I've been thinking a lot about my style recently, and
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elizabeth_mn's post has inspired me to write it all out.
If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you'll know that I recently took part in the #disneyboundchallenge, which provided a different theme for every day of March, based on Disney characters or movies. If you're not familiar with Disneybounding, it involves dressing to represent something from Disney, like wearing a yellow skirt with a blue shirt and red sweater for Snow White, or a red polka-dot dress for Minnie Mouse. I've done it consciously for most of my trips to the Disney parks over the last few years, and occasionally I accidentally do it when dressing for work etc, but this is the first time I've taken part in the challenge. And it was really fun!
Here's a recap of what I did. See if you can guess the characters!
Participating in the challenge also made me really examine my wardrobe (it was important to me that I didn't buy anything for the challenge). I was using pieces that, in many cases, I haven't used in a while, which helped me remember what I had, but had forgotten about. And at the same time, I realized all the holes in my wardrobe that I need to fill. Of course, some of the holes I don't plan to fill. For example, I have no brown whatsoever in my wardrobe. I have a khaki skirt. That is the closest thing I own to anything brown, and that's it. I also have no lime or light green. However, neither of these are colors that I like, so I have no intention of filling them.
These were the biggest holes I needed to fill:- more red
- black cardigan sweater
- yellow skirt
- nude pumps
- new black pumps, since mine are falling apart
- white leggings
- more necklaces
- possibly a grey cardigan
The cool thing is that since I noticed these gaps, I've already filled all of them except the white leggings, yellow skirt, grey cardigan, and more necklaces. I bought a red skirt on clearance at Torrid last week (pictured), and a black cardigan from the thrift store yesterday. I found nude pumps from DSW that arrived a week ago (also pictured), and which worked so perfectly that this week, I ordered the same pair in black. White leggings seem to be a seasonal thing, and I'm still not 100% sure I really want them or the grey sweater, since both could potentially be unflattering. But I'm on the lookout for them. I plan to make a golden yellow winter-weight circle skirt, and I've been on the lookout for various necklaces as well.
My style has undergone a pretty big change just in the last year or so. For a really long time, I pretty much never wore skirts and dresses. I was very much a jeans girl, often pairing them earlier on with t-shirts, and later with fairly structured button-up blouses. That transitioned about 4 years ago or so to stretchier skinny jeans with longer blouses, still often button-up, but made of lighter materials. Then about 2 years ago, I discovered how comfortable leggings are, and my style transitioned more towards leggings with shorter (usually patterned) skirts over them, and lighter, more neutral blouses.
But over the last 4-5 years, I've also been collecting eshakti dresses from thrift stores, and occasionally incorporating them into my wardrobe. And in the past few seasons, I've found that they now make up the majority of my wardrobe. Now, I wear fit-and-flare dresses, lightweight blouses tucked into skirts, or cropped sweaters with skirts, and I wear these over a very small tulle petticoat, and pair them with tights (usually black or nude, but sometimes navy or white), and shoes with a higher heel than I used to wear before (I find anything under about 1.25" very uncomfortable). I still occasionally do the leggings/short skirt options, since that's a little easier for exercising or in warmer weather, but the majority of my time is spent in longer skirts or dresses (most of which hit between the knee and mid-calf).
Color-wise, I tend to gravitate towards jewel-tones. I love royal blue, scarlet, and emerald green. I also enjoy deep teal, bright yellow, navy, light blue (though despite having a ton of light blue costumes, I actually don't have much light blue in my wardrobe). I also have a whole bunch of black. I have almost no grey. And though I do sometimes wear pastels, I feel like they don't tend to look as good on me because I have very ruddy skin.
I find my style to be very classy and lady-like, but also very girly. And I feel like, though most of what I wear is of modern fabrics, it has a vintage feel, or at least a vintage shape, with the fitted waist and fuller skirts. In the last couple months, I've also taken to wearing lipstick most of the time, because I found Maybelline SuperStay Matte Ink, which is the best long-wear lipstick ever, in my opinion, and I feel like that just makes everything look more polished. I think the next step would be to do more with my hair. Usually I just straighten it and wear it down, or occasionally in a half-pony, but I just did a show where I set my hair in a 30s style, and I enjoyed the big waves and curls from that. Unfortunately, that takes an extra 30+ mins in the morning, and I'm not willing to wake up that much earlier.
It's been really fun analyzing my style, and dressing to a particular theme for a whole month really helped!
