Images Amy Jackson, Olivia Palermo, Jennifer Aniston
Visualize/Create A Mood Board You can do this via Pinterest (see my boards here) or you can go old school and snip some images out of magazines or print them out. Tape this to your closet for inspiration. But I highly recommend Pinterest to collect these images. You want to save images you are drawn to. Spend some time on this, you don’t have to get a whole board done in one sitting. Visit your style board frequently and make edits when necessary.
And the point here is to help create that road map I mentioned above.
Don’t hyper focus on one piece in an entire outfit. Take the helicopter appoach and look for overall themes. After a while (hopefully lots of pinning) you will begin to notice the same vibes, a theme. What styles are you pinning the most of? Are you pinning mostly casual looks? Do you see a lot of classic and polished pieces? Do you see solid colors or do you pin a lot of colorful prints? Do these themes happen to match any of the descriptor words from your personality words?
If yes, cool! If not, no big deal. We’re just building some inspiration here and looking for an overall theme or two. In my case, my Pinterest boards always help me realize I am first and foremost casual in my style but I am also heavily drawn to chic and glam elements with lots of boho mixed in. See? You don’t have to nail yourself down to just one Personal Style! But if you can, that’s great too.
And for the last step evaluate the closet. This is for two reasons. 1- I want you to find the themes or repeat items in your wardrobe and 2- I want you to identify the holes.
Find the themes: Take a long look inside your closet and find those items you love. Identify the pieces you wear over and over again. How do they make you feel? Do your go-to pieces make you feel happy? Comfortable? Powerful? What is it that people compliment you on? Do you have a strong jewelry game? Is there a color people say looks great on you?
Are some of these pieces repeat items? For example, is there an item you see over and over again? Discover the reason your closet has this repeat item (lots of striped shirts for example). Maybe stripes make you feel happy or a striped tee makes you feel more stylish than a solid tee.
Identify the holes: What is missing? Have you pinned a leather moto jacket over and over but you don’t have one? Perhaps you’ve pinned lots of elevated casual outfits with skinny jeans, heels, and blazers but you only own jeans, tees, and yoga clothes. A few months back, I found myself pinning lots of 70s-inspired fashion like high-rise wide legs pants. I added a pair to my wardrobe! Do you see how we now have a roadmap? With these steps you can create an action plan.
To recap, once you describe your personality, evaluate your lifestyle, find your style icons, create a mood board, and evaluate the closet… you now have a roadmap, you have a
style game plan.
You can now give your Personal Style a name or two. Some of my client’s examples are “Polished Professional” and “Edgy Fun Mom” or “Easy, Chic, and Strong”… see where I’m going? Hold up that next fashion purchase (or glare at it online) and ask yourself, “does this jacket have a place in my “Polished Professional” wardrobe? Does this trendy-of-the-moment purchase fit into my please for “Edgy Fun Mom” goal?
And then identify your style goals and solidify where you want your Personal Style to take you in life. Have you just had a baby and decided to ditch the chic office attire for a Mommin’ around wardrobe? Or perhaps you have the need to dress for re-entering the workforce? Do you find that you’re ready to kick ass at work and go for the next promotion? Does your wardrobe have what you need to take you there? After spending the time to work through my steps, you should be able to create an action plan and be more intentional with your Personal Style. As always, you can comment below or reach out here for personalized styling.
Come back soon for a follow-up post about the features of different style types. Xo, Jaime
