😱 How to reset your style for the new season
It's nearing the end of summer (😭) which means it's time to start rejigging our wardrobes. It's the time for a new-season wardrobe clear-out, organisation and a time to reimagine our style
In today’s newsletter…
🍁 How to reset your style for the new season
👗 Subscriber Q&A: I answer your questions
How I Reset My Style For The New Season
I can feel it the air: it’s a time of change. I am ready for a new era of “Ellie”. I love end-of-august-early-september time; it feels like going back to school, it feels like a new pencil case, it feels a fresh set of notebooks and it feels like new socks. Which remind me I should probably buy myself some new underwear as I genuinely couldn’t tell you the last time I wore something which wasn’t an old, sturdy pair of M&S’ best. This is what September is for.
Over the last week I have brought my style to a new place through a few simple steps.
1. Do a pinterest deep dive
This is your moment to get pinning. Spend an evening scrolling and pinning the things you love on your feed. For bonus points go through the style roots combination pinterest boards, body matrix boards or colour season boards for new ideas and to take you outfit your own echo chamber.
2. Collage your favourite ones
I have been having loads of fun this week creating collages on pinterest. Go through your new pins and select your absolute favourite looks, the ones you would DIE to wear, the creme de la creme. Select these looks for your pinterest collage so that you end up with a really refined moodboard of ideas - make sure to remove the backgrounds and add a unifying colour to really focus on the looks. Brainstorm until you can see a moodboard that summarises you perfectly.
3. Collage your own outfits
Using this board as inspiration, go through your photos from the spring and summer and select your looks from the year so far which feel like this pinterest board. You are often your best source of inspiration as it’s much easier to recreate your own outfits than someone else’s!
4. Redefine your style
Spend some time journalling or brainstorming what you see in your two collages. Note the prints, colours, shapes, styles, aesthetics and vibes to come up with a list of key words. Think about the style roots you see, for instance, for the next part of this year I am going to be exploring mountain, mushroom and flower as opposed to earth, mushroom and flower. Feel free to adjust your collages if you find that they’re not quite resonating, until you get it right
5. Organise your wardrobe
This could be the perfect time of year to go through your wardrobe and digitise your closet. I spent the weekend adding my wardrobe to indyx as everyone is raving about it. Through this process I also analysed each item in your wardrobe and decided if it fit my new moodboard. You could even consider printing your collages to pin in your wardrobe as a reference you can return to. It helps me to have a “this fits my new look” pile and a “this doesn’t work” pile rather than a “keep” and “get rid” pile because I know how often my style shifts and I come back to certain pieces even if they don’t serve me in this moment - at a later date you can go through those pieces and see how you feel about them then.
6. Create outfit templates
You should now feel that your wardrobe is refreshed. I was so thrilled when I finished my wardrobe at how cohesive the colours looked and how much extra space I have! The joy of giving your wardrobe a thorough cleansing is that all the pieces suddenly feel like they have potential again and you can see them in a new light. This makes it a perfect time to come up with some outfit templates.
Something I love about Allison’s Bornstein's method of styling (which I have gathered from Anna Newton’s videos on her styling sessions) is how she takes a piece you love and keeps on styling it in new ways, adjusting each outfit in subtle ways. It shows how a new outfit doesn’t have to mean something completely different, so I spent time rinsing some of the pieces I love but don’t know how to wear on indyx as soon as I got an outfit template which I think works. For instance, I came up with 8 different outfits for this black dress which are super similar but use different things in my wardrobe. I’ve realised I genuinely don’t need to buy another item of clothing ever again (but I probably will)
A final tip I wanted to share is one from Allison Bornstein again, where she says to go through your moodboards from the past few years and identify the inspiration you had last year for that season. Having consistent style means finding repetition in your looks and repeating the things that work. Having style you come back to year after year makes perfect sense to me and I loved this bit of advice.
7. Wear your new outfits
Wear your new outfits you have put together as soon as you possibly can. You do not need to wait for a fancy event, wear them to work, wear them to the living room where you are cosied up in front of the tele with your partner. This is something I have to remind myself sometimes; my dad is someone who I swear is saving his nice clothes for his coffin and I just think you have to enjoy these things while you’re alive. If you love it, wear it
What’s new:
🌱 YouTube - New Here Beginners Playlist | I created a playlist for anyone who might be new to my content. I know most of you are seasoned viewers of my stuff, but if you want a little refresher on some of these systems this is a really good place to start
✨ Product: updated aesthetic template | I realised it has been a hot minute since I updated my aesthetics notion template. If you were on the fence about purchasing, this template now has a few photo examples for each and more aesthetics organised by style root
📗I got my first copy of my book | Any copies of the book you have seen with me before now have been dummy copies! This week I was so excited to get my first full-printed copy of How to Dress Your Best! (this email was actually meant to go out last week so it’s a bit of date - you too might have now got your copy of my book if you are based in the UK!!!)
Thank you for reading the free style scholars newsletter. In this week’s paid segment below:
subscriber video: tour of my freshly organised wardrobe
subscriber Q&A: I answer your questions
outfit challenge of the week
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