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November 23, 2024

Seeing David Kibbe!

This post has been sitting in my drafts for a long time, and I keep on meaning to finish it. Re-reading it, I think that anything I have to add will be in follow-ups to my experience, as it’s already been a year and half! I hope this is helpful if you’re working on finding your Kibbe Image ID or considering going to see David and Susan.

After learning about Kibbe since 2014, I finally had the opportunity to see David and Susan in late spring 2023. It was an amazing experience, and I think that it happened at exactly the right time for me. If it had happened earlier, I’m not sure I would have been ready for what they had to tell me. But I have felt so settled ever since I learned my actual ID.

When we went to see David and Susan, they started with season. I went with my two Strictly Kibbe co-admins (highly recommend sharing the experience with supportive people!). We all got draped, and when it was my turn, I was happy to be draped an Autumn. I had been a little worried I would be a Summer, since that is what most people would assume from looking at me. But Autumn it was, and we were all the seasons we thought we were. At this point, David made a comment about how there were no surprises with the seasonal drapes, but there might be a surprise coming up. The three of us looked at each other and understood that this meant that one of us was not the Image ID we had come in thinking we were. I had a very strong feeling that I was the one who was something else, and I knew what that something else was.

The Image ID reveal process consisted of David drawing our line sketches and telling us what accommodations we had, our yin-yang balance, and finally, what ID we were. We went one at a time, and as I expected, my co-admins were what they thought they were. When it was my turn, he drew a sketch that looked exactly like the one I had drawn when I redid the exercises. I had width and curve, soft yang with a yin undercurrent, and I was a Soft Natural.

I think that if I had gone to Kibbe earlier, I would have been more attached to the Gamine idea. But I had gone through the exercises again the year before, saw the width and curve in myself, and had been able to read the Natural and Soft Natural sections with a more open mind, and even get excited about it. So I was fully ready to hear it—truth be told, it has always been at the back of my mind. Until I redid the exercises, I feared it because of how it was portrayed and the kind of draped, flowing image it had online, despite seeing plenty of actual Soft Natural clients who didn’t receive that kind of thing at all. But when I read the Natural chapter in combination with it, I could see how it would fit me. (David had actually thought I wasn’t an SN, which is why I didn’t stick with it, but I’ll get into that in a future post.)

David and Susan made sure to provide a lot of emotional support, although I think I was the least shocked out of the five of us that I was SN! It played out exactly as I wrote many years ago in a blog post:

“I do think it is worth thinking about the essence you put out into the world as well and how others see you. Related to what I mentioned above, however, I feel like I am mostly seen as a Gamine in the world. If someone compares me to a celebrity, it’s usually a gamine one, and I look very young for my age and seem shorter than I actually am. But, I think I am discovering, this does not mean that I am a Flamboyant Gamine or a Soft Gamine. It could be that when I find my correct Kibbe type, I won’t be seen as young and small, but as a woman of my own age with my full height and power.”

Now, if someone actually is a Gamine, that’s a very powerful, chic image for them. For me, I was consistently seen that way because I wasn’t tapping into my own power, and what I am is actually something very different. I am not even one of those “SNs with a Gamine essence” that I think is way overblown in terms of how common it is (and I wouldn’t say it’s essence per se, but rather an SN that looks best leaning into some styling usually associated with Gamines). I am simply a Soft Natural. And what I need to portray to the world is that I am powerful (David said I was a “fresh and sensual powerhouse,” instead of “lady”) and sexy, but also warm and fresh.

The next day, we went shopping. You can see some of what I bought here. For us, the shopping took place in a roped-off fitting room, with racks of clothes set up for each of us. When I first saw my rack, I wasn’t that excited about it. The first thing I tried on was a silky camisole and pants set, which was just not something I would ever wear. I don’t even like to wear actual pajamas—I wear sweats—and wearing something pajama-like didn’t feel right on my body. David swiftly picked up on what I felt comfortable with, and found pieces that were a little more substantial and closer to the body, and I got some great pieces. If you have the chance to go shopping with David and Susan, I would say to keep an open mind about trying new things, but I also wouldn’t just leave your own feelings about what feels good on you at the door. David was able to hone in on what would be the best version of SN for me.

Since leaving NYC, I will say that my transition into SN has been pretty seamless. A lot of what I already owned works, as I had always had fit issues around the upper arms, and I had generally assumed this was because of weight distribution, but now I know that this was actually my width. So even when I was going with SG because that’s what David had told me, everything was stretchy. But when I was actually able to consciously take my width into account, it was kind of like the extra room in my clothes gave me the space I needed to be myself. Accepting that I was a Natural was freeing. I could let get of things that felt too fussy for me, too boring—not just in clothing, but in life.

One thing I learned during this weekend with David and Susan is that we simply are our IDs. I think people generally want to look at the sections of the book that deal with what kind of career this ID has, or what kind of parties they throw, as just “casting” or how people see you. But it is more like you are born to be who you are. And it was absolutely uncanny to see how we all fit our Image IDs. Now, how far someone wants to go with their belief in this is up to them, and maybe it could be considered confirmation bias, but I do feel like understanding what it means to be a Natural is both helpful and healing for me.

Some might wonder how I was wrong about myself for so long, or think that I might be upset at David for telling me I was incorrect when I had gotten it right a year ago, but I feel like everything happened at the right time and in the right way. I think my experience will be helpful for other people in the community and contains some important lessons for others. But I will share what I think those things are in my next post.

February 17, 2024

Personal | 9 Comments

Back to Blogging

I haven’t posted since March of last year. The reason for this is that I decided that I wanted to follow the current of where online content has gone since I started my blog 10 years ago. I decided to pivot to YouTube.

I recorded some videos, but they sit on my hard drive, not on my channel. I finally realized a couple of days ago that video content just isn’t what I want to do right now. My goals with this blog have always been to share where I am and what I’m learning in order to both catalog it for myself and to help others where they are with their own journeys. It’s not to become a full-time influencer in the color and style space. Video takes a long time, and time isn’t something I have a lot of right now. I’ve also always been much more comfortable writing than speaking. So I finally decided that, despite the trend for video, I would simply go back to blogging and share that way.

A lot has happened since I last blogged—and I mean a LOT. I finally went to see David Kibbe (and Susan Slavin) in NYC! I went at the beginning of June last year, so I’ve been living in my Kibbe Image Identity ever since. I have so much to share with all of you about this experience, what it’s been like to live as my ID, how I feel about it, what I’ve learned… I also will get into some of my Tawny Spring and seasonal experiences as well, plus some hot takes. Please leave a comment below if there’s anything in particular you want me to cover, and I can’t wait to share all of this with you! (I also will get back into Personality Squared and create content for that.)

January 15, 2023

Kibbe's Metamorphosis, My Kibbe Journey, Personal | 5 Comments

A New Chapter in My Kibbe Journey, Part Two

In my last post, I mentioned that David had reached out to me and offered his guidance. Of course, I took him up on this generous offer! After some back and forth, he let me know that he could really only see two potential IDs for me based on my physicality: Soft Classic or Soft Gamine. And based on everything he knew about me, he thought that Soft Gamine would be the more likely of the two. Also, I definitely had Double Curve!

(Caveat: David doesn’t type people online. I would still have to see him in person for a 100% confirmation. And the best way to find your ID if you can’t make it to NYC is still to do the exercises in Strictly Kibbe. I’m not saying they didn’t work for me–they did get me to a place where I saw I was much more yin than I had wanted to admit to myself. David just saw that he could help me more directly.)

Once I started rereading the SG section, it made a lot of sense, both why I was a Soft Gamine and why I had yin resistance and wanted to be more yang. Soft Gamine has very yang energy, which is why I was so drawn to yang angularity, despite having a more rounded body and apple cheeks. This quote in the Soft Gamine makeover writeup in the book resonated with me:

Heidi was afflicted with what I’ve come to call the “Soft Gamine syndrome.” How does one integrate an outer physicality that clearly spells adorable, doll-like and bubbly, with an inner spirit that is filled with drive, spunk, energy and ambition?

I can see how I embody these contradictions. Even at 36, I feel like I still appear cute and youthful–but I am also known for having a strong personality and being very driven. I love this scene from The Golden Girls where Betty White flips from sweet and innocent to “don’t mess with me” in no time at all:

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is how when I first came across Kibbe, I believe that Soft Gamine was my first instinct. I do think that if someone just sits and reads the whole book, without looking at anything on Pinterest or asking people on various forums for their opinions or watching YouTube videos, most people will land in the right place. I had lived as myself for long enough to know, in my heart of hearts, that I didn’t really have the straight, more yang body of a Flamboyant Gamine. But the way Soft Gamine was portrayed on the Internet was so girly, so ingenue. It didn’t really feel like it was something I could inhabit and still honor my yang energy.

But I have a better understanding of what Soft Gamine actually can look like now that David is invovled in the community. I am still working on developing my personal Soft Gamine look, and it is a challenge in our current fashion times. It is hard to find clothes with a precise fit that have a lot of design details. I have started putting together a Pinterest board with looks from Soft Gamine celebrities. Right now, this look from Eartha Kitt feels like akin to what I could see my everyday style as being:

Eartha Kitt

I hope that the fact that I decided to revisit my assumed Kibbe Image Identity after eight years will help others give themselves permission to question and explore if where they have placed themselves doesn’t feel right. Here I was, eight years in, the co-founder of what is regarded as the official Kibbe community, helping other people on their journey–and I couldn’t type myself correctly?! I could have seen it as something that would undermine my credibility. But instead, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. It has helped others gain clarity on their own place in the system too.

What do I hope people take away from my experience?

It’s okay to be wrong.
I think every time I have mistyped myself in a system, it’s been what I needed at the time. I experienced it with typing myself as Type 4, and I think it’s the case here as well. I may have just needed that time leaning into my yang side in FG in order to be ready to accept my more yin side. And it doesn’t mean you were clueless about the system you’re working with–it can be easier to see others than to see yourself. True, there were things that David clarified that helped things fall into place for me, and I now am able to use this information to do a better job helping others, but having additional information now doesn’t mean that I wasn’t doing the best I could with the information I had.

Don’t let the sunk-cost fallacy keep you where you know you don’t belong.
Yes, you may have spent time, money, and energy on adapting your wardrobe and your mindset to a certain type. But if you know it’s not the right fit, don’t let those things keep you there and spend more time, money, and energy on the wrong things. You can start fresh. And as I said above, the past wasn’t a waste; it got you where you are today.

What is right may not be comfortable.
I think for a lot of us, there is a kind of contradiction inherent to our relationship to our Kibbe Image ID–it resonates, but it also dredges things up. I don’t really have much of the yin resistance that he outlines in the book, but for me it was more of a lack of attraction towards a more yin aesthetic in general. Yin was uncomfortable because I wasn’t sure how I could incorporate more yin and achieve a style that felt true to my inner self. I am still trying to work this out, and I’m even revisiting my stack in Personality Squared. Does Sporty, Edgy, and Playful still fit? I am finding myself being less attracted to yang than I was, knowing now that I need more yin in my style. It is definitely a work in progress.

And in the end, I could go see David and I could be a Soft Classic after all. But that would be okay too. It would just get me that much closer to where I want to be with the image I create for myself.

November 16, 2022

Kibbe's Metamorphosis, My Kibbe Journey, Personal | 8 Comments

A New Chapter in My Kibbe Journey, Part One

I’ve been writing about my own Kibbe journey on this website for a long time–I started it fairly shortly after I found David’s work. And throughout, I’ve never experienced that feeling of 100% certainty that I have it right.

I am very good at convincing myself that I see what I want to see. I did this with Type Four as well. And when I found Kibbe, there was really no good information about there. There was just the book, the way people interpreted the book, and people who had gone to see him. In the end, I went with where my inner self was telling me to go.

But I have never truly been able to claim FG with 100% confidence. It was just what I wanted to be. I was never one to share my outfits or anything like that. Maybe I didn’t want to give the chance to be proven wrong about myself. Maybe I knew deep down that I didn’t really fit the description.

But a couple of months ago, I finally felt like it was time to explore these doubts. A member of Strictly Kibbe shared her experience seeing David, and hearing the way she described her line made me realize that it was basically impossible for me to not have Curve in some way. My line would have to accommodate the curve from my bust pushing out fabric. I decided to redo the exercises, which I haven’t done since they were being written and posted in real time by David.

What came up for me during the exercises was that I had some serious yin resistance. I don’t think I have some yin-related issues or anything–I don’t relate to the kinds of things in the book about being seen as too sexy, or anything like that. Yin, and the aesthetics of yin, just had no appeal or resonance for me. It wasn’t something I was ever drawn to.

So when I got the sketch portion of the exercises, I first ended up with Width and Curve and decided to move to Soft Natural. This was still a yang space. It felt safe. It accommodated Curve, and yet it was still primarily yang. There was a relaxed simplicity of line that appealed to me. It wasn’t yin enough so as to trigger my yin resistance.

I got very excited about the prospect, in a way that I wasn’t excited about Soft Natural in the past. I watched a Jane Fonda movie or two.

But then David reached out to me and asked if I wanted some feedback, which is where I’ll end this. Stay tuned for part two!

February 20, 2021

Dressing Your Truth, Personal | 4 Comments

Dressing Your Truth: Getting Cluebombed, Part One

If you’re not familiar with Dressing Your Truth and aren’t a member of the Lifestyle Facebook group, getting “cluebombed” means Carol Tuttle comments on your post and confirms your type for you. You can’t request this; it’s something she does when she feels like it would help the person and they’re ready.

I’ve a long journey with Dressing Your Truth. It’s a system I discovered around the same time as Kibbe, so 2014. I initially typed myself as a Type 3 from watching the beginner’s videos and reading It’s Just My Nature. Facial typing is the determining factor when typing yourself, and I related to the T3 face description somewhat, like the lump of clay nose, but not really the parts like having textured skin or a lot of lines on my face. In fact, I look much younger than I am. But T3 seemed closest, so I went with it.

T4 was the type I related to in terms of personality. I knew I had to had some degree of introversion there, and I loved T4 colors and clothing. Your style preferences clue you in to your secondary, so I figured I was a 3/4. But I never truly settled into it. I didn’t want to dress T3. I was way more drawn to T4 patterns, for instance, and I’d buy items from the Dressing Your Truth store, and they’d just sit in the cellophane wrappers they came in. Even the earrings seemed too big for me!

I briefly considered whether I was a 3/1, because I did look youthful, but I couldn’t imagine myself in a type that was the highest movement on the planet, a double extrovert, and I didn’t feel particularly drawn to lightness in my clothing. I felt like a lot of what people wore in the T3 group just wouldn’t look good on me, and my face just didn’t seem to have the same strength and substance. Eventually, I decided that I must be a 4/1 who mistook herself for a T3, and then eventually I settled on 4/3, and it made sense that I had just flipped my primary and secondary. I thought maybe my inability to see a type strongly in my face maybe meant that I had rectangles and parallel lines, even though I had never thought of myself as having a symmetrical face. I thought maybe I took the idea of facial symmetry too literally, as a T4 would.

I was very happy to be a T4, and I enjoyed the discussion with other T4 women, although I felt that they got upset about a lot of things I don’t care about. I figured that boldness showed itself more strongly in me than being reflective and still. I was very happy living in T4 for about two years, as I completed a masters degree, and I did very well and I felt like people were seeing me for who I was–a bold, analytical person who was more introverted, but could also lead. I actually had a classmate give me feedback that they saw me as someone who saw the big picture and could perfect things.

But I didn’t really feel like I looked stunning in T4. Black didn’t do much for me. I gained something like 40 lbs. very quickly. Once I finished school, and I needed to start finding a job and entering the real world, I had a hard time finding motivation and energy.

I also started to want to dress in the Autumn palette again. While I had loved the T4 hues, they suddenly stopped being as appealing to me. And I noticed that I never decorated my house in them. I had seemed to want to surround myself with more of an Autumn palette as well. At first I thought I would stay with T4, but just have some Autumn outfits, but the difference was stark. I came alive in Autumn; I looked dull in the T4 colors.

I also looked at my movement, which is loud, substantial, and swift. I don’t talk a lot or very loudly, but you hear me move, and I am rough on things. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember. I watched videos with an open mind, like on the T3 women’s purse and how T3s express themselves, and I saw how obviously T3 I am.

I’m going to stop this story here, and talk about my cluebombing experience in the next post. Carol actually gave me both my primary and secondary types, so I’d love to hear your guesses!

October 26, 2020

Color, David Zyla, My Color Journey, Personal | 13 Comments

2020 Style Update: Zyla High Autumn

This post uses affiliate links.

This music video is a little strange, but the song fits where I am with my style right now.

Sometimes, we treat our style and season as if it’s going to last our whole lives. Often, though, it’s more of a stop along the way, rather than a lifelong thing.

I have noticed that I tend to change my style in some way when something major in my life changes. I started looking at Kibbe and Dressing Your Truth after I felt a shift in my life toward coming into my adult self, having my first real job, etc. I stayed in a kind of autumnal space until it just didn’t feel right anymore, and I went with 4/3 for the entirety of my time in grad school.

Now that I am done with grad school, and am working in my profession, I am again faced with my color palette feeling off. Flamboyant Gamine has been pretty constant, but wearing the T4 color palette no longer feels right to me. I know that these colors do not exist in my body, and it feels like at this point in my life, I would feel more self-assured wearing the colors that exist in me.

Wearing my season or body colors has always been something I’ve had resistance to, because I don’t get black, or neon, or many other colors that 4/3 “allowed” me to wear. For a long time, it felt like a compromise. But perhaps I’ve gotten it out of my system, because wearing the colors I loved now feels somewhat artificial.

Zyla is a system that I have been looking into for as long as I have been looking into Kibbe, Dressing Your Truth, and Sci\ART (which I no longer have faith in). But it was one where I felt like I didn’t have an archetype that felt “right” out of the box, meaning the description in the book. Zyla customizes the archetypes to the person, so some people end up with recommendations that vary greatly from what is in the book, and I’ve long felt that I would be one of those people. I couldn’t even narrow down my season apart from ruling out Summer.

But as I was thinking about it this weekend, something clicked for me. High Autumn is an archetype where other people have said that I come to mind when they read the description in the book. High Autumn is a direct, take-charge type, and that describes me pretty well.

When I was in Dark Autumn, it worked for me because it is the brightest Autumn available in Sci\ART. I do not really have the depth of Dark Autumn, though, so that was where I ran into trouble. I felt like I was a brighter Autumn. High Autumn, on the other hand, is based around the colors of Ancient Egypt. If you google this, this is one of the results that comes up:

Source

Indeed, I recognize many of these colors from Zyla’s High Autumn Pinterest board. In particular, the realgar color seems to be the classic High Autumn color, and one that actually many who know me in real life have referred to as my “signature” color. I also find all the colors in the top row in my eyes. I went hiking yesterday, and as I looked at the water, I wondered why I have been so resistant to my body colors:

Point Lobos, Carmel, CA. October 2020.

As odd as it may seem to use someone’s Ancient Egypt college project as my color palette, I think it seems like a suitable base for a wardrobe (apart from the black and white) until things open up again and I can make an appointment with Zyla. I will perhaps add an olive green and a honey brown as additional neutrals.

The bigger challenge, I think, will be making sure I retain my style personality with the new color palette. Black is an easy way to give an Edgy sensibility to your look, and without it, it can be easy to lose it at the Core of my palette. Sporty and Sophisticated should be much easier, but they’re also not my Core. I can see that this is where I had issues with the Autumn palette before–it could be difficult for me to retain my focus on expressing what I wanted with my style, and not just buying things in the right colors.

Another issue with this High Autumn approach is that there is so little information on High Autumn. David has his Pinterest board and his book, and I have seen some information from the handful of High Autumns in the community. But it’s not like, say, Tawny Spring, where there are a ton of people in the archetype within the online community, so there is a variety of versions of that archetype you can read about, and see where you resonate in terms of style.

I have created my own Pinterest board, using some of Zyla’s High Autumn pins, some other High Autumn pins on Pinterest, and some of my own.

How my style will work with this new palette, and how to bring out the special qualities of High Autumn, are something I’m going to be working out as I plan new outfits over these next few months. It is definitely a new stage in my style evolution, and I’m excited to share it with you!

Note: I know it has been a while since I have worked on some of my other projects, like putting a new video on my YouTube channel, finishing my next Cheat Sheet, or continuing my series on The Looks Men Love. The changes that led to the change in my style have also made it harder for me to work on these projects that take a lot of time and energy, but I hope that as things settle and I adjust that I will be able to pick them back up. So don’t worry; I haven’t abandoned anything. 🙂

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August 14, 2020

Personal, Personality Squared | 2 Comments

Outfits That Feel Wrong

A few years ago, I saw the movie Bonjour Tristesse. I fell in love with Jean Seberg’s outfits in that movie. It inspired my aesthetic for some time.

I loved a lot of her looks in the movie, but this chic Givenchy dress occupied a special place in my fashion dreams:

So back in 2018, I had a special occasion to go to, and I found a dress by Gal Meets Glam that was clearly modeled on it:

When I found it, I was so excited. Having a dress that was at least somewhat a facsimile of the original seemed almost too good to be true. The skirt was different, and the fabric and color were as well, but the part that I really loved–the chic, geometric bodice–was there.

When I wore it, however, I just didn’t feeling like myself. I paired it with a pearl bracelet, and while the outfit worked together, I felt separate from it. At the time, I wondered if I was just a little old for the look (I was 31 at the time).

But what I should have done is take my own advice. At the time, I had created my own archetype, Grown-up Punk, based on the style statement exercise in my old workbook. There is nothing about this look that says “Grown-up Punk,” no matter how much it appeals to me on paper. I have since further developed this exercise into Personality Squared, and now I really understand why it felt off–and it has nothing to do with my age.

My Personality Squared combination is Sophisticated-Sporty-Edgy. I could see an argument for the clean lines of the dress being Sporty, but otherwise, the fabric, print, and bow detail are all Pretty, and the design line is perhaps more Playful. Playful is not something I’m opposed to as long as the Sophisticated-Sporty-Edgy combo is still coming through, since when I was younger my combination was Playful-Sporty-Edgy, but I have to be careful with it if I want to feel like myself. In this dress, I just felt like I was trying to be someone I’m not.

What would a dress that felt more like me look like? I think the original Givenchy dress would have worked a lot better. The black would have made it more Edgy, as opposed to the very Pretty color and style of the one I have. The skirt also made more of a statement, so even though there is still a Playful element to the design line, I think that it is also a design line that speaks to my FG clothing needs, and it would look chic on me.

But there is another dress that has occupied a place in my mind for many years, and it’s this Prabal Gurung dress Diane Kruger wore:

Now that I have identified myself as Sophisticated-Sporty-Edgy, I see exactly why I love this dress so much. The bold color choices work for both Sophisticated and Sporty, the clean lines are Sporty, and the overall design is Sophisticated. Edgy comes through in the black, but I could add more of an Edgy quality with accessories featuring studs, for example.

There was a time on this blog where I was exploring my style and trying to make myself fit into the style types I had decided suited my physicality, rather than looking at what I actually liked to wear and felt like myself in. I knew why things felt off for me from a Flamboyant Gamine perspective, and why, once I went with 4/3 instead of 3/4, from a Dressing Your Truth perspective, but now I also understand from the perspective of my inner world, and what feels like “me.”

You can find out more about Personality Squared and purchase the workbook here, and I’ve also started a YouTube channel. You can also find me on Facebook and on Instagram @stylesyntax.

February 8, 2020

My Color Journey, Personal | 4 Comments

Color Resistance: Summer

When I first discovered 12-season analysis and saw the palettes, I figured I would end up in Light Summer. This wasn’t something I was happy about. More than to my Image ID, I have always felt a kind of resistance to my own coloring. I am a more intense, bold person. The cool-toned pastels and grayed colors frequently given to Summer, especially in 12 seasons, felt completely at odds with my identity.

A lot of people have been going to see David Kibbe in New York recently, and one thing I’ve noticed is that there have been quite people who were told they are warm online end up in Summer. I have been told I’m either Bright Spring or Gentle Autumn, and while I could still end up one of these two seasons, more and more, I feel like Dusty Summer would be the most likely for me.

If you look at my childhood pictures, I think the truth of my coloring is undeniable. I had very light hair and very fair skin. In the photo above, I’m on my way to kindergarten, after spending summer outside in the pool. That is as “tan” as I get. My mother, who has a very finely tuned sense for color and design, also always dressed me in Summer colors, and herself in Spring. Sometimes it was pastel like the picture above; sometimes it was red and navy, or deep plum.

My skin is pretty translucent/reflective, so few colors are terrible… except for Spring colors, as you can see in my Color DIY series. I tried very, very hard to be everything I was not: warm and dark. This, I think, is the inherent danger with the way Sci\ART works now, where you can be basically whatever since you’re looking at how colors react with the skin in isolation. There is really no way you can look at the little girl in the photo above and go, “Ah, yes, this little girl will grow up to be deep and warm.” Even though my hair color has gotten darker over the years to a now medium/dark ash blonde, no one would ever look at me and reach for warm and deep colors.

Compounding the issue is that I am not obviously cool or warm to look at it. I don’t wear pink foundation like some of my fair and cool friends. My hair is also not obviously ashy. My eyes have some yellow in them. Within my family, though, I think that my mother is the Bright Spring and my older brother is the Gentle Autumn that David believes I am between. I have always seen that I am cooler than they are, and that I just had a completely different quality to my coloring. My brother is smokier, (relatively) deeper, and warmer, and my mother is brighter, clearer, and warmer.

Living my T4 truth has helped me gain an appreciation for cool colors. I now wear a lot of red, fuchsia, blue, and green. There is a fair amount of crossover in David’s system between Summer and Winter.

This is Color Me Beautiful’s palette, not the one David uses, but it’s as close as I can get. There are certain colors that just will never appeal to me, like mauve, but that’s okay. Mauve makes no sense with who I am as a person. But within my T4 boldness, I think cool colors are something I am going to continue to explore.

January 13, 2020

Personal | 5 Comments

Banana Republic Style Passport Review

This post includes affiliate links.

As I’ve written about before, my style word of the year is “Professional.” My aim was to develop my personal style at a higher level of dress than casual. An obstacle toward me achieving that goal, besides being a broke grad student, is that I am also actively working on losing weight, and I didn’t want to invest in clothing, only to be a different size shortly thereafter. I’m also just not a thrifter, and when you go cheap, you usually sacrifice quality, and this tends to be especially apparent to me in professional wear. But I really need these kinds of clothes, because not only is dressing more professionally my style resolution, but I also go to professional events, and my industry is very small so I can’t just wear the same thing all the time,. Plus, I will start going on interviews soon.

Enter Banana Republic Style Passport. I randomly got an email offering a free 30-day trial of the service. Basically, you choose from a selection of clothing, and they’ll send you three items at a time, for $85 a month. That’s cheaper than most full-price items than Banana Republic. If you want to keep an item, you get a discount. I’ve never tried out anything similar before, but I felt like it seemed perfect for my needs, because Banana Republic has a ton of clothes suitable for a 4/3 FG. So here is how it’s worked out for me.

Before I start, there is one major caveat with this service: Right now, it only carries sizes 0-14/XS-XL. If you fall outside of that–if you need plus size or petite–you are out of luck. This isn’t a problem for me outside of pants, and I can sometimes get away with it, depending on the pant, but if I were actually buying pants from Banana Republic at full price, I would definitely want petite. I hope that petite and plus sizes are something that is added to this service in the future.

So how it works is that you can choose an unlimited number of items from the site to put in your virtual closet, and they will choose three items to ship to you. They suggest at least 20 to ensure that you don’t have delays in getting your box. You can select certain items as your priority items, and they’ll try to put those items in your box.

My closet

I selected three priority items before my first box was sent: Modern Sloan Skinny Fit Pants in black in two sizes, and the Sweater Blazer in black (currently only available in Petite on the Banana Republic website). These were pieces that I felt could be basics for me, if the price for purchasing them were right, and I wasn’t sure what size to get in the pants.

For my first box, which shipped Friday evening after I put together my closet in the wee hours of the morning on Thursday, I ended up with the pants in the smaller size I had selected and the blazer, plus the Merino Ribbed Sweater in Neon Fuchsia Purple. My box was delivered today, on Sunday afternoon, via Priority Mail.

How it comes

How the clothes are packed

My items

You don’t find out what the discounted price would be until the box ships, but the pants are $22 as opposed to $89.50 (and the smaller size is the right size for me) and the blazer is $34.50 instead of $139, which to me are worth it for basics that can really get me through the next few months and can be worn with other items. At $47.50, though, I’ll wear the sweater and send it back. You can’t just send the items back one at a time, however. You have to send back all the items you aren’t going to purchase at once before your next box can ship. (They include a prepaid mailer.)

So overall, I’m very pleased with this service. It will definitely be useful for me for these next few months, and maybe beyond. I do have a referral link, which will give you $20 off your first month, and I will get the same amount in a credit toward my own account, if you think this is something that could work for you too. (This post was not sponsored, though!) I just hope they expand it to petite and plus sizes, as I mentioned.

Have you tried any similar subscription services? Did it work for you?

January 9, 2020

Personal | 3 Comments

2020 Style Resolution

As we enter a new year and a new decade, it’s only natural to think of a New Year’s Resolution. I’m not much of a New Year’s Resolution person, because as a Type Four, I always have a lot of goals for perfecting various aspects of my life. What I have done for now three years is come up with a word of the year. I had “growth,” “cultivate,” and now “bloom” (for some reason, I like a good plant metaphor).

But I wanted to pick a different word for my style. In Lifestyle, the DYT team published an article encouraging us to pick a Style Word of the Year. As I thought about what I really wanted to accomplish with my style this year, the word that came to mind is “professional.” I’m graduating and entering the job market in May, and I am finally starting my professional career in the United States in earnest. As a grad student, I mainly wear jeans and a hoodie most days, but even if I end up in a casual workplace, that’s not really the image I want to present. I want to be capable, stylish, and yes, professional.

But it is very important to me is making sure that I still feel comfortable and like myself. I don’t want to just wear a business suit off the rack and call it a day. I want a professional style that still expresses who I am and doesn’t feel like something I wouldn’t ever want to wear on my days off.

I have come up with a basic outfit formula that I think I will feel comfortable in as a starting point. This basic outfit is: ankle-length slim trousers + top that is not a button-down and a cropped jacket without any rounded shapes OR a sweater + flats + statement earrings.

This will be the starting point of my professional wardrobe. Wearing a variation on the same basic theme may sound dull to some of you, but I’m a Type Four, and I like consistency. I’m researching options for myself to make it happen, as I’m in the complicated position of also actively trying to lose weight, and so I don’t really want to invest in new clothes every time my size changes. I will hopefully keep you updated on how it goes through the year!

Did you make a style resolution/word of the year for 2020?

Edited 1/20/20: Carol actually posted a video on this on YouTube that is open to all. I suggest watching it!

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