May 2017 archive

Fantastical Beauty: Style Personality Exercises #1 and #2

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Kati has started posting videos on Fantastical Beauty and other style-related topics to her YouTube channel. Two of the videos she’s posted so far are Style Personality exercises:

Since I’ve been deeply involved in my style personality crisis, despite having my own workbook to help me, I decided to do these to help jog my thought process. (I’ve also started a new pinboard, but that’s private for now.) The first exercise is a series a questions about your preferences to help you see patterns. I’m copying my answers here.

1. Favorite movie
Sunset Boulevard,
Sabrina, and Bonjour Tristesse

2. Favorite Book
Harriet the Spy/The Long Secret

3. Favorite Song
Confetti by Cold Cave

4. Favorite Animal
Cats and dogs

5. Favorite Style Icon
Audrey Hepburn, Jean Seberg, Edie Sedgwick

6. Favorite Cake
Funfetti with vanilla icing

7. Three Words That Describe Your Personality
Smart, creative, bossy

8. Three to Five Words That Describe What You Want to Communicate
Edgy, fun, youthful, smart, stylish

Then you are supposed to go back and add some adjectives for each of your answers and look for patterns. What I found is that I had a heavy 50s and 60s influence, with a playful tomboy/gamine slant, but also just a little bit of edge and darkness, which goes along with what I’ve been thinking. In recent years, I’ve really concentrated on this edgy and dark side, and ignored my love for vintage Gamine style. In high school, my style was heavily influenced by this and I wore a lot of nods to the 60s, especially.

The next exercise is to create a Polyvore set of statement pieces: a coat, a pair of shoes, a pair of pants, a statement necklace, and a blouse. When I was thinking about it, I realized that I don’t really like statement necklaces that much, so I chose a cuff, and then the kind of blouse I like is hard to find, so I chose a coat that I could wear indoors as part of an outfit instead.

statement

I don’t know how successful this Polyvore is at conveying this style idea, but it’s a process.

Have you attempted these personality style exercises?

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Fantastical Beauty: Iris Subtype

Watching Bonjour Tristesse led to a shift in how I see my style that I haven’t really fully reconciled yet. In conversations with other people, I’ve realized that I’ve been going too hard in the yang direction, and ignoring my yin. I’m not a Dramatic. I need both, in almost equal amounts, and it’s important to keep that in mind.

I connect with the Jungian archetype of Creator, so I downloaded the Mermaid guide. Some of it appealed to me, but “fun and frothy yet elusive” didn’t really seem to get to the core of who I am. The FB 9, I think, are supposed to really address something deep inside you. Nymph did to a point, with the emphasis on acquiring and dissemninating knowledge, and for a while, I thought Woodland Puck was it. It was a punky version of Nymph. But I still struggled because it seems like that’s what I was doing all along, but there were still pieces that weren’t being addressed. When I started considering Mermaid, I figured that maybe Sea Puck would be it. I concentrated on thinking about Kibbe and DYT, and let Fantastical Beauty go for a while.

A couple of days ago, Kati put up a video, and I hope it becomes a series. In the video, she makes a cocktail and then discusses Angel and its subtypes. (If you’re just interested in the Angel stuff, skip to around 8:30):

I realized that for me, words are the center of what guides me. Writing, translating, communication. Iris, a bolder, more aggressive Angel, with an emphasis on carrying messages, is something that connects to me on a deep level. (Skip to 12:00 in the video for Kati’s description of Iris.)

Iris
(Source)

I’ve even been cast as Iris in a play before, in a rainbow minidress sprayed with glitter.

I see Iris as something that helps to iron out the things I’ve been struggling with, style identity-wise, over the past few months. It’s a reminder to me to address the dark and light, the yin and yang, and to not go too far in either direction, while also remaining myself.