There are so many benefits to Dressing Your Truth that I’ve discussed in the previous two posts here and here. I feel like my whole life I’ve been trying on other people’s style, wondering what I would feel good in, and now I’m finally finding my own. The fashion industry encourages that. They tell us what to like, what to buy, what to wear. Fashion bloggers do the same. Even before fashion bloggers, there were our friends or the popular girls who influenced our style (Mean Girls, anyone? Awesome movie). As a society we are slaves to trends. It’s always been that way in every society. We desire to belong and to be considered attractive by others.
Thanks to Dressing Your Truth I can stop trying to feel right in someone else’s style. The current casual, undone boho trend and wearing all neutrals is absolutely the opposite of what I feel good and look good in. It is perfect for some people, and I am not one of those people. Now I know that.
Let me be clear that I am not a fashion blogger. I’m just sharing my outfits as part of sharing my journey and because I was looking for examples of how to do this when I started. I’m also sharing what I’ve learned about the details that make something work or not for my type and secondary. I am not a fashion plate. I want to find what I feel good in. I am still finding my way, but I’m much closer than I was before I discovered this. My style won’t be your style, but maybe you can learn from my (many) mistakes and my successes.
That brings me to another ENORMOUS benefit of Dressing Your Truth. Shopping is so much easier now. I can walk into a store and eliminate the majority just by color. If I see something in my color palette, I can then inspect the pattern. Is it bold? Parallel lines? If it passes that test, I can check the structure. Is it tailored? Structured? What about the fabric? Sheen? Texture? Then, and only then will I decide if I want to try it on. This eliminates most of the store, and I save so much time and money. As I am zeroing in on my personal style and understanding type 4 and my secondary 3, I’m not buying a collection of random items that don’t go with me, don’t go with each other, and don’t work.
I tried the capsule wardrobe concept last spring and loved it. I did it again this summer and was still loving it, but was interrupted by this Dressing Your Truth challenge, so I had to make another capsule wardrobe with the clothes I had. The two concepts combined will save me a lot of money and time and closet space.
On top of this I’ve also started on the KonMari method based on the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, so I’m narrowing in on only the clothes that spark joy, that are my type and look amazing on me. KonMari is a topic for another post, but I’ve taken bags and bags and bags of clothes to the donation center. I’m still figuring out the colors and details of what I want to wear, but I’m narrowing it down.
Have I been 100% strict during my challenge? To the best of my knowledge, yes. I did not intentionally deviate at all, based on what I understood. It takes a while to get the colors right, and then all the other details. Part of the Dressing Your Truth program is they send you color cards, a larger one for your closet and a wallet one to keep with you when you shop. They are so helpful. Even still, not every single color can be on the card, and sometimes it’s hard to tell, even for the experts. The longer I do this, the more attuned my eyes become to type 4 colors.
I recommend keeping it simple at first. A few of the outfits that were so, so wrong were because I was trying too hard to be so, so awesome. Start with type four. Once that feels comfortable, then try incorporating some of your secondary in the details. Never deviate from your color palette, but you can incorporate textures and lines from your secondary. Prepare yourself for some major wrong turns below.
To experience Dressing Your Truth and find your personal beauty, click here for the free discover your beauty course.
Day 21: Nude is not a color for T4, but fashion experts tell you all women need a pair of nude heels, and so I have a pair. I tried on both nude and black to see. These black heels are also S1 because of the very round toe. T4s wear pointy shoes, which I’ve always avoided because they can be painful for my toes. The cardigan is also S1. The shirt is hard. Up close the blue stripe is T4, but because the stripes are fine, from not much of a distance it reads as a light blue shirt. I eventually purged this shirt from my wardrobe.
Day 22: Turquoise goes with everything. And I stripes. I had tons of them before DYT. They have come in very handy lately. If the sandals and necklace had different lines it would be much better for my T4/3 energy. The curves are more S1.
Day 23: I just…don’t like this. I don’t think yellow is my color.
Day 24: I honestly don’t know what I was thinking. All wrong in so very many ways. Just wrong, wrong, wrong. I can barely show this here because it is so wrong. And embarrassing. I have no explanation. Ringling made me do it.
Day 25: Also not good. Love the shorts. The color and structure is type 4, and the zippers add a little type 3 edge. They don’t go with the shirt. At all. No. Change the shirt and let’s talk.
Day 26: Yellow and cobalt blue = yes, but some things about this = no. The necklace is a no. The color is more T2 and dusty. You can see the difference in the blues. See how vibrant the shorts are? It shows how dusty the blue necklace is. Also, this turned out to be a Type 1 yellow top.
Day 27: I stayed home sick from church, and then realized late in the day that I had to go make some church visits, so I literally threw this on and went. It’s too busy with the eyelet pattern in the shirt and the stripes and the beads and the colors. There is just too much going on.
Day 28: It was hard to get rid of this shirt. I loved it. The blue in the pinstripe is T4, but because the pattern is so small, from a distance it blurs and isn’t bold. It can appear more type 2 in color. I stopped wearing it because it didn’t feel good anymore. The necklace color is too dusty to be T4 (and this is the day I figured that out), and the shoes are too cute for a secondary 3 with the polka dots and round toes. The button up and jeans and flats was a sort of uniform for me before. Very classic and preppy, but missing my fire.
Day 29: Black sandals would have been better, and a different necklace. The balls on the necklace are very S1, as are the polka dots. Unbelievably, this outfit gets pinned every single day. I’m sure it works for others, but not for me.
Day 30: Even though they look different in the picture, the shoes and necklace match. I like the idea behind this outfit, but not the execution. Too many circles and too much roundness. It does drive me crazy that the buttons don’t line up with the polka dots on the placket of the shirt, and honestly, I can’t do polka dots. I also love that little blur of a two-year-old running circles around my legs. She’s the best part.
The moral of this story is that I did better in the first half of my challenge than the last half. I was trying too hard to be too fancy. When I kept it simple I felt and looked best. However, I learned a lot from these many, many mistakes. It was part of my journey and served a purpose.
To experience Dressing Your Truth and find your personal beauty, click here for the free discover your beauty course.
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