If you google ways to change up your style you will find hundreds of different blog posts with ideas or how to do it. Now I am not a fashion blogger so why am I going into this? Simple, I blog a bout confidence, and self-love, and a bit about health. My confidence must be at a high lately as I have been looking toward trying some different fashion pieces that are not my normal. Pattern pieces in general are not my normal but floral patterns even more so. When I tried them on I have to admit some looked good, also some did not. Now anyone who knows me in real life can tell you I am not a person who is normally into flowery pieces of clothing.
I felt like I fell into a rut/marketing scheme in how I was buying my clothes. I wanted clothing that I did not mind if it got stained or damaged at work. So, I started limiting my self to where I was buying clothing to ‘cheap’ stores. Now I phrase it that way because on the surface it would seem cheap, and when you get their clearance right it is. But that was not how I shopped in some of the items, some I think I did get clearance but not many and because of that I did end up spending what I would have spent in most department stores. The rut aspect is that I also was not wearing things that did not look good on my body and I got toa point where I did not think anything looked good on my body be it jeans or shirts. I have since discovered that is not true and am working on wearing the things that help me have confidence. Or rather I look in the mirror and like yeah, I look good. I am getting better and the successes I have had gave me the encouragement to keep looking and to keep trying.
Now a thing that did have a bearing on where I shopped for a while was money. Or at least in my mind they did, as I went by a reputation of a store for selling things cheaper but, they were just less quality. Going against the age old saying of you pay for what you get, sad to be honest. But the reputation of the store and my low income did push me that direction for a period of time for a few reasons, one the idea of buy clothes and that I could still afford to for some reason was appealing to me. Another reason was I did not want to put a lot of money into a wardrobe when I knew it was going to be destroyed due to my job on top of the fact that in general, I am hard on clothing. For those who are short on money though and wanting to play around with style do not underestimate thrift stores like Goodwill, or Value village. These are two well-known stores, and you will not spend a fortune on clothes and will have the option of being able to put things together differently. It was through thrift stores originally that I was able to play with skirts and discovered the style of skirt that I think is very flattering on me.So taking that into consideration, on top of that people like to play with their styles. I had to start changing my habits. This is not always an easy thing for people myself included in that. As a plus size person there where many things that I had to take into consideration the biggest being where I carry the majority of my weight. This did not stop the change, as I have talked about before you must take the type of fabric into consideration when looking at patterns which is what floral is. To work on changing this habit I have taken to wandering through Target and looking at what is available there. A different problem that I have run into is some things that I found that work for my body type that are no longer being carried in the store I found them, and I have yet to find them in other stores. I would guess no matter what size you are when something that you like and looks good is discontinued it is hard to find a good replacement.
Shopping can be one of the most tedious things for some people, and then when the types of things you wear are no longer it gets really discouraging really fast. Here in the United States the fashion industry has also slowly ben shrinking our clothes and the result has been making us feel bigger. There are so many videos across the internet about this, how a person who is say a size six in some clothing brands is a size 12 and others a size 4. Now this is not he same case in Europe but that is a different story. I feel like this inconsistency though is aimed to make us hate ourselves and I know for me can be a discouraging factor when shopping and makes the mental struggle of wanting to try something new in my wardrobe even harder. For those of us in the plus size world it gets even harder to try because there are times, we can guarantee that we will not be able to buy anything in the store. I have gone shopping with my sister, and she has asked why I am not looking at stuff and I have said it is because they have nothing, I will fit in. That is a hard thing to admit to, though I admit I still had a lot of fun just looking at the clothes. This inconsistency with sizing though makes it hard to want to try new things because of the fear of it not being able to fit or look good. Probably why there is a such a huge diet and weight loss industry.
While changing style or playing with style can affect your confidence especially when you get it wrong, it is not the end of the world. Trying things is a risk, sometimes it works out sometimes it does not. I have had many times in playing with my style that it does not work, for example skinny jeans. I have no confidence in them and maybe one day I will try them again. Right now though I have no confidence in them and as someone is who carries most of her weight in the top half of my body skinny jeans and leggings. Do not let other people halt you from trying something though. While we all like hearing how something looks good on you that is only part of it. How you feel is also a large part of this as well, and it may take some tweaking of trying it different ways before it works. If you feel like trying something new in your wardrobe, try it, see if you like it and then see what those who you trust to be honest with you think. But do not let anything stop you from just trying it.
Lemons or Lemonade 