Have you done your homeworks?
Have you made up your mind about why you want to change style, what you want it to say, which items from your closet you want to save and which ones to toss?
Maybe it was a little too complex, wasn’t it?
So today I’m going to give you a lot of small exercises, to clear up your ideas! Better, I’ll have you write down a lot of lists, yayyy!!!
We’ll start from the things you want to toss, from those things you don’t want to wear anymore, and shift them into things you do want to wear: no more turtle necks? Then we have V necks, or boat necks or whatever! You may also want to keep in mind a couple of tricks from the shapes post.
Colours: enlightened by the post about colours and by your personal taste, list all your favourite ones, picking them among the ones that suit you best, among your favourites and among those that will match well with your favourites.
Inspirations: you can go nuts here, you can register on pininterest, open a folder on your pc, cut out pictures from magazines, make an inspiration board on your wall. Whatever. But basically it’s about looking for pictures of people (flickr, lookbook, weheartit) and characters (from the movies, or just famous people) and things that inspire you, that mirror you, that have that “something” that you’d like for yourselves too. Collect a lot of pictures and bathe your eyes in your collection for a while.
Determine your own style: finally we’re here! We did it! We’re finally dealing with what you’d have liked to hear from the beginning of this post serie! I’ve found this exercise here, and even though it’s from interior design I think it applies wonderfully to personal style too (and also to any field where personal style is required).
Make a long -very long- list of words, terms and adjectives of how you see your style now, how you want your style to be, what you want it to say, and simply words that are meaningful to you: if “windy” for you is ok, just use it!
Then look for those words that resemble eachother, and choose only one. Repeat this untill you’re left with a few words. Max five, ideally two.
The result will probably be something embarassing, completely meaningless to an external observer. Pixie pois? Labyrinthic tea? Allegretto con brio? Mechanic melancholy? Windy vitamins? Anything that’s fine with you, will be (guess what’s coming?) fine! (indeed).
More: make a small daily commitment. Put a little effort everyday, it’s more about subtraction, than shopping: hit the very core of the matter. Some say to look for at least three different ways to wear a garment, others say to take pictures of every single combo you can come up with from your closet (shoes and earrings included). To me, you could also loose your mind in it and take a picture of every single piece you own, create a database and match them with your pc, or draw all your looks, or anything. I like the improvisation a little more, I like to surprise myself :P.
Take inspiration: you have your lists, you have your picture collection, you have your record of successfull looks… what do I do to be able to recreate them without hoping in fate? Being inspired is both something spontaneous and internal, and something that requires some scheming. You reduce your sources to the bone, you deconstruct them to the very detail and you reconstruct them following different cathegories: colour, texture, shape and sensorial suggestions (touch, smell, sound). Let’s say you came up with Windy Vitamins. What does these words stand for? What do they bring up in your imagination? To me strong vivid colours, polished and shiny surfaces, natural fibers and floaty fabrics, tinkering sounds, smiles, big chubby bags, picnics in the woods, during summer, with fruit juices. Do you see what I mean?
Hysteria: last but not least, and this referrs to aaaaaaaaall this “style guide”. Don’t go really nuts. It’s pointless, it’s wrinkle inducing and looks bad with new shoes.
No, seriously, it’s useless: having your own style should be something fun, something that pleases you, after a while it should also come naturally to you. It’s built a little at a time, it grows and evolves with you, and again, it should be fun. You’re not looking for physical laws that make the universe go around, you can change your mind tomorrow, next month, in a century, every five minutes.
Have you made up your mind about why you want to change style, what you want it to say, which items from your closet you want to save and which ones to toss?
Maybe it was a little too complex, wasn’t it?
So today I’m going to give you a lot of small exercises, to clear up your ideas! Better, I’ll have you write down a lot of lists, yayyy!!!
We’ll start from the things you want to toss, from those things you don’t want to wear anymore, and shift them into things you do want to wear: no more turtle necks? Then we have V necks, or boat necks or whatever! You may also want to keep in mind a couple of tricks from the shapes post.
Colours: enlightened by the post about colours and by your personal taste, list all your favourite ones, picking them among the ones that suit you best, among your favourites and among those that will match well with your favourites.
Inspirations: you can go nuts here, you can register on pininterest, open a folder on your pc, cut out pictures from magazines, make an inspiration board on your wall. Whatever. But basically it’s about looking for pictures of people (flickr, lookbook, weheartit) and characters (from the movies, or just famous people) and things that inspire you, that mirror you, that have that “something” that you’d like for yourselves too. Collect a lot of pictures and bathe your eyes in your collection for a while.
Determine your own style: finally we’re here! We did it! We’re finally dealing with what you’d have liked to hear from the beginning of this post serie! I’ve found this exercise here, and even though it’s from interior design I think it applies wonderfully to personal style too (and also to any field where personal style is required).
Make a long -very long- list of words, terms and adjectives of how you see your style now, how you want your style to be, what you want it to say, and simply words that are meaningful to you: if “windy” for you is ok, just use it!
Then look for those words that resemble eachother, and choose only one. Repeat this untill you’re left with a few words. Max five, ideally two.
The result will probably be something embarassing, completely meaningless to an external observer. Pixie pois? Labyrinthic tea? Allegretto con brio? Mechanic melancholy? Windy vitamins? Anything that’s fine with you, will be (guess what’s coming?) fine! (indeed).
More: make a small daily commitment. Put a little effort everyday, it’s more about subtraction, than shopping: hit the very core of the matter. Some say to look for at least three different ways to wear a garment, others say to take pictures of every single combo you can come up with from your closet (shoes and earrings included). To me, you could also loose your mind in it and take a picture of every single piece you own, create a database and match them with your pc, or draw all your looks, or anything. I like the improvisation a little more, I like to surprise myself :P.
Take inspiration: you have your lists, you have your picture collection, you have your record of successfull looks… what do I do to be able to recreate them without hoping in fate? Being inspired is both something spontaneous and internal, and something that requires some scheming. You reduce your sources to the bone, you deconstruct them to the very detail and you reconstruct them following different cathegories: colour, texture, shape and sensorial suggestions (touch, smell, sound). Let’s say you came up with Windy Vitamins. What does these words stand for? What do they bring up in your imagination? To me strong vivid colours, polished and shiny surfaces, natural fibers and floaty fabrics, tinkering sounds, smiles, big chubby bags, picnics in the woods, during summer, with fruit juices. Do you see what I mean?
Hysteria: last but not least, and this referrs to aaaaaaaaall this “style guide”. Don’t go really nuts. It’s pointless, it’s wrinkle inducing and looks bad with new shoes.
No, seriously, it’s useless: having your own style should be something fun, something that pleases you, after a while it should also come naturally to you. It’s built a little at a time, it grows and evolves with you, and again, it should be fun. You’re not looking for physical laws that make the universe go around, you can change your mind tomorrow, next month, in a century, every five minutes.
So you can, no, you have to take all my word, put them on the scale of doubt, see what works for you and what doesn’t, feel free to chuck it all into the garbage and do it all again from your own ideas (and this would mean you have a very clear idea of your style ;))
Got it? Have fun with it!
Fabulous exercises, FABULOUS ideas.
I am a huge fan of cutting out things from magazines! I glue them on a piece of paper and store them in a binder. When I look at them all as a mish-mash, I see that some things pop up quite often. So when I'm out shopping I try to remember those things. It has really helped! My closet is so functional and cohesive now.
Thank you both!
I'm tackling shopping today!