Lost your style mojo?

As a style specialist who is an advocate for ethical fashion, I was interested to read in The Guardian (link below) about Amelia Crook having ‘lost’ her personal style and turning to TikTok to ask for help!

The reasons Amelia feels she may have lost her personal style are not difficult to understand. For one thing, there is lockdown. Living for many months in isolation, barely leaving the house, means most of us have forgotten what we used to wear in the outside world. We now tend to resort to what is comfortable and what fits!

I’m a big believer in intuitive dressing, or using clothes to support our emotional wellbeing and whatever it is we need to achieve for the day (I wrote about this in my previous piece). If we’re in tune with our body and mind, we know what they need to feel right. It’s a bit like craving food; only instead of craving the edible fuel we need, we crave what we want to physically feel on our skin.

With the universal sadness of lockdown, risk of life threatening illness, and the uncertainty of other global threats, softness and comfort is what we need now. It’s little wonder we reach for the tracksuit and oversized woollens. We need freedom of movement as we already have enough externally imposed restrictions. So in my opinion, if this is the reason behind your lost style mojo, the key to recovering it is to find other clothes that offer similar freedom and comfort but look a little less like you’re home sick!

Of course there are other reasons a person could feel like they’ve lost their personal style. For example, there is a such a glut of product on offer these days that simply knowing where to begin can be overwhelming. Pair that with the joy that there are no longer any strict fashion rules and almost anything goes, the overwhelm increases!

My core work is to help women understand what works for their lifestyle, values and body shape as well as their colouring. While this might sound like a first world issue, ensuring we make well informed choices around buying pieces that we will definitely wear and not discard and that have longevity rather than contribute to fast fashion landfill is more important than it’s ever been.

We all have a responsibility to think more deeply about our personal style and invest wisely rather than hastily. Our values now need to be analysed and our criteria prioritised before we shop for clothes. Gone are the days of making rash sartorial decisions that don’t work out. Ensuring clothes earn their keep and co-ordinate easily with lots of other things we own is important, as is the knowledge that we will enjoy wearing them for a long time. It is our loved clothes that last.

Our bodies, lifestyles and priorities have all gone through some transition since early 2020 and as clothing is a deeply personal expression of who we are and how we want to show up in the world, it is no surprise to me that many of us empathise with the woman who lost her personal style!

You can read about the woman who lost her personal style here.