When I was younger, I had the popular phases: the preppy phase, the 2000s phase, the alternative phase.
Now, most of my time is spent working. My wardrobe has evolved to be:
- 85% work wear - sheath dresses and tops from Calvin Klein, Reiss, or Hobbs. I’m always on the lookout for a nicely cut, structured wool or trench coat or statement heels.
- 10% going out wear - jumpsuits, statement trousers, tailored high waisted shorts, statement tops, basic white t shirt, basic black t shirt.
- 5% work out wear
I’ve gotten rid of a lot of pieces I thought I’d use. For example, I don’t have very casual dresses because I don’t have use for them. I used to buy a lot of wedges for days out but I now wear either heels for work, white sneakers for everyday, or running shoes for working out.
I’m a software engineer working from home. My work wear is t-shirts with joggers. It’s now plain/block color t-shirts instead of the graphic tees I wore in my teen years but it hasn’t changed. I have more variety of pants than just jeans now.
I also don’t go out much and every time I do I freak out because I don’t know my own style besides t-shirts.
do you use pinterest?
I tried. Downloaded it and pinned some things but some styles that I like maybe don’t really suit me. Or I haven’t purchased the outfits I need to make it work for me. Any tips on getting Pinterest to work for me better?
I did 2 things that helped me.
Firstly, I looked at pins that I liked and tried to find trends among them. I tried to identify what kind of aesthetic(s) I liked even if what I pinned didn’t necessarily look good on me.
Secondly, I looked at my general body type. I thought about what parts I wanted to emphasize and what parts I wanted to balance out. For me, my waist is quite a bit smaller than my bust or hips. When i would go out shopping, I found that tops that hit at my hips or button down shirts made me look a lot wider so I scratched those and would opt for tops I could tuck in at the waist, or tops that had some sort of waist emphasis like a belt. However, as much as I loved the look of button down shirts with shorts, the sizing never seemed to work; if a shirt fit at my bust, it was way too big at my waist. This was something I just accepted.
Then, I took a look again at pinterest. I looked for items that were within my aesthetic but which emphasized the waist. For example, a lot of items I liked the 2nd time around (more like the 4th time around - there was a lot of trial and error) were cinched at the waist or had a belt. I had a lot of button down/short outfits pinned and I realized those probably wouldn’t work for me, but I did find a compromise in belted shirt dresses as well as high waisted tailored shorts with a nice top.
For example, I knew I liked outfits like this but shorts in that style (mid rise?) don’t work for me because of my waist to hips ratio and I found they always gaped at the waist; i found that tailored high waisted shorts suited me a lot better.
Some examples of the shorts i now look for are like this or this or this. My going out outfits will look like this or this or this. these are still part of the aesthetic i’m going for so i’m fine with it.