Stitching Style Unveiling Your Personal Flair -
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Style and Strategy Podcast, where personal brand meets leadership and style. I'm Sonya, a personal brand and style coach who's been exactly where you are juggling career and business success. Personal growth and finding a style that truly fits. After decades in corporate leadership, I've learned that showing up isn't just about what you do, it's about how you align who you are and how the world sees you.
This season, I'm bringing you practical strategies, bold insights, and honest conversations to help you amplify your presence, unlock your next level, and lead with clarity and confidence. Let's dive in.
Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Style and Strategy Podcast. This week I'm sharing with you again behind the scenes of a masterclass that I did, , a little while back, [00:01:00] but I thought, given I get the same question a number of times around really being able to pair back and understand your current style and really how to think about.
What that gap might be , I thought you might enjoy this, playback and exercise. I really do hope, , it helps you with being able to really understand where your style is today and where you wanna go. Enjoy.
/ How many times have you got to that point and have put on that piece and thought, you know what, that fabric was so beautiful, but the style maybe doesn't quite work.
Or you've put it on and thought, I love it, but I don't, or it's potentially sitting in that wardrobe and you may have worn it once or twice, and yet it, it's, it still continues to sit there. Now if you have [00:02:00] experienced that at any point in time, there's potentially been some form of disconnect with your style.
So what's really grabbed your attention may have been either A, the fabric, and it's really resonated with you. B it may have been that you've got that fabric and yes, you really liked it, but then , the way it looked on that, on that model that you saw has again , actually, that doesn't quite match to how I thought it was gonna look when I put it on me.
And I guess I'm here to tell you that actually you are not alone in that. For anyone who starts to question their style a little bit and or if your style has evolved over time.
/ So around one in 10 women in a survey that was actually conducted by Closet Made actually said that they feel depressed when they open their closet and 47% [00:03:00] admit that they struggle to pick an outfit before heading to work.
And I guess out of this, what I want to really pull out of here is it's not that you might be feeling depressed around it or, you are struggling to pick an outfit. It's the theme of having something in your wardrobe that just may not be exactly what you wanted it to be in that, that you're not getting as much wear day in and day out as you would have expected.
A lot of, clients that I work with, one of their objective is to get more out of their wardrobe. So they wanna maximize them the amount of time that they can actually wear the pieces that they've got. And today we are going to open up that box a little bit more to say, then how do I get that connection?
How do I get to the point that this beautiful piece, that I can wear it again and again in so many different ways, and then [00:04:00] go off and be, feel really confident that when I go , when I select that, style, that it's gonna really suit me.
And so that really means that we have to go all the way back to fundamentals before you walk into the, store, or go look up the online and select them. , this is all about understanding your current style. And so before you consider that next outfit creation, I want you to think really deeply around five key questions.
And so the first piece is actually a question around how do you want to feel about your personal style? what is the aspiration around that? And I know everyone's really busy, and what you will find is potentially what's in your wardrobe, it's sitting there and you are actually on autopilot in terms of what you go to put on and or grab out of the wardrobe and then put on.
And because we're so busy doing that, that we don't actually [00:05:00] step back to go actually what, where do I want this to be in the future? and it might be things like, for example, I want my style to feel. When I walk out the door, I wanna feel confident, let's say, , or I do wanna feel, elevated or sophisticated it might be, or unique
so there might be a few words around that. So I really want you to write down maybe two to three words of what you want to feel about your personal style. And then once you've actually done that, the second question is, how do you actually feel about your current style? So we can be really clear about that vision.
Then we have to bring it back to, to really understand, how do I feel about it? And you might say, actually, I love my style. I'm feeling confident in it. I feel [00:06:00] inspired by it. I feel like it's simple, all of those things. But actually in some cases you'll find that you'll go, you know what, it probably isn't where I really wanted it to be.
And if I could change it or if I could get a future vision of something, then I would. And it's more trying to dig down to go, what are the words that you would actually use? So I think I gave an example there of you might feel uninspired by your style. You might feel bored, which is similar.
you might feel that. Your current style feels dated. So it doesn't represent who you are today. it's, maybe it's a version of you that you were, but actually you may have left that behind. And what you will find is , for many because we spent so much time, in athleisure wear, right?
So [00:07:00] don't get me wrong, I love a athleisure wear. I still do. but when we dressing in a particular way, there was this whole boom of smart, casual, business casual, that type of thing. And people were looking and thinking, I've got kind of dressy, I've got Casual, casual, but I don't know how to make it work in between. And being able to pull out some of those words around that is really important. So I wanna make sure that you take the time practically, if you are listening to the replay of that, of this as well, is to start to write these things down.
'cause until you get it down onto paper, it's not gonna happen. number three. So the third aspect that I want to, cover is I want you to then think about what are two to three outfits. It might be less than that, that you own, that you absolutely love to wear. And I want you to think about what is actually [00:08:00] working in this outfit fit, and why do I think it works and why do I love it?
Again, you might have, so if I use myself as an example, it might be that there is a dress in my wardrobe that actually every time I go pull it out, I know when I put it on, I feel like me. So I don't feel like when I put it on I've gotta take it off and go, nah, it doesn't feel right. that continuous cycle that's, I actually call this, spi, indecision spiral. But, you are effectively when you've got those pieces in your wardrobe that you put on, and when you put it on, you go, I just know I can walk out the door. It's gonna take me less time. And I feel like I want to feel that we talked about in number one.
So I want you to dig down and start to really think about that. Number four. Okay. What are the two to three pieces that you own that. [00:09:00] You never, ever wear and why. And so these could be some pieces that, might be some basics and things like that you've got, or it could be some of the statement , pieces that you've got.
So the question is really trying to identify which ones they are and then why you are not wearing it. And so again, as an example, what you might find is that you are not wearing it because either A, you feel like I've got nothing else to wear it with. B it might be it's a statement piece that you've got.
So you, you want to be able to wear it more, but you are not sure, how to actually wear it dressed up as dressed down as well. But I want you to identify those. So then you're starting to build this story, in a one pager. And then number five. When you've written all this information down, you will likely start to see some themes
so it might [00:10:00] be you part of the outfit that you love, and there's three of them. It's actually, there's three similar things about them that you love. It might be the design, it might be, the simplicity of it. It might be the way it fits you. And again, what is the theme that is coming through for the items that you don't like to wear?
, It might be to, it's not bright enough for you. I can, you feel, you don't feel alive in it. That, that, again, some examples around that. So that is really trying to give you a bit of color and thought around, where do I stand today? Because until we understand that. Where you wanna go, then you can't jump to that next stage to actually say, what is my style identity then?
'cause you really need to understand , where you are and where you [00:11:00] want to go. So when you've worked out those themes, the question I would be asking you is, how big is the gap? So you might go, wow, I'm saying I wanna look at this, but actually on this far away. And if you're that far away, it just means that once you get clear on what your style identity is, then as you evolve over time, your wardrobe, you will get closer and closer.
To that style. If you are already quite close to it, well done. that's awesome. Because that means , you're really on a journey of just refining from that point onwards.
