Cultivating Your Personal Style | Gathering Inspiration
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Today I’m excited to walk you through how I’m working on cultivating my own personal style for the upcoming seasons. If you’re anything like me, you’ll fall into a style rut once in a while. Adjusting to being a new mom (or in my case - a mom of two!) pushed me into a routine of tee shirts and shorts, days without washing my hair and generally - not caring much about how I look. And that’s ok. We all will have times in our lives when what we wear takes a backseat. That said, I also know myself well enough to know when I feel good about the way I look it can carry over into the rest of my day. Simply said - I’m ready for that feeling again!!
Whenever I approach a new season, I like to work with fresh inspiration to organize my shopping list and highlight what’s already in my closet. For today’s post, I’ll be sharing how I gather ideas and get my creative wheels spinning. Guys - it’s a lot of fun! I really encourage you to spend an hour or two playing around with ideas like this before you run out and hit the mall (slash Target/thrift store/whatever!)
I went out to you guys on instagram and asked if you had any personas you used for your closets and there were some great ones - Yoga teacher applies for a loan, Midcentury librarian, Old Lady Artist at craft fair (in all black with stunning statement necklace), and Sante Fe Gallery Owner. I’d love to hear more on my Instagram comments if you have one!
Part I Gathering Inspiration
The first thing I like to do is search for images that can take my initial ideas and branch them out further. This fall I’m playing with ‘70s Art Teacher’ as my early theme. Other search terms I’m using are bohemian, 70s style, 1970s fashion, Charlie’s Angels, High Waisted Jeans, and High Waisted Flares. I do this all on Pinterest and hello! rabbit hole!
As you scan through your results, save anything you’re initially drawn to - you can go back and edit it out later if you want. Another feature I use a lot is the “more like this” whenever I find something I really like. It can take you further in creating your mood boards!
For my theme, I started pinning pictures like you see above - a palette of navy, rust, oxblood and orange. But I also felt drawn to weekend styling like retro style tees paired with high waisted jeans! There’s room in my life for both so I saved them all! And don’t feel like you need to copy anything head to toe (unless you want to!) I know that blue tights aren’t going to work for me, but I like the sweater, shirt and skirt combo, so on to the board it goes. And if you find photos that embrace the general mood - add those too!
If you’d like to scan some other mood board ideas, I have an entire category of them here (like French Casual, Choppy Bobs with Bangs (should I get bangs again is my ever present question en route to the salon!) How to Style a Houndstooth Blazer, Ways to Wear Bandanas)
Later this week I’ll be posting Part II of how I cultivate my personal style - Shopping Your Closet. I’ll take my mood boards here into my own closet to see how I can use what I already have (like the faux shearling coat I made last year pictured above!) before I make a wishlist for this season’s buying! Until then, here are some more of the images that have me ready to embrace my inner artsy fartsy, flare leg loving, high rise (mom) jean self!
