Personal Style

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Check Out My New Blog!

I stopped writing “Recovering Shopaholic” in February 2017, but I returned to blogging less than a year later in a new location. If you’ve come across this site via a Google search or are a previous reader who dropped by to see what I’m up to, I invite you to check out my new blog: My Wardrobe, Myself.

my wardrobe, myself blog

About “My Wardrobe, Myself”

My Wardrobe, Myself is a blog about the intersection of clothing, emotions, and life. We often think of these three things as entirely separate zones, but they actually impact each other more than most people believe. Anyone who has spent an important life occasion wearing an outfit that just didn’t feel right, or even felt completely wrong, is aware of that fact. Our clothing matters, as do our feelings about it.

For so many of us, clothes are not simply pieces of fabric that we use to cover our bodies for the sake of modesty and not breaking the law. They’re also a means of self-expression and a way to exercise our creativity. Our clothes are heavily connected to our sense of self and our self-confidence. We often dress differently based upon how we’re feeling about ourselves and, conversely, the way we adorn ourselves can impact our moods. Our wardrobes and our lives are not two distinct topics after all!

For years, I’ve written about a wide array of subjects related to both wardrobe and life, so My Wardrobe, Myself is the perfect evolution of my interests and passions. I’ve always written about clothing from a different angle than most other bloggers in this space, as my main concern is not on the current trends, sharing my outfits, and telling people what to buy (not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with those things). I like to look at wardrobe-related topics and their relationship to our inner workings: how we feel about our clothing and how the way we dress impacts our body image and self-esteem. This exploration has become increasingly important as I get older, as I have a lot of feelings and struggles related to the aging process, as I’m sure many of you can relate to.

What I’m Writing About Now…

My essays on My Wardrobe, Myself are mostly about my wardrobe and myself, but it’s always my intention that you’ll be able to apply my insights to your closets, emotions, and lives. Like you, I’m figuring things out as I go along, so I use the blog to highlight what I’m learning as I continue to work on my wardrobe, my style, and myself. I also enjoy engaging in periodic wardrobe and style challenges to aid in my evolution and growth, and I always welcome readers joining me in these types of adventures.

Besides the primary focus on wardrobe-related topics, I also periodically weigh in on other subjects, such as personal fulfillment, intentional living, life balance, the aging process, relationships, navigating change, time management, and self-esteem. To learn more information about the topics I address on My Wardrobe, Myself, please check out my About page, or visit my Article Archive for a full listing of all of my posts.

I hope to see you soon over at My Wardrobe, Myself!

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Revisiting Project 333 and the “Love It, Wear It” Wardrobe Challenge

At the end of September, prior to attending Courtney Carver’s “Tiny Wardrobe Tour,” I decided to put together a hypothetical Project 333 summer capsule.  I wrote a blog post about this and concluded that it would be useful to try out that capsule during October, as warm weather where I live usually continues until at least early November and sometimes longer (our cool weather started just a week ago!).

I reasoned that if nothing else, I’d learn some useful things about myself and my wardrobe through doing a short version of Project 333 (even if not the full three months that it’s intended to be).  In today’s post, I share my thoughts on that experience, as well as about how I’m revisiting the “Love it, Wear it” Challenge (LIWI) that I did during the full year of 2015.

Project 333 Capsule Wardrobe

Have you ever done a capsule wardrobe challenge? 

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Top Tips and Tools for Cultivating a Workable Wardrobe

In my last post, I gave an update on the purchases I made in 2014 and shared a lot of statistics regarding the success and failure rate of what I bought.  At the end of my update, I asked readers to offer insights on their own purchases from two years ago, along with their advice for others on how to increase buying success percentages. I received some great feedback as usual, but one reader named Jane also asked a very thought-provoking question of her fellow readers:

If you have pared down your wardrobe to a point that you’re happy with, what were your top three tools that helped you to do so?”

Since these types of questions can sometimes get lost in the comments section of my posts, I thought I’d pose Jane’s query to my private Facebook group.   I knew the group would have many wonderful tips to offer, as there is a wealth of knowledge there.  This post represents a consolidation of the group’s top tips for cultivating a workable wardrobe (also check out this two-part series on the blog from back in 2014:  Part One |  Part Two).

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Lessons From My Outfit Journal: 2016 Style Shifts and Goals

Almost two years ago, I started keeping an outfit journal as a way of better getting into touch with my personal style and helping it to evolve.   Although I had previously taken photos of my outfits for at least a few years, I believed that capturing my feelings about what I was wearing would be even more beneficial.  Well, I was right!  At this point, I can unequivocally state that my outfit journal has been the most important tool in my style evolution. And since it continues to produce benefits, I have no intention of giving it up anytime soon.

Style and outfit journal

I’ve shared a number of insights from my outfit journal since its inception and have recently created a separate category for these posts, if you’d like to check them out.  In today’s post, I’m going to highlight the shifts I feel my style has made in 2016 thus far, as well as my style goals for the rest of the year and beyond.  Most of these shifts and goals are a direct result of my outfit journal, as I capture my feelings there about what I wore and what I would change about each look.   Over time, these thoughts have led me to make changes and try new things.  Also helpful to my journey are the “outfit of the day” (OOTD) threads on Facebook.  Seeing what others are wearing and reading their and others’ comments about those outfits (and mine) has helped me to increase my style awareness and make changes to what I’m wearing.

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Can You Remember Everything in Your Closet?

Do you think you could write down everything in your closet without looking?  I recently challenged myself to do just that after reading and article titled “Deep End: Clothing Analytics” on the new “Reasonably Presentable” blog.  Here are the basic instructions that I followed this past weekend:

  • First, write down everything you remember owning, including what color it is.  
  • Put the letter “A” by everything that you feel awesome in every time you wear it.  
  • Put a “W” next to the ones you wear all the time (of course, the definition of “all the time” can be very relative…).  
  • Then go wherever your clothes live and write down everything you forgot to write down.

In today’s post, I share my experience of doing the exercise outlined above, as well as what I learned from taking on that challenge.   I highly recommend that you read the entire article and try the exercise for yourself.  In addition to the instructions above, the author also shares what sorting through your nail polish collection can tell you about your wardrobe, which could be especially useful for some of you.

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