Warning: super duper enormously long post ahead!

I'm having my colours analyzed on the weekend by a lovely local woman who reads this forum. She encouraged me to spend some time working through some of Angie's classic posts on figuring out your personal style, which I haven't done in a few years. Inspired by that as well as all the recent blog posts and forum threads along these lines, here's what I came up with. I owe you a bottle of champagne if you make it through all of this!

I know I haven't posted many outfits recently, but I'd love to hear any and all thoughts about what I've come up with. Does it make sense as a whole? Does it seem to fit what you know of me? Any suggestions?

1) Style descriptors

After a few months of thought, I finally came up with a list of five descriptors that sum up the style direction to which I aspire. Angie dubbed me "Queen Fresh Edge" recently and that really helped me with this exercise.

  • Refined
  • Fresh
  • Edgy
  • Soft
  • Strong

In more detail:

Refined - I'm going for a certain combination of polish, subtlety, and luxe in all my outfits, even the tougher, more rock/RATE looks. If I wear distressed jeans you can bet I'll temper them with a simple sleek merino pullover or classic striped tee, simple ankle boots, and a high-quality leather bag.

Edgy - I love incorporating rocker, punk, arty, avant-garde and grunge touches.

Fresh - Angie used this word to describe my style and it totally fits. I'm not sure how to describe it, exactly, but I can tell when I've got it, and when I don't, I feel sloppy and not-me. It's a certain cleanness and crispness in lines, fit, color, and proportions, I think, although crisp does not mean rigid or strict.

Soft - This was a hard one for me to pin down, because it's often used to connote girly, romantic looks, which I enjoy on others but not at all on myself. For me, soft means comfortable fabrics that move well, fluidity, knits, draped clothing, slouchy handbags, soft leather jackets, fur and cashmere, flowing scarves, and so on. My features and my body are soft and feminine, and strict, rigid clothing almost never feels right on me.

Strong - This is the tempering force to the element of softness described above. To me, "strong" incorporates the overall feel I want my outfits to give off, as well as an element of simplicity, confidence, seriousness, pragmatism, and boldness, along with a dash of androgyny. It means denim rather than corduroy, leather rather than velvet, stripes and plaid rather than florals and polka-dots, graphic prints rather than ditsy ones, and clean lines and classic pieces to anchor wild card or statement items.

Other terms that almost made the cut: Fluid, Casual, Practical, Modest.

2) Fashion Personae

  • Modern Classic
  • Punk/Rocker
  • French gamine/Euro/"model off duty" (ugh, I do not like that term)
  • Generous dashes of Bohemian Hippie and Artistic Eclectic in the summer months
  • Aspirational: Avant-garde

These personae usually mingle quite freely, and I'm happy with that for now. Embracing multiple fashion personae makes sense for me because I love having a focus and a framework, but I hate to feel boxed in. Other personae drop in for a little visit from time to time, of course. I'd like to work in a little more avant-garde as well.

3) Goals

  • Shop less, wear more! My family is embarking on a "buy (a lot) less, do more" year, inspired by friends who are doing a buy-nothing-but-groceries year, so I will be doing almost no shopping at all.
  • Refine my color palette, my closet, my style and my shopping skills
  • Get creative what what I have--mix, remix, and remix again
  • Focus spending on shoes, bags, accessories, and outerwear
  • Nail down my warm weather wardrobe. Like many others have said, refined edgy looks seem to be much easier to come up with for cold weather. My warm season is short but I flail my way through it every year.
  • Work my "nicer" items into my everyday look more frequently.

4) Style renewal or style refresher?

I'm definitely in the refresher phase.

5) The DON'T list. There are many styles that I adore on others but that I don't aspire to for myself. I do not aspire to a style that is:

  • Maximal
  • Romantic
  • Retro
  • Vintage
  • Girly
  • Bombshell
  • ALGO
  • Hipster
  • Ladylike
  • Country
  • Prim

6) Inspirations

Some key style inspirations from Pinterest and YLFers:

Whew! And that's the end (for now).

12 years ago