This month the folks at the sewing website, Coletterie, have started a series called The Wardrobe Architect to help readers create a wardrobe that reflects their personal style through discussions, creative exercises and questionnaires.
I often worry that my daily wardrobe does not reflect my personality, especially now that I'm working with small children and I tend to account for comfort and washablity over fashion and I feel like a lot of my closet barely gets used, so I'm open to this challenge.
The first worksheet in the series is available here and it focuses on how everyone is different and how that influences our style. The focus is on 7 categories: personal history, philosophy, culture, community, activities, location, and body. This categories that interested me the most were my personal history, location and body.
History-
I grew up as the oldest of three children in the suburbs of Kansas. My mom was a power-suit wearing accountant in the 80s and 90s and my dad always wore a suit jacket, button down shirt and dress pants to work and jeans on casual Friday. I remember that my childhood interest in fashion came in spurts- sometimes I didn't care what I wore and would let my parents pick out my clothes for me, and other times I would get stuck dressing in one particular color (like all pink or black). When I was 6 or 7 years old, my favorite thing to wear was a short sleeved black button down dress with a knee length 3-tiered ruffle floral skirt.
My style really started to evolve in the 6th grade as I started to grow and swap out my collection of oversized Taz t-shirts with matching biker shorts and sweatpants to plaid baby-doll dresses and floral hats greatly inspired by the post-grunge era, My So Called Life, and Blossom. In the 7th and 8th grades I became influenced by teen fashion magazines like Seventeen and started wearing bell bottoms and anything with peace signs on them.
As I entered high school I liked to stay up on the latest trends, but continued to be heavily influenced by the skater/ grunge and goth scenes with oversized jeans and lots of black clothing. I pretty much kept this look up through art school in college adding some vintage 70s polyester shirts and dresses into the mix in college.
After finishing undergrad, I tossed out the baggy pants and concert tees and began adding more generic work attire/ classic pieces like twill pants and button up shirts and I injected color back into my clothes.
I still like to stay up with the latest trends to an extent as I read a lot of fashion blogs. I like to incorporate cute and quirky pieces into the mix to reflect my personality with some artistic flair, but I'm still trying to find the right combination to reflect my personality, and show some personal style without looking like I'm trying to hard.
Location-
Last year I moved from Kansas to England, and I anticipated that it would be colder in England, but it seems that I brought a lot of the crazy weather with me...although it DOES get darker here earlier and it DOES rain a lot more.
Body-
I am a pear-shape as my hips are the widest part of my body but my waist is small. I'm hesitant to buy pants online without trying them on first. I tend to shy away from clothes that reveal too much leg- I rarely wear shorts and have yet to find the perfect pair of skinny jeans that I can both a) pull on over my legs and hips and b) don't fall down from my waist. I feel self conscious in tight clothing so there are no body-con dresses in my closet and I don't like clothes that require too much laundry care.
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Are you following the Wardrobe Architect series? If so, I'd love to here from you. Let me know in the comments below.
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