us feel a little more like ourselves when everything around us feels unstable.
So, thank you for being the lovely distraction that’s needed as I write to you this week.
Julie x
Last week, I introduced you to how I use the 5 elements framework with clients to help uncover more truth to their style. It’s intuitive and personality-driven styling that goes beyond what the traditional style markers lead us to believe will ‘suit’ us.
While I accept that sticking to one look (at least for a time to centre your wardrobe and style processes) feels a bit like rebellion in a fashion world that’s constantly telling us to try the next shiny new thing, it’s honestly (in my experience of styling clients for 16 years), the best route to actually freeing up the creative part of your brain again when it comes to your clothes.
I hope it was a fun introduction - judging by the couple of emails, I think so! I am still happy to share the extra PDF I’ve created with extra insights into each element if you would like - just email hi@juliecobbe.ie and I’ll pop it over to you.
This week I thought I would share a little about my own style elements and how they impact my day-to-day style decisions as a way to learn a little more.
In the last few weeks, I’ve also been working on getting my own wardrobe catalogued on the app, Indyx & will share some outfit layouts I’ve been creating with that too!
So, how do my Style Elements help me put outfits together, buy better and generally impact decisions I make for my wardrobe?
I hope you enjoy and if you do, please share this little place with friends who might like it too ☆
My mix of elements are Wood First & Metal Second. I have more Wood than Metal in my personality (a lot more) and here’s how that impacts how I think about my clothes.
wood + metal in my style
I value movement and ease over everything else in the things I wear. I hate to feel restricted by my clothes, I have no patience for it :-) Being busy is one of the things that defines my whole being. I find it hard to ever sit still. It took me to my late 30’s to really recognise (by learning more about myself and the elements) that I have to make a conscious effort to take time out or I will always find the next thing to do. I even have to make a conscious effort when writing here to use full stops or my sentences would go on for days!
I’m not overly driven by having to look good all the time or for an outfit to feel perfect, I just need it to work (which was interesting learning, given my job).
My Wood finds it hard to make time and space for my styling to take very long at all in the mornings or generally in my life! A funny revelation perhaps. (Remember, this is just related to my own style - helping others is my passion;-)) I, therefore, rely on my second element (which is Metal) to bring the Je ne sais quoi that I know I love and need to help the Wood part of my personality to feel stylish.
**Note, the parts of an element that might impact each of us may feel different. Kind of like having the same body shape. How we feel it, experience it and the decisions it impacts for our clothes will be unique to us.
Metal being my Secondary Element is much more detail-orientated. I understand now that for me to feel stylish, I elevate my ‘Wood’ look a couple of notches by consciously bringing in items and details that make me feel this way.
White for example is a colour I gravitate towards for this reason. While it feels natural and effortless to me, it also feels elevated and stylish. I know to some white might feel very ‘unwood’ (hard to keep clean!) but for me, who lives for every neutral tone in her Wood colour palette, white feels both natural/ effortless and elevated to me.
If I ignore my Metal, sometimes my outfit choices can feel messy and not ‘put together’ very well. This can be because I like to buy things in an oversized fit for comfort for example. Take the outfit/ oversized shirt in the picture above. I know that by pairing it with smart white denim, instead of say comfy dark loose denim (which I could do!!), I feel more stylish. Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes, I like to go for the dark-on-dark, loose combo but I’m consciously making that choice and feel in control of the ‘why’.
Metal energy types also value quality over quantity. They value neatness, calm surroundings and love to have simplicity in their homes and clothes. This is also very much in my character, which you can tell is the opposite to my Primary Element! You are led by your first element first and foremost.
I know I am usually led by my much more active, slightly more bonkers Wood first. But it is the magic mix together that gives me the formula and framework to know how to create a style and outfits day to day that will feel natural to me but also feel lovely to me, stylish to me. My Metal helps me buy quality accessories that dress up my basics. It helps me to keep my wardrobe neat and organised (read below for more on this) and it helps me understand why I prefer few prints and patterns and feel more like myself in understated neutral tones (both elements in fact like neutrals but Metal more).
Understanding these things about myself has helped me see why my style (and general) habits ARE my habits. They are part of me. They are me. It has given me more awareness of how to own them, accept them, smile at them and use them to my advantage each day at my wardrobe doors and in life in general.
When you look at them together, Wood + Metal can result in things like a messy bedroom floor for a week (that will be my Wood) and then my Metal will suddenly get agitated by the mess and NEED it to be tidy and ordered. It’s the same for my outfits. I’m ok with going out not looking ‘styled’ all the time. I’m good with this but I know when I want to feel really stylish, I bring in this Metal part of my wardrobe and personality to help me put together looks that will feel like all of me and make me feel stylish, elegant - ‘styled’.
I have a little Pinterest board I’ve been playing with the last few weeks for Spring looks, if you want to take a look here.
If Metal came before Wood for example, I would have that primary driver to feel more ‘styled’ day to day. Popping to the shops for example, looking less than ‘done’ may not make me feel comfortable (as a wood first I’m fine with this). If this was the case Wood would influence my style in a smaller way and that would impact the visual, the aesthetic you would play with. It would be more fitted perhaps and more minimalist in it’s styling. More like this way around. Subtle but when you begin to put things together it feels very different.
Therefore the order of the elements as well as how they are interpreted for you really does matter to build your unique style picture.
When you don’t think like everybody else, don’t dress like everybody else. IRIS APFEL
So you can see through my elemental mix, just how one energy type works with the other to give you a unique push and pull and how this feeds into your clothes, the challenges you may feel in your clothes and around your wardrobe and the reason certain outfits or items get loved and worn so much and other may be left with the tags still on. Just a little look but hope it was a fun one! All my secrets are now out….;)
Once, you understand your Elements, you can begin to put the best Style Words against the aesthetic or look you are developing. It is your STYLE WORDS that then give day-to-day meaning to your Elements and give you more help to buy better but also create outfits at your wardrobe doors each day.Â
MY STYLE DESIGN WORDS FROM MY ELEMENTS â†
NATURAL + EFFORTLESS + ELEGANT.
You can see how the first two come from my Wood + the third from the Metal part of my Character. I play with the third word. Sometimes I swap it for Sophisticated.
dialling it up
Layering up this new kind of understanding gives you a unique sliding scale of how you can create outfits at your wardrobe doors. There are times I play with the amount of elegance I want to feel.
If I’m getting more dressed up for example, I can dial up the word elegance with the items I own that feel ‘more’ of this to me. But the goal is to always feel like myself. To feel I have a ‘style’ that I really identify with and therefore pieces and items that can all be mixed and matched to play with in how I create this feeling.
a whole new approach to buying
It therefore changes your whole approach to how you shop as you begin to build in great pieces as you find them over time. Shopping because you need something is gone forever because we know that last-minute panic buys for specific occasions are always the biggest mistakes.
Buy the Outfit and The Occassion will find you.
Your elements, along with your style words help you see what brands, colour palettes and styling ideas feel right for you to explore. As you get more in tune with your look, it becomes easier to identify new interesting brands, items you see that you will know will be good additions to the wardrobe and look you are building. It also, therefore, helps you let go of all the things that don’t feel like you - the choice, the outside influence, the opinions, the items you own and never wear.
It helps you simplify what you buy, what you are drawn too, what you see as the ‘next’ good thing to add to your wardrobe ♡
an everyday approach
Let’s look at an everyday outfit I was wearing in a shoe shop (one of my favs, MIISTA) not so long ago. I’m wearing my second-hand Burberry Trench Coat, Uniqlo Jeans with turn-ups (that messy Wood vibe I like) & simple white tee. As I try on the shoes (little heel on the right), I’m thinking about how the Birkenstocks give me that effortless everyday style I love but I know the interesting heel will then bring a little more Metal to the outfit for when I want to feel more ‘styled’. I didn’t end up buying these shoes - felt a little too ‘out there’ for me in the end (not enough Metal) but you get the power of thinking in this way.
The push and pull of your elements helps you see how to dial it up or dial it down and play with what you want and need from your clothes on any given day.
It’s funny that since this photo, I’ve had these jeans shortened as even I was feeling they were a little ‘messy’.
That’s the thing with knowing your elements and yourself better too. It means you just know when you feel ready for more of one thing over another. Right now, I want to bring a little more everyday elegance into my wardrobe. I think coming out of Covid has been a big trigger of that (for us all perhaps). Even my Wood is sick of the loungewear vibe for a while!
A discussion for another day but my third element is Fire & what’s fascinating about the elements is I’ve found that once you begin to feel good around your core elements, you can bring in your 3rd element to help you bring in a little ‘extra’ creativity. You can see on my Pinterest board I have a couple of ‘wildcard’ looks I like the idea of trying out. The piccy below is an example.
I can still see the natural, effortless vibe I love overall. By pairing the neutral-heeled boots with the oversized knit you are elevating the look instantly + adding the sparkly loose skirt brings in some fire, which is my 3rd element and the one at times I like to play with.
natural (wood) + effortless (wood) + elegant (metal) + *wildcard (fire) = styling confidence & fun!
This = Julie, when she feels up to it Ѷ
decisions/ finding your flow
Amongst all the choice and the sway and influence and indecision we can feel around fashion, what makes me happiest is having a scale within which to make decisions about what to buy to build a great wardrobe. Both for myself and when I see how much it changes things for a client.
It feels so good when you begin to see ‘what the next good thing’ would be to look out for. When you can see what good ‘OUTFIT BUILDERS’ are and what good ‘OUTFIT CREATORS’ are. The builders are the pieces that satisfy the core feeling you like to have (for me that’s things like dungarees/ oversized jumpers/ comfy denim etc). The creators are then the other items that move the look towards your second most important feeling (for me things like elegant feeling shoes/ beautiful coats/ soft blouses/ more girlie feel to an accessory or a bag).
At the end of the day, it is CONFIDENCE that really matters. That’s what makes you curious to explore other items that feel a little ‘extra’ to you. But this confidence comes from first finding the heart centre or who you are and what matters to you.
See you all soon,
Julie x
In memory of and for the beautiful Claudia.
Rest in Peace beautiful girl. x
Amazing, Julie. One of the best articles I have read on Elemental Style. You really have the expression down and it was so interesting to read your personal inquiries into styling yourself authentically. I have forwarded it to a friend and look forward to more. Your pictures say it all, especially the white jeans and the black heels. Wonderful. Kudos.