Pinterest

Thinking about personal style

/ edebock / 4 Comments

Logo by SamHubby and I spent three days this week attending a conference as representatives of our local church. It was a full schedule of making connections, worshipping together, and attending sessions. There was no down time, no time for writing a blog post! We came home yesterday feeling both uplifted and exhausted! I sat down last night to write this morning’s Fashion Friday post and absolutely nothing came to mind! Nothing except the desire to soak in a hot bath and crawl into bed. All this to explain why today’s post is later than usual and why it might be a little thin in content!

We often tend to use the words fashion and style interchangeably, but there’s a difference between the two. Fashion is the clothes, accessories and shoes that are produced. They are what you see when you enter a store or shop online, but style is what you do with them, the way in which you wear those items.

433d67c8a179d2f32e67c87f8df403b4

Style is how we personalize what the fashion industry produces.

279263470_3265720087087580_3069265874297079993_n

One way to identify your personal style is to choose 3 to 5 adjectives to guide your fashion choices. Check here for an exercise that will help you do that. Pinterest is another excellent tool to help you identify or clarify your own style. This post will show you how that works.

68c1c89e8f2ddbbff03d37530bd1757b

Personal style shouldn’t be static. We all change as we go through different stages of life and our style needs to change with us. It’s important to evaluate and update our style from time to time so that our outfits express who we are today, not who we were sometime in the past.

What words would you use to describe your personal style? How has your style changed over the years?

Building a cohesive wardrobe

/ edebock / 2 Comments

LogoI’ve written before about my 3Cs of fashion… classy, confident, and comfortable, but today I want to look at another C… cohesive. Cohesion could be the difference between a wardrobe that works and one that doesn’t, so what does this C word mean?

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, cohesive means “united and working together effectively” and the Collins English Dictionary says that something that is cohesive “consists of parts that fit together well and form a united whole”. That sounds like a workable wardrobe to me!

So what makes a wardrobe cohesive? I would suggest two things… most of the tops work with most of the bottoms and the majority of the garments are versatile enough to be dressed up or down for a variety of venues and occasions.

How then do we build that cohesive wardrobe? Obviously, few of us can scrap our entire closet full of clothes and start from scratch, but begin by evaluating what you already have and then work toward making purchases that add cohesion.

  • If you haven’t already, define your personal style. I’ve written about how to use Pinterest to help you do that here.
  • Choose a colour palette. Build your basic wardrobe around a few colours that suit your complexion, that you feel drawn to, and that coordinate well with one another. This doesn’t have to be boring. Scarves and accessories are a great way to add pops of other colours. Pattern and texture also add variety.
  • Only buy pieces that will go with what you already own. Ask yourself, can I wear this at least three different ways with items that I already have in my closet? If so, it will probably be a good purchase. This may not work for something like a special occasion dress, but it’s a good rule of thumb for most other wardrobe purchases.

If you follow these simple suggestions, you’ll end up with a cohesive wardrobe that will make getting dressed in the morning easy and enjoyable. No more staring at a closet full of mismatched clothes and moaning about having nothing to wear!

Nothing to wear

image

I’ve been thinking a lot about cohesiveness lately for two reasons. First of all, spring is finally coming to the Canadian prairie and I’ll soon be doing my seasonal wardrobe switch. As I bring out my spring/summer wardrobe, I’ll be looking at it with a critical eye and deciding where the gaps are and what I need to fill them with. Secondly, it’s less than two weeks until I’ll be packing that teeny tiny suitcase and flying off to Europe for three and a half weeks. This will be our first attempt at traveling with carry-on luggage only, so whatever goes into that one little suitcase is going to have to work well together!

Who’s your style icon?

/ edebock / 5 Comments

LogoIs there someone whose style you admire or whose outfits you love? She could be a movie star, a character in your favourite show, a colleague, a next door neighbour, or even your sister or your mother. What is it about her style that resonates with you?

I get a lot of inspiration from the fashion blogs that I follow. I’ve provided links to several of my favourites here and here. Some of them have a similar personal style to my own.

Last Friday I wrote about how to use Pinterest to help you find your own personal style. As I added images to my style board, I noticed that photos of Kate Middleton kept cropping up. That’s when I realized that, in spite of the fact that she’s young enough to be my daughter and we don’t look anything alike, we have a similar personal style. She wears the same classy casual look that I admire and strive for. If you can identify someone whose style is similar to yours, you can use them as inspiration for outfits of your own. Again, shop your closet. Don’t try to copy your muse exactly. Instead, take ideas from her look and see if you can make them work for you.

Here’s an example of how I tried to emulate one of Kate Middleton’s looks using items from my own closet. The jacket is new and I hadn’t worn it this way before. Without Kate’s inspiration, I might never have thought to.

She looks like she’s saying, “Hey, look at you! I like your style!”

How to identify your personal style

/ edebock / 10 Comments

LogoOne of my fashion goals for 2019 is to resist the pressure of friends or family to buy clothing that they like, but that isn’t right for me. The only way that I can accomplish that is to know what is right for me; to know my own personal style. I’ve had a pretty good idea what I like and don’t like and what looks good on me for a long time, but I wanted to further clarify that. As it turns out, Pinterest is the perfect tool to do that. If you’re new to Pinterest, you can find a simple tutorial to help you get started here.

So, how can you use Pinterest to identify your own personal style? First, create a virtual bulletin board, simply called a board on Pinterest, and begin pinning images of styles that you like, that you think you would be comfortable wearing, that might convey the kind of message you want to send about yourself.

433d67c8a179d2f32e67c87f8df403b4

Once you have a collection of images, look for common elements. These might include colour, cut, prints or solids, timeless or trendy, minimalist or extravagant, accessories, and footwear.

Now, before you decide that you need to go shopping for a whole new wardrobe, shop your own closet. Which of the style elements that you’ve identified are already there? Using the images on your board as inspiration, try putting the things you already own together in new and different ways. Have fun developing your own personal style, a style that tells people who you are!

Here are a sample of the photos that I’ve pinned to my “My Style” board.

It’s easy to see that some of my common elements include:

  • neutral colours (grey, navy, cream, beige, khaki)
  • classy, but casual
  • comfortable fit
  • solid colours, Breton stripes, occasional prints
  • hats!
  • flat shoes, sneakers, and boots

Now let’s look at how I used pieces from my closet to create a look that fits my classy, but casual style.

img_6794

In this outfit,  I incorporated neutral colours (dark navy, grey, and white) and Breton stripes, comfy casual fit, and flat shoes. I added a pop of colour (burgundy) and pattern mixing with the scarf and shoes. Most important of all, I feel like me when I’m dressed like this because it fits my personal style.