Notes on Styling | 55 | Engaging with your style in new ways.
(with more long-term joy, less comparison and more creativity within your own wardrobe doors).
My biggest and happiest memories working in Personal Styling over the years has always been on a shop floor with a client. Styling is about having fun with the clothes. It’s the fun of finding something that can change how you feel in an instant.
But I want to challenge the idea this week that ‘shopping’ on it’s own is the answer or the thing our brain needs to default too when the words fashion or style come up.
It’s just the fashion industry works really hard to make us think this way.
The magic in those shop floor moments for me was not ALL about the buying. It was about making a deeper connection to why those things, put together in that way - felt so good.
I have many memories of having a lovely personal shopping client in a fitting room in House of Fraser (my most usual haunt) and would keep my voice down in the fitting rooms as I said things like, this is not about having to buy this whole look but I want you to see what I see. I would encourage picture taking so she could take her time to think about the look when she got home and so that when she next came across something similar - I want her to be brought back to this moment and what that particular shape or colour or idea did for her - what she felt.
I would ask questions like..
What surprised you today?
What felt a little scary but also good?
What words would you use to describe the looks you liked?
Because the truth is building a great connection to your style takes time. You really have to lean into new ways of seeing yourself and the clothes. And shopping in and of itself is never the whole or best answer.
So, I want to remind you today that there are other things you can do that will be much more productive for your style long term. Disconnecting the word ‘style’ from ‘shopping’ might just be one of the great things you do for your wardrobe.
Getting dressed every morning is a perfect example!
The simple act of choosing what we want to wear each day is an act that can be seen in a new way. It only takes a moment to try something new or look at the ideas that draw you in the most from what you already have.
It’s hard to get our brains to move away from ‘I have nothing to wear’ simply because our default is to be hard on ourselves and feel our style is lacking. When all that may be needed is a fresh perspective.
And don’t get me wrong. I had to rewire my brain over the years too.
For a long time, to me, being a Personal Stylist was about buying. It’s what I wanted to clients to do but also for me personally. To be honest, it was one of the reasons I got access to lovely shopping suites and fitting rooms. Because clients bought. It took me time, experience and confidence in what I could do to see that it was about so much more than the clothes. Success for me now with a client is in the number of AHAAA moments I get in what we try. It is in how much I can open up your mind to ideas and possibilities you just never knew to look at yourself.
Showing you how to flex a muscle that’s only been used in one way and feeling entirely differently about yourself in the process - because you should feel in creative control of what you wear and how you play.
And yes, shopping comes.
But the exploration, the curiosity and the openness to see yourself as unique as you are. To see how all the parts of ‘you’ form something you can really own - that’s everything.
And so here are a couple of things that might help you to realign style and shopping and help you feel more in control of what you buy and when. I hope these things help you as much as they have helped me.
Begin the journey of reframing the word Fashion in your Head
★ It so easy for your wardrobe to feel that it’s all about what you don’t have so you are constantly striving towards something that feels just in front of you. That next thing will be the holy grail item you will reach for time and time again. It’s easy for all your creative fashion energy to get sucked into scrolling and looking for that next thing.
♡ Try choosing to reframe fashion into something that is under your creative control. Start at your wardrobe doors and begin to try mixing what you put together and getting to know what enjoy wearing and what you know you should let go of. Your style starts at your wardrobe doors and you are in charge there. You are never in charge of all the things the internet wants to put in front of us to buy.
Begin a Digital Catalogue & Outfit Log
★ I’ve been using the Indyx App now for about 9 months (and encouraging my clients to use it too) and honestly this is possibly the single best thing I’ve been doing to keep my style feeling aligned, to feel focused on buying things that compliment what I’ve already got and help me be more creative with my existing clothes. You don’t even have to put the energy into constant try on’s. You get all your favourite items up there and you can play with all your clothes, from the comfort of the couch.
♡ My biggest tip (which will encourage you to start) is to focus on what you want to create more of for your style, not on feeling everything has to be photographed and uploaded (total pain and puts so many off). I have been encouraging clients who finish their Style Design Journey to use the top 50 or so items that fit the style they love and want to build more of. If your starting with 5 or 10 items, great! Lean into what feels true to you no matter how few items that might be right now.
♡ Also, I have found that having my Indyx looking visually lovely is important to feel creatively excited about using it. Sometimes when you upload the item from a picture on your bed, it will never look as pretty as you would like (Is this just my Metal Personality??). My approach is to try googling the item and if I can’t find it, finding something really similar and use that picture. It takes half the time and looks much better than physically photographing everything where you are up against bad light, dodgy creases etc (again, very Metal!).
Take these Navy Cargo Trousers I bought from M&S earlier in the year
(Similar here. I Love this denim style).
For some time in my head, I was picturing them worn only with a casual white tee and trainers (even I have to get out of my own head at times). This is the picture I had in my head when I bought them. I saw them as casual everyday, functional and comfy combat-style trousers. I had become fixed in how I thought I would wear them. That is until I uploaded them onto my digital closet and started having some fun!
Below are just some of the ways I am wearing with different ‘high’ and ‘low’ items from my wardrobe.
Having the looks saved here also reminds me of the look when I’m feeling like my brain isn’t functioning in the morning too (a lot)!
Benefits & Other Tips
♥ Using items you already own to create different looks is just so much fun (trust me!) and so encouraging to help you see your clothes in a new light. It’s liberating to feel creatively in charge and it also helps you see what you don’t like, which is just as important as what you do.
♥ There are three main parts to the app. ‘Items’, which is your catalogue of items, which you will upload. ‘Outfits’, where you can not only create looks with your items, but you can also create a monthly outfit calendar, saving the outfit you wore each day to circle back to at the end of the month. SO MUCH LEARNING!
♥ Indyx helps you embrace certain silhouettes, ideas and styles more (when you do shop) because you have a bank of proof of what’s been working and what you gravitate towards. You will have recorded whether you have been wearing a more oversized silhouette or more tailored and neat for example. It helps you see the truth of your style so you become a more savvy shopper when you do buy.
♥ It discourages you from buying any more of the items that it’s obvious you are not wearing but seem addicted to adding to your wardrobe (stripe tops anyone, just me?)
♥ Tracking your outfits makes it easy to see your real life versus what the daydream version of yourself wears. We all have this version of our style. But what does your outfit tracking tell you?
♥ And one last and most practical advantage: you know what you have, which really helps to create a list of what your wardrobe really needs and what you want to look out for to add. Total creative control!
Put time into exploring colour & the colour palettes you love
I used to think as a Personal Stylist, I needed to wear more colour to look ‘creative’ as someone who works in fashion. It was only when I got more confident in my own style and skin I began to see what I preferred wearing was mainly neutrals with a splash of certain colours for fun and as my wildcards.
That’s not to say I don’t understand what colours (and neutrals) suit me best, I really do but I can make my buying decisions from this place of knowing - which is really what our style should be. Intentional and creative within what we know will feel great to us!
Knowledge is where the power is and will help you feel more in control of what you buy. Colour can be such a minefield and honestly, one of the biggest sources of overwhelm in a wardrobe can be looking across what you have and there are too many colour tonal directions. This really means you may struggle for all things to mix and match because there is no thread holding them together. Colour and undertone is a basis of that.
★ It’s great to see colour analysis is officially cool again (the cool kids on TikTok say so apparently!). It was always cool to me. The power is all in how you choose to use the information you’ve been given.
♡ The essentials of colour analysis are not complicated. The main assumption: people look good in colours with attributes that are similar to the natural colouring of their hair, skin, and eyes.
Colours can be assessed on three axes: temperature (warmth vs cool), value (light vs dark), and chroma (softness vs contrast). If you can determine where you fall on these three axes, you can determine your “season” and thus what colours might be worth trying out.
Roughly:
Light and warm = spring
Dark and warm = autumn
Light and cool = summer
Dark and cool = winter
You can further subdivide the seasons by contrast. You can be a “bright spring” or a “soft autumn.” but I won’t go there today :-) (OH how I love colour analysis!!)
Overall, this will help to see how powerful it can be. When you look at complete outfits below that mainly follow a colour direction you can see sooo many knock on benefits for your style and wardrobe.
The Benefits
♥ Consistency in your wardrobe of mix-and-match items that all work together because they are linked by common colour tones.
♥ Just like any styling theory, understanding your most natural colour palette is about giving you a new way to look at things and to make more informed choices with what will be a good buy.
I use colour analysis in my Style Design journey but I try to explore in a way that allows my client to embrace an overall colour direction while also exploring all colours and colour palettes in an open and curious way. When we look at the 5 Elements of style in terms of their most natural style traits, colour can come up here too. Some clients find a particular palette ‘suits’ best but we also add in lots of various neutral tones, just because we know they feel good in this aesthetic. We end up mixing in colours that they just love for lots of reasons that run deeper than just ‘what suits’. This is the magic way to use colour in my opinion.
♥ In my humble opinion from all the wardrobe’s I have seen, the best always have a clear overall colour direction but there will always be pieces that sing out and marry up with the look you are honing and that goes beyond colour.
♥ A little personal colour example from me on Jewellery.. I’ve known for a long time silver jewellery is better on me than gold but for reasons that run deeper in my own Style Profile, I’ve mainly been embracing gold for years now. My wedding ring is gold. Recently, as I’ve been experimenting with leaving my grey’s come through in my hair, something has shifted, I have been more drawn to silver and can see I am likely going through some transition with it. I bought a nice pair of silver earring hoops to experiment and am finding myself wearing them more and more. Colour is not a fixed thing. It moves as we age. It moves as our tastes and what we want from our clothes moves.
♥ In many cases our instincts are right with colour. I find so often pieces in a client’s wardrobe that they never wear or say they don’t feel great in and I can instantly see the colour is likely going to drain them. So colour can be a thing that long after I’ve gone and you are assessing items on your own - it’s much easier when you have this little bank of reason why something has never felt quite right.
A random one but I quite like the blog on this American website if you do fancy delving a little deeper into your personal colours on your own.
Turn shopping into a creative thing that isn’t about buying
★ The best way to explore what you like and don’t is with time and an openness to give things a go. Don’t go to the shops only when you need something, go when you don’t and have some fun. I know the single biggest thing in realigning our style is in the bravery we have to try new things and learn from them!
♥ Start by choosing a brand you are comfortable with and from there, just play, expand, go where you have never gone before!
A Mention for Style Design
Of course, I came to create Style Design because of today’s topic. I wanted my client experience to be about putting exploration into designing each part of your style so you can be in control of the outcome (and therefore where and how you shop). It is a way for women to explore the theory of what works for their body and skin tone married with the essence of who they are and what types of looks they are drawn too.
Nothing is perfect but what I want for you - is to know there are ways to narrow down the overwhelm, ways to help you to stop thinking you need to change something before you can have a style you love and to help you refocus on making your style about this you, right here, right now.
Thanks for being here this week, I hope this post has resonated for you. Reach out anytime in the comments or at - hi@juliecobbe.ie
Chat soon.
Julie x
Love this Julie. Xx