Every once in awhile, I feel like I need to take sort of a funky, fun risk when I get dressed in the morning. Since my normal wardrobe is a sweater, thermal, or long sleeve henley and jeans or sometimes skirts, I’ve decided experimenting is THE fresh way to get over a sartorial slump. Whether it’s wearing a tie with a boat neck top, or wearing fishnets and heels with a pair of cropped pants, I believe sometimes, you just need to mix it up and be a little funky for a day.
The other day, I came in to work wearing several layers (because it’s cold in the office!) and though the layers are a thermal, a classic button shirt, and a silk twinset tank, I styled them in a way that you might not normally see. The overall look I came out with was a mix between preppy and punk. It was definitely office appropriate, but the cool leather cuff said, “Today, I’m kickin’ ass and taking names!” Re- thinking the way you style your outfits is the first step towards changing up your wardrobe. It’s the difference between just getting dressed and presenting your personality (or your sultry alter ego!) through your style.
My oufit today is mixing business with leather….Styling is something I learned early on, as a Visual Specialist for a certain large-name retailer. They presented styling in this way: You’re dressing mannequins but you have to give them touches to bring out a sort of personality (in that case, the brand) in the clothing.
Your wardrobe is constantly trying to say something (and this goes hand in hand with dressing with intent) and you’ve got the medium to tell that story through little personal touches. How do you do this?
If you were Miu Miu, you’d cut off the sleeves of your “boyfriend” blazer… but adventurous style could be something as simple as wearing scrunched trouser socks with heels. Break all the fashion rules you want like wearing florals in the winter or wearing black and brown at the same time. Maybe you do come in to work in that every-day henley and your regular old jeans, but if you slap on a pair of your hottest shoes and a biker-style cardigan or some bright lipcolor, you’ve immediately mixed it up. Now you’re saying, “This is what I wear when I’m out breaking hearts and stopping traffic.”
The other day, I wore four different iterations of similar stripes. I had some horizontal stripes and diagonal stripes in my top, and I had a vertical pinstripe and a different diagonal stripe in my skirt. I tell people about this outfit and they say “Oh… That sounds… um… bold!?” The outfit worked. Because the pinstripes were muted, the entire effect was geometric, but not so much that it hurt the eyes. Mixing and matching patterns, colors and styles is an interesting way to find combos that work. You may be loud and patterned for a day, but you’ll probably stumble along something crazy that just might work. If it looks super ridiculous, you can always edit one piece before you leave.
Experiment with different styles – like wearing a marching band jacket to work over a simple tee-shirt dress, or maybe pairing liquid leggings and motorcycle boots with a long, ultra-feminine, blouse-y, chiffon tunic. You may find that bikers look pretty in sea-foam chiffon and marching band members would look so much better if they wore shorts, tights and ballet flats with those jackets! When you find something that works, jot it down on a post it and stick it inside your closet door. That way, when you don’t quite know what to wear and you feel like you’ve hit a sartorial slump, you have this collection of interesting outfit ideas to mix and match.
How do you keep it fresh? Is it candy-colored sweaters, or candy-colored hair? Do you wear navy and black together? Or stripes and dots? What’s your funky technique?
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