The Magic and Ritual of Getting Dressed

“Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have more important offices than merely to keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world’s view of us."

-Virginia Woolf

When you get dressed in the morning, do you push aside your favorite clothes and put on the clothes you like least?

I’ve totally done this - sometimes for weeks on end. It always makes me wonder: What exactly am I saving my nicer clothes for? Why in the world am I choosing to spend the majority of my time wearing my least favorite clothes?

When you wear clothes that you love, that you feel good in, that light you up - you are sending yourself the message that your day is worth that great outfit. You are worth that great outfit. You are worth that great outfit NOW, not on some mythical future day.

Last Wednesday I woke up with a serious case of the winter/pandemic blahs, to the point where I considered staying in bed all day. When I finally dragged myself out of bed, my first instinct was to wear my grubby clothes - like baggy sweatpants and a grey zip hoodie I usually wear for cleaning or walking my son to the bus stop.

I had to fight hard against that instinct and get dressed for real.

I put on a black dress with bell sleeves, which I had never worn because I was “saving” it! The dress made me feel like a modern Miss Minchin from A Little Princess (the 1995 version, otherwise known as the best version, but I digress). I put on burgundy tights and burgundy booties. I put on a pair of gold hammered hoops, a black and ivory porcelain pendant, and my wedding and engagement rings. I took six minutes to apply a simple face of makeup that made me look much more fresh-faced than I felt, complete with a little eyeliner and a matte lip pencil. I refreshed my hair with a little curling foam but kept it big and wild. By the time I was done, I was having fun.

And you know what? As I wore that outfit, I began to feel better. I began to feel as good as my outfit, which was pretty great (if I do say so myself.)

This simple act of wearing the nice clothing and accessories I already owned completely turned my day around. My husband and I took a daytime jaunt to the art supply store, and had an impromptu lunch with a friend at a little cafe. All day long I was happy I’d just gotten dressed, instead of doubling down on my bad day with my bad clothes.

Even as a professional stylist, it’s easy for me to forget that the act of getting dressed can be a powerful ritual. Getting dressed can be a downright magical act, with the power to transform not only your mood, but your actions and how other people approach you.

If this magical tool has been lost to you in the pandemic fog of 24/7 pajamas (and I’ll be honest, it certainly was for me), I invite you to wear your spiciest, most thrilling outfit tomorrow - the outfit you’ve been waiting for an occasion to wear. Because tomorrow is the occasion. YOU are the occasion.

I’ll be joining you.

Integrating the Practical and Emotional in Your Style

Working with me might not be what you expect.

Much of what I do is analytical. A color analysis, for example, yields concrete guidelines for the colors that suit you best and how to identify them. An image analysis yields clear guidelines for the clothing shapes, styles, and patterns that suit you best, and how to incorporate them into your wardrobe.

These services are the backbone of my work as a personal stylist, and for good reason. They’re the foundation everything else builds upon - but so much magic exists beyond them.

I have a wonderful, creative client who often asks my opinion about clothes she’s thinking of buying. She shows me outfits she’s put together, talks through her closet organization, and gets clarification on what her jewelry should look like. This is the practical stuff.

She also talks about how when she wears certain colors in client meetings, her clients respond to her more positively. They feel more at ease with what she’s communicating, and so does she. We talk about why that is, and how she can work with it in the future.

We talk about how her favorite colors evoke dusk and dawn, stars and sea. We talk about the strategic use of light and shimmer in her outfits, like light on water. We talk about the clothes that make her feel strong and true, and we talk about unique catchphrases she can use to capture the feeling of her ideal wardrobe when shopping.

My coaching work is very practical, because it needs to be. But it’s also holistic, artistic, and feelings-based. It doesn’t matter how wonderful you look in that emerald green duster or how perfect it is for your season and archetype if you’re never going to wear it in real life, either because your lifestyle doesn’t call for it or because you just aren’t comfortable.

Your height, your shape, your coloring: these are all important facets of personal style and getting dressed. I believe that we’ll always get farther embracing our natural physical qualities than dressing to disguise them. But your lifestyle, your personality, your irrational hatred of chevrons…these details matter just as much.

Integrating these elements is where I’ve found many women to face the most difficulty in developing their personal style. Luckily, this is where I truly flourish as a stylist.

If you'd like to explore working with me, you can schedule a free Discovery Call here.

Reflecting Your Internal Mosaic

I believe that as we grow up, we collect bits of information about ourselves. A sunny color here, a favorite story there; we piece these treasures into a mosaic whole, continually radiating outward from the center. Over the years, our shapes, colors, stories, tastes, and ideas change, and as artists constructing our internal masterpieces, sometimes we’ll take a little chisel and dig out a piece that no longer fits. Other times, we simply move outward, appreciating the old pieces for what they once meant to us.

We aren’t the same people we were in February of 2020. Our old clothes feel like remnants of a different time - reminders of a self we may not recognize much anymore. So many women have come to me in the past few weeks wanting their clothing and accessories to reflect a changed interior. Preparing for re-emergence into the world, we want our clothes to say “Here I am.”

Very few of us are born knowing the shapes and styles that help us sparkle. I certainly wasn’t. We’re all born whole, enough, and exactly who we’re meant to be, but we never stop learning about ourselves and the world around us.

You already have everything you need to reflect your internal mosaic and feel over-the-moon about your style.

Sometimes there’s a chasm between our professed desires and the actions we take to bring those desires into reality. It’s not uncommon for new clients of mine to tell me that they’ve struggled for years with what to wear, what to buy, and how to express their inside on the outside. Trapped inside this lack of knowledge and unsure how to move forward, sometimes they were afraid to even try.

Maybe you want to relish the ritual of getting dressed for work, knowing that your clothes will be a point of calm in your workday, or you want to feel polished at the playground with your kids, while knowing that you can still comfortably engage in play.

My particular passion as a stylist is helping my clients learn to integrate their lives, personalities, and bodies into a personal style that feels cohesive and real. Everything has a place here: all of your offbeat interests, your sensory preferences, your day-to-day routines, your relationships with others. You don’t have to do what anyone else is doing.

You just have to be you.

I love working with creative women who want to build unique and authentic wardrobes, whether that means a 30-piece capsule or a sprawling costume closet. There’s no wrong way to do personal style!

How to Wear the Styles You Love

“I love Classic styles like simple jewelry, structured handbags, and tailored silhouettes, but going all-in on Classic styles doesn’t look right on my body type. How do I wear the styles I love and still look my best?”

I hear this question a lot, about every different archetype and season.

Conflict between what you like to look at and what looks good on your body can be one of the biggest difficulties when crafting your personal style, so if this is something you struggle with, read on!

Step One: Ask yourself what you like about the styles you admire

This may sound obvious, but make sure you’re not just reacting to how a celebrity or blogger looks in a certain style. Some of my clients have found that what they’re actually lusting after isn’t paper bag pants or millennial pink blazers, but the fantasy of a different body type or lifestyle.

Get specific. If you enjoy Romantic styles because you can’t get enough of florals and bows, write that down. If you enjoy Dramatic styles not because of a certain shape or item but because they feel powerful to you, make note.

Pinterest is a great tool for this. Try making a pinboard of stuff you flat-out love to look at (not just clothing!) and see what comes up for you.

Step Two: How can you make those elements work with your physical design?

If you love Romantic bows and florals, but they always look funny on you because your body type is more dramatic or linear, look for florals and bows that suit your proportions and angles. For example, you may not be able to wear a dress festooned with cabbage roses, but you can probably find a large-scale abstract floral you love. You may not get much style payoff from a pair of tiny bow studs, but you can find an oversized, sculptural bow-shaped belt or necklace.

If you love Dramatic styles because they feel commanding and in-charge, hunt around for the styles that feel commanding and in-charge on you. That might not be a long and sleek leather jacket with grommets - it might be a knit blazer with a rounded hem!

Step Three: Consider breaking the rules

If there’s a style you REALLY, REALLY LOVE, you might be happier just wearing it sometimes, even if you’re not “supposed to.” It’s unlikely to be the absolute worst thing you can put on your body, and even if it is? Every day is a new day. You might not choose to wear these pieces to important work meetings or big life events, but in my opinion, there’s zero harm in occasionally wearing something you like that doesn’t technically “work” for you! I know more than a few autumns who keep a tube of fuchsia lipstick around the house just for fun.

Step Four: Where else can you enjoy these styles?

I absolutely love blue and white china patterns, but they don’t look great on me and I’ve never been comfortable wearing them. Instead, I use these colors and patterns around my house, in curtains and dishes and paintings, where I can benefit from them visually without actually putting them on my body. Try buying a planner, a decorative pillow, a piece of art, a serving bowl, or a piece of furniture in the colors or styles you love. Nobody says your house has to match you!