Defining My Personal Style

An Important Note: This was written prior to the weekend’s attacks. If you are looking for a bit of lightness, continue reading and enjoy. If you need to log off to protect your peace, please do so.

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Part of rediscovering myself includes rediscovering my personal style. I’ve never been someone who cares a lot about clothes. I like clothes. I really like looking at clothes that others are wearing, but I’ve never been especially good at styling nor do I think I care that much. But I want to look put together. My other thing is that the idea of spending a lot of money on clothes stresses me out. I will never be the type of person who spends over $20 on a simple t-shirt. I don’t care how nice it is.

When it comes to spending money on clothes and accessories, I’m more likely to spend money on shoes, bags, and jewelry than the actual clothing. I’d like to contribute part of that to the fact that I can get far more cost per wear from accessories than actual clothing pieces, but as a plus-size person, it has always made more sense for me to splurge on accessories since those could be more of the trendy pieces or items that I would see others wearing. It made me feel included and like I could actually participate in the trends. Thankfully, more brands I like are offering plus-sized options these days but spending a lot of money on clothes still gives me major pause.

I’m very lucky that our fall and most of the winter temperatures allow me to wear dresses. I live in dresses pretty much year-round. Last year when I was 9 months pregnant, I lived in a couple of ribbed dresses from Old Navy and I was so grateful for them. Then I was able to turn around and wear a breastfeeding-friendly nap dress for Christmas. Our temperatures really allow me to wear almost all of my clothes year-round. In Texas, there is no need to swap out your winter clothes for your summer clothes. It can be 50 degrees one day and 80 degrees the next in the middle of winter. Of course, I have sweaters that I don’t pull out until it’s cooler but you can catch me layering on a sweatshirt even on the hottest days because it’s usually so cold inside with the AC. All that to say, I almost always get my money’s worth in the number of wears I can get out of an item.

My Personal Style

The words I would use to describe my personal style are: feminine, comfortable, and classic.

I’ve always leaned more into classic pieces because you can wear them longer than current trends. Comfort is essential since I work from home and have kids. I will refuse to wear something if the waistband is too tight or if it pulls weirdly. Ever since I had kids, I got weird with sensations and one of my big triggers is how my clothes pull. If it feels like something is too tight, it almost immediately sends me into a panic. And feminine feels easy to me and I enjoy it. Pretty patterns and colors are always fun. A-line silhouettes have always worked well for me and they make me think of classic, old Hollywood dresses. I’ve also always loved the 50s and 60s fashion with the dress silhouettes, bold patterns, and big hair.

What I Like To Wear

• Printed dresses

• Striped tee or sweater

• Ballet flats

• Button downs

• Medium wash denim

• Birkenstocks

• Midi skirts

• A-line dresses

• Dresses and tops that cinch in at the waist to give me some shape

• Yes: dark green, navy blue, black, red, light blue, Kelly green

• No: white, hot pink, purple, orange, yellow, anything neon

Fall Inspiration

I thought it would be fun to put together a little style inspiration board for the fall. Here are a few observations I made while doing this:

• Turns out I’m really loving black and dark green and midi skirts.

• I have always loved black and white stripes so it feels very “me” to include a black and white sweater like in this photo from

  Caroline Moss
  . I love how casual her outfit is along with the black midi skirt, but it also feels dressy enough so I feel put together.

• I still need a pair of jeans! I threw out all of my jeans because they were from before the pandemic and I’ve had 2 kids since then and they were skinny jeans, so yeah… I don’t love jeans at all, but I feel determined to at least find a pair that I can wear out and feel good in!

• I love that this style board feels “capsule-ish”. It feels like a lot of what I selected can work together and I also like that it is a cohesive look.

I wanted to do this and give this all a little more thought because I’m in a place where I can actually be more picky about clothes I actually like and want versus needing to go with whatever works for my body and is available. I also have the ability to go slow with this because I work from home and what I wear every day doesn’t really matter.

I’m curious - is your personal style you’ve always had a good grasp on or did it take you time to figure out what is it? Or are you still figuring it out?

xoxo, Kate