Do you know why you have so many clothing and style mistakes in your wardrobe? It's often something we never really know why this happens, we can blame retailers and our own proclivity for purchasing clothes that are only "OK" or "it'll do" passable (because we are sick of shopping, or the sales assistant was helpful and we don't want to let her down) but in fact there is one main reason I see over and over that you may not have considered before. It's not knowing the starting point to your style.
Watch the Video To Find Out What the Starting Point to Your Style is
Every Journey Starts with a Point on the Map
If you don't know where you are, you can't plot your route. If you are unaware of your starting point how can you figure out the best way to get to where you want to go?
Style is a journey, it's not a destination (you can read about why that is here). It's a journey with many stopping points along its way, points in your life where you may stay for a while before you move onto the next stage of your style journey.
This is because you are not a static person, you keep growing and changing your whole life. Your colouring changes, your body changes, your lifestyle changes, your needs change and fashions change, which is why what you were wearing at 18 years old is unlikely to be what you're wearing today.
So to start improving your style in any way, the first thing you need to do is to not grab your purse and head to the shops. Instead, it's to pinpoint where you are right now - like determining where you are on a map before you plan a journey anywhere. There is no point in shopping before you have pinpointed where your style is right now.
Research shows that we rarely or don't wear between 1/3 and 1/2 of the clothes we buy. This is a pretty scary statistic, and I've love for you not to be part of that statistic, and instead be a much smarter shopper and conscious consumer so that you know you're not contributing to that waste.
Where are You Right Now With Your Style?
First thing I want you to think about is where are you right now in your life and with your style?
- What's your current lifestyle?
- What clothing do you need in your wardrobe?
- What's your current colouring?
- What harmonises with your body and its phsyical features?
- What's your location and environment?
- Any specific dress code you need to adhere to for your work?
- What are your style values and drivers?
- What's your style personality?
There are boundless more things you can add to this list, but defining these is a great place to start (and it's what's covered in my 7 Steps to Style program). Because until you get a handle on these questions, and actualy have some answers, you'll keep on buying the wrong clothes, the ones you end up not wearing or never feeling particularly good in when you do wear them.
You can also look at these questions as well to help you figure out where you are right now with your style (and where you actually want to go, the best direction for you):
- What is working about my style right now?
- What is not working with my style right now?
- What would I like my style to say about me?
- What kinds of clothes work for me emotionally? The ones that make me feel like the best version of me? Comfortable, confident, stylish in a way that is defined by me.
Create Your Own Personalised Style Guidelines
When you have created your own personalised style guidelines, these serve as a touchstone for every purchasing decision. You will have a much better guage on what does and doesn't work, what you want in your wardrobe and so if a purchase is going to be a good decision or bad. When you don't have your criteria to hand, it's very hard to decide if something is really going to work or not and this is why all those shopping mistakes have come home with you in the past and may be sitting in your wardrobe taunting you each morning as you're getting dressed.
Sometimes we may have come up with some criteria, but it's a very small set of criteria as we don't have the style education to be able to broaden them and so end up with a very "samey" wardrobe that can start to feel stifling and boring (and then we buy something "Different" that's totally wrong and has us sticking even more to our small set of criteria as we don't want to make that same mistake again).
Or if we have no criteria and we have a bit of everything in our wardrobe and we never can quite figure out what makes us feel great we have a wardrobe full of clothes and nothing to wear. Always disatisfied with our style.
This is why I've created a system for you to follow to figure out your personal style criteria, your authentic style guidelines as nobody else knows you as well as you know yourself and only you know when you feel completely comfortable and confident in your clothing.
Nail Down Your Criteria and Plan Your Style Journey
Start defining and pinpointing your criteria so that you feel more confident every day, as studies have shown that improving your style will improve your self-esteem, which improves confidence that gives you the courage to do the things you really want to do in life.
If you'd love to follow my proven system, I'd love for you to join my 7 Steps to Style program so we can get your style sorted out.
The Truth About How Ageing Actually Affects Your Style
Your Colouring and The Ageing Process