Tips For Finding Your Personal Style

Hello, Cadre family. It is Risa, your resident style and confidence coach. And in this video, I want to talk to you about finding your personal style. I get asked this question all the time. How do I figure out how I should dress and how should I show up for myself? I'm entering a new decade, or I am, you know, starting a new job, whatever it may be that's happening in your life. We all go through these questions and answers about who we are when we show up, and how we present ourselves in the world is usually dependent on what stage of life we are at.

So I love to talk about this topic because I feel like I'm constantly reinventing myself. So I want to share kind of the process that I go through and the critical questions you can ask yourself with when you are trying to figure out how you want to show up and present yourself to the world. You know, one of the things to first think about is that fashion is subjective and style is subjective. So how you want to show up in the room and present yourself might be different than somebody else who maybe has a different lifestyle from you or maybe has a different job than you.

So fashion will always be sort of this own personal expression that there are no rules for. And I think most of getting dressed is just feeling like you have the permission to show up as the version of yourself that you want to be. So I would highly recommend that you start with this process by giving yourself permission. Write down a passion statement about the kind of person that you want to be, how you want to show up, and what you envision for yourself. Maybe create a mood board. Maybe create something digital that lives on your desktop, that you look at every day, and then tell yourself every day that you deserve to show up that way and be that person.

So get yourself in the mindset that you deserve that opportunity to show up as the highest version of yourself. So starting there is number one. Number two is really looking at your closet with this sort of new version of self critical eye. Go into your closet. Try things on. Don't just assume that you still love them if they haven't seen the light of day for years or even months. Take everything out and start trying things on one section at a time. Decide if you still like the way those things look on you, if they still make you excited, if you know you're going to pull them out and want to wear them on repeat.

Really look at your closet with an editor's eye. Would you put this outfit in a magazine right now? Would you want to be photographed in this outfit, do you love the way that you look? Do you want another one in a different color, in that same silhouette? Really have a critical eye and start getting rid of things that, you know, just don't or won't serve you. This will help you sort of get the foundation for what your capsule closet will be. And so a capsule closet is a group of items that will stand the test of time, that are pieces that you know you will have for a long time to come, that you can mix and match and interchange.

They are going to be your core pieces, the items in your closet, like a time capsule that will live on and on and on for. Until they disintegrate, until they don't live on any longer. But think about items that you might spend a little bit more money on, and we'll get to that in a minute. The next way, I want you to really think about how you're trying to show up as yourself. Now that you've done the edit, now that you've given yourself permission, the next thing I want you to do is really think about how you should dress for certain occasions.

Now, I like to let people know that it's okay to have things that you're not going to wear all the time in your closet set aside for special occasions. So think about what your lifestyle is. Write down all the things that you get dressed for. Is it pick up and drop off for your kiddos? Is it date nights with your significant other? Is it a lot of family time? Maybe you have nieces and nephews, and you're constantly at soccer games. Maybe you're an athlete. So athleisure is what you love to wear, and you very rarely get dressed up.

Maybe you go to an office every single day and, you know, you need to have a repertoire of blazers or suits or sport coats that are always there for you to pull from. Really think about and write down all of the things that you get dressed for and really start to process. How much time am I spending on each one of these things? If you're at the office, 90% of your time and you're putting in the hours there and you're cranking out those office hours, really think about the fact that your closet should be the majority of those suits and those go to work outfits.

If you're working from home and you get to wear comfy on the bottom, and maybe you just have to think about the top. Really think about having a variety of tops to choose from, or at least things that you can layer things over or, you know, even under and ways to change up those pieces so you get extra mileage out of them. So once you make your list of all the places and things that you need to get dressed for, really think about where the percentage of time is spent and compare that to the percentage of amount of clothing that you have in your closet.

That will help you understand if you're getting the most mileage out of your closet. The next thing I want to say is a little rhymey little quote that I like to use called invest in the best and just spend on a trend. So investing in the best pieces, that is those capsule closet pieces, great denim, great shoes and accessories, if that's how you like to spend. Great blazers or suits, things that will stand the test of time. Sunglasses, if you take great care of them. Now, where I wouldn't suggest spending a lot on sunglasses is if you trash them and you don't keep them in their cases.

Really think about how you're using these pieces and invest in the best, the things that you want to last and just spend on the trend. So really think that you can just kind of, like, frivolously spend here and there on the trend. Maybe not frivolously, but really thinking about kind of dumping a little bit of money into the trends here. We'll just spend a little here, spend a little there on a trend because it's going to come and go. But really think about long term investment and the return on your investment that is cost per wear.

How many times are you wearing it versus the amount of money that you spent? If you spent dollar 100 on an item and you wear it ten times, you're really only spending dollar ten at a time. And that's it. It didn't cost you a lot of money cause you're getting a lot of mileage out of it. So think about it in that way. And lastly, I want you to think about where the occasion is that you're getting dressed for. So think of your work outfit as a uniform, and that's something that you might not necessarily need to wear in all these other places.

But if you can think about that as a uniform and really showing up in that uniform and having a little bit of fun with it, or maybe it's just thinking about it in the way that, like, for instance, when I used to be a hostess at a restaurant, I would really could only wear black and white. I would really have a lot of fun with my black and white and really experimented there and really had the chance to make a statement there. And I thought about it as a uniform. It's not necessarily something that I'm going to wear every single day.

So I was able to express myself in that way. So if you're trying to figure out what your voice is through what you wear, understand that some of these things, like a workout, that, you know, hostessing outfit, for that matter, whatever it may be, maybe it's a special event. You get to put on a fun uniform, something that you wear to speak on stage in. Maybe you wouldn't wear the blazer with the feathered sleeves anywhere else, but it's a way that you can express yourself and have fun. So just really think about all of these different places that you have to go to, all the different things that you're showing up for and really experiment and let yourself out of that cage and out of the box when it comes to experimenting, expressing yourself through fashion.

So I hope that this helps you think about your closet with a critical eye and where you can have fun and push yourself outside the box and not take yourself too seriously, and where you might want to put a little bit more of those shopping dollars.