What I Wore in September
Last month I started photographing my outfits daily (mostly) again.
I did this initially when I started my styling business—albeit not daily but relatively regularly. And then I stopped really for no reason in particular. But in working with clients—women in midlife who are navigating a lot of the same experiences but are each incredibly unique—and slightly evolving my own style, I’ve been reminded how helpful it can be to look at my outfits in a photo versus just looking in the mirror. It helps me see it differently than looking at it in real-time on my body in a mirror.
Looking back at my 30-something photos (because some days had outfit changes), it’s clear that beloved linen pieces from my closet got a lot of air time because September remained hot and humid in Austin. In particular, my J CREW white linen pants, which are by far the best white linen pants I’ve ever owned, were on repeat. They’re lined and not the least bit see-through, and they feel like the most comfortable pair of pajama pants. I also repeated a few linen tops from J CREW, my Universal Standard Iris linen pants and an old pair of Level 99 linen pants.
J CREW Soleil pants in linen and Universal Standard Iris Linen Easy Pull-On Pants are two I reach for often.
Non-linen pieces on repeat included my Clare V. When We All Vote t-shirt (because I’ve made it my mission to wear it weekly) (and by the way please make sure you are registered to vote), Madewell Stovepipe jeans, Universal Standard ComfortDenim jeans and Munro sandals.
Favorite jeans, favorite tee.
My repeated items weren’t terribly surprising—they’re all pieces I gravitate towards for various reasons. The one exception? My J CREW Factory white denim shorts. I wore them a handful of times in September and each time I more or less forced myself to wear them to help myself decide if they were okay or if I hated them as much as I thought I did. The verdict? I don’t like them. They have an A-line silhouette which typically works for my body but not in a denim short and not with this inseam. Seeing myself in them repeatedly helped me decide it was time for us to part ways. Am I kind of annoyed with myself because I just bought them this summer and thought I liked them? Yes. (Now I know what my child feels like when I force her to wear things she said she’d wear when I bought them but will not, in fact, wear.) But am I going to punish myself by forcing myself to wear them when I don’t feel good wearing them? No. I’m a busy 46-year-old woman navigating all the midlife things and that’s enough for me—I’m not gonna add these shorts to my daily battles. It may have taken me a lot of years to get to this place, but I don’t feel the least bit guilty freeing myself of a pair of shorts I don’t like and passing them onto a new home.
This is just one of the benefits of photographing your outfits regularly. You can take some time to study—if you will—the piece(s) and think about how you really feel about them and whether or not they belong in your closet.
I also wore a week’s worth of animal prints! At the end of the month—also known as the beginning of fall—I posed a style challenge to my Instagram followers: welcome the new season by wearing animal prints for a week. I dubbed the challenge Leopard & Beyond and shared daily prompts like, today we’re wearing animal print on the top half of our outfit, and so on. (By the way, if you aren’t following me, head over to Instagram and click the FOLLOW button, please and thank you.)
If you missed the memo, animal prints are said to be one of fall’s top trends and while I love animal prints of nearly all varieties, I struggle to think of them as a “trend.” Animal prints scratched their way into my closet years and years ago and they never left, and I know I’m not alone in that. I think of an animal print as a neutral more so than a trend, but I’m happy to see more people wearing them regardless. The challenge was fun and it got me in my closet pulling out my animal print pieces to see what I had to work with (turns out it was more than I remembered) as I’m a big proponent of wearing what’s in your closet versus buying new as much as you can. I pushed myself to be more creative and wear some of the pieces in different ways, like styling my favorite animal print dress as a skirt by topping it with a chambray shirt (as seen below at far right). As much as I hoped it to be inspiring for my followers, it also inspired me to be a little more creative and try new things. I loved the DM someone sent me that said, “I like the look, glad you posted this because I would never put those together.” And that, my friends, is what it’s all about.
A few favorites from my Leopard & Beyond challenge.
