My New Style Mentality
It’s officially my birthday! It’s a milestone one, too. I have no plans other than laying low and resting. With age, comes a new set of thoughts and realizations. Blame it on my getting older or on the last (almost) two years of working explicitly from home, but my concept of style has changed. When I say ‘style,’ I don’t (necessarily) mean what I wear. I mean the mentality I have about what constitutes being stylish has changed.
The Crave For Style Was Real
Let’s rewind a bit. I’ve always had an insatiable appetite for following trends and being stylish. Growing up as a kid in the 90’s and early 2000’s, trends were on full display and constant loop thanks to movies, television, and magazines. I was watching all of my favorite tv shows for the drama as well as paying close attention to what my favorite characters were wearing. As a junior high student, I kept a few Seventeen magazines bedside as inspiration for school outfits. What’s wild about this? I wore uniforms in junior high.
I (so) desperately wanted to mimic the style and trends I was being inundated with daily because I attributed following trends as mattering or having value as a person. If not for birthdays, Christmas, occasional rewards for grades, or mall runs, I (probably) wouldn’t have had much of a style at all considering I wasn’t (really) geared to shop on whims. My family never (to my knowledge) hurt financially, but the concept of shopping on a whim wasn’t the mentality of either of my parents. They shopped out of necessity or special occasion. I was only able to form my style or follow a trend when I was given money. I wasn’t earning the paychecks, so I couldn’t spend it how I wanted.
Doing What I Couldn’t
When I started my career though, all of that changed. Since I was earning the money, I was able to spend it on the one thing I wanted to the most when I was younger: c l o t h e s! The moment I received a paycheck, I was securing bags left and right. I felt my style was finally forming now that I could financially support following trends as they were trending. Now having been in my career for almost 11 years, I’ve come to realize a misstep in my thinking. Thanks to the ideas of my youth, I cross connected the concepts of style and trends. I thought in order to be stylish or form my style, I had to buy into trends.
That’s Growth
Now that I’m older and wanting more financial freedom, I’m realizing this dated and juvenile ideology has plagued my adulthood, closet, and wallet. It’s not so much that my style has changed as much as my mentality has shifted its focus about what style means to me. I don’t care to chase trends anymore. I want to focus on defining my own style, leaning into it, and wearing what I deem fashionable and trendy as I choose.
With financial wellness, sustainability, decluttering, and intentionality being my ultimate goals when it comes to style, I don’t want to buy new for the sake of buying new and being a part of a trend. I want to purge what I no longer wear or need and slowly buy new or secondhand so I can build a closet I can shop well into the future.
Capsule Wardrobe and Minimalist Mentality, Anyone?
The best way for me to embrace my new lease on style is to (truly) try my hand at creating and committing to seasonal capsule wardrobes while developing and upholding a minimalist mentality.
Straight up--I haven’t the slightest clue how to create a seasonal capsule wardrobe or effectively unlearn all of the harmful shopping habits I’ve developed over time in order to develop a minimalist mentality. So, I’m starting small. I want to learn the basics.
I want to learn how a capsule wardrobe is created. I want to learn how I intentionally consider what I own in order to discern what I need. I want to learn what it means to be a minimalist. I want to learn how to tailor the concept of minimalism to my own idea of style in order to execute it most efficiently for me.
Walking Like I Talk It
I recently discovered The Conscious Closet by Elizabeth L. Cline and I’m very excited to (slowly) read through it. The book dives into how one: buys better, builds an ethical wardrobe, and keeps up with trends without being harmful, etc.
I’m not naive about high consumption and capitalism infiltrating the sustainable clothing world, but I think small steps matter and render big changes even if on a personal level. I’ve talked a handful of times about these concepts before, but I’ve not (personally) done a good job at following them through. I’m holding myself accountable by writing it out here for all to see.
I know full well it’ll be an uphill battle. This whole shift is scary, unknown, and sure to be (hella) unpretty, but I know it’ll be worth it for me in the long run.
I plan to show as much as I possibly can in order to be real about the whole process because that’s what I would like to see and find the most helpful starting out.
If you’ve been curious to try the same or find yourself in the same boat, I hope you stick around and find something here worth trying out on own.
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