Welcome to the blog series that will guide you through the process of finding your own style or refining it. How you dress is a reflection of who you are and who you want to be. Your personal style deserves the consideration and plan just as much as your health and fitness goals.
Read about STEP 1: Who do you want to be?
STEP 2
Befriend your body
Before you can dress yourself, you need to get to know it really well. You must see it all to know how to work with it. When you know and fully accept your body, caring for it and dressing it well comes naturally. Take time for it before moving on to trying any new clothes. This is a crucial step in the process of finding your style.
Accept your body - take a long objective look at your body. Discover and notice everything about it - all its assets and flaws. Don’t judge it. This is your body now and the body you dress every day. Don’t dwell on the past or fantasize what it will look like after a month of some crash diet. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work on having a healthier and fitter body if you want to. In contrary! I encourage you to lead a healthy lifestyle, with a balanced diet and exercise. But you are living here and now, and for the time being this is the body you have. Make the most of it. If you don’t accept the reality of your body at the present moment, you will never be able to dress it with love.
Acknowledge your body - and be grateful for it. Giving gratitude to your body takes your body image to a whole new dimension. If you remind yourself that not everyone is healthy, capable to walk, to see or hear - you realize that your slightly crooked legs are, in fact, amazing. You begin to notice how lucky you are to have legs that take you to all the beautiful places in the world. How lucky you are to have a healthy body in general. Learn to be grateful for your body, whatever it looks like. Taking it for granted, working long hours, cutting back on sleep, not eating well, not moving enough - is a recipe for disaster and you know it. When you don’t take good care of it, your neglected, exhausted body, will stop working optimally sooner or later. When you listen to it, acknowledge its needs and take care of it - it repays you by becoming stronger, healthier and more beautiful. How your body feels and reacts tells a lot about your mindset and lifestyle. Building a grateful relationship with your body is an essential building block of self-acceptance.
Find out your body type - and how to dress it. You can be tall or petite, curvy or not and anything in between. Each body type has its key assets, you just have to discover yours! Once you know which shapes of clothes are the most flattering for your body, dressing up becomes much easier. Don’t ignore any problem areas you might have. Hiding implies you feel ashamed of it. You want to develop love and respect for your body, not shame. Learning how to play to your strengths and “consciously camouflage” any weak spots is the key. The internet is full of ideas on how to categorize your shape. Looking at body promotions, the most common body types are: S (hourglass), K (curvy hourglass),
Y (inverted triangle), A (pear), T (model), E (petite rectangle), W (plus size rectangle), O (apple). I like the identification with letters as they are straightforward and neutral compared to calling someone "a pear". You find your body type by looking in a full-length mirror and identifying the widest and narrowest part of your body. If you find it too difficult, I will be happy to help you.Find out your colour type - it will guide you to pick clothes in shades that flatter you the most. The most important are the colours you wear close to your face. They can either make your face look vibrant and rested or tired and washed out. Right shades will intensify the colour of your eyes and hair, and give you a beautiful, healthy glow. Therefore pay the most attention to colours of your shirts, tops, dresses, and scarfs. Jewelry is important too. To find out what your colour type is you can get a professional to identify it for you or you can do it yourself (blog post on that in the future). There are many colour analysis (naming even up to 12 colour types), but I believe the distinction between warm (gold) and cool (silver) type to be sufficient and most practical.
Going through the process of acceptance and building a strategy is key before you try on a single article of clothing. Give yourself time. Style doesn’t start with your body, it starts with your mind. How you think of your physical appearance, especially how you dress can reconfigure your actual style moving forward.
Discover all:
