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Archive of ‘Dressing Your Truth’ category

Dressing Your Truth | 18 Comments

Dressing Your Truth: Getting Cluebombed, Part Two

In my last post, I briefly went through my history with Dressing Your Truth, and I’ll pick up from where I left off.

So I recognized that I was actually a T3, and figured, again, that I had gotten my primary and secondary reversed, and I was a 3/4, like I had originally thought back in 2014. But again, I was faced with it not feeling quite right. I wasn’t as formal as 3/4s seemed to be. My facial features seemed to be less strong. I have a degree of cuteness and youthfulness. I realized, as I dressed T3, that there was a kind of disconnect between how I think I dress, and how I actually dress. While I may not wear the outfits that Anna K (the 3/1 expert) wears, the reason behind why she wears what she wears started to resonate with me. I like graphic tees, stuff swiped from the kids’ section, and a more young, casual look. I look best in a degree of animation. I can wear a lot of things other people can’t–I am a Flamboyant Gamine, after all!

But again, I was stymied by the fact that 3/1 is a double extrovert energy. I wouldn’t say I was obviously high movement as a child. I spent a lot of time doing quiet, solitary activities, and while I may move loudly, I wasn’t talkative or especially active compared to others; in fact, it was the opposite. And as an adult, I love reading and writing and getting deep into topics. These are things that had put me on the path to T4.

Then Carol did a Coaching Call with the 1/3 expert, Jeny, and Anna K. I don’t want to get too into what they said, since it’s only for Lifestyle members, but it made me realize that if you’re one of these types, you might not realize how high your energy is when you aren’t aware of how high it is, and you might have stifled yourself. I decided to try 3/1, and posted in Lifestyle asking if anyone else was a 3/1 or 1/3 who didn’t recognize their high energy, and I added some photos of myself. I got some great responses from other people of these energy types who felt the same way.

Eventually, it was closed and I got in touch with Support, who offered me a Truthbomb. A Truthbomb is where, instead of Carol randomly leaving a comment, it’s a structured experience where you are asked to post on a specific date and people are asked to guess your type based on facial profiling. I accepted the offer to join the queue for this, but then Carol reopened my thread and commented on my type.

Carol confirmed that I am a 3/1.

My reaction to this was to cry for about 15 seconds, and then I made a joke on Facebook about the Eagles’ new head coach. I saw my secondary 1 come into play there with connect/disconnect. In fact, that’s a way I see it a lot. You can even see on this blog, where I start a bunch of projects and then get bored and pick them up again two years later.

I can see that while I may not be the most social or visibly active person, I like to keep busy. I am involved in a ton of different things, from work to volunteering to admining the SK groups to creating an entire side business with Personality Squared. If I’m watching TV, I have a game open on my phone. I need some degree of movement around me or it’s hard for me to concentrate (aka I’m messy). It shows up in ways that aren’t as obvious as what you might think of when you think of a 3/1 person, but I can see that it’s there now.

Just a note about figuring out your secondary: the recommended way is through your style preferences. Carol can generally see it in your face as well, but it’s not recommended to use facial profiling to figure it out, because people get confused enough looking for their primaries! I can see that there are facial similarities among people of the same secondary, i.e., I can see that the fact that I have a more cute and youthful look compared to other T3s points toward S1. But again, it’s not recommended to do it this way!

In my next post, I’m going to talk about how this has affected how I see my style going forward. If you have any questions about my experience, please leave a comment. 🙂 There is probably a lot of stuff I’m leaving out!

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!

Color, Dressing Your Truth, Personal | 8 Comments

Why Style and Color Matter

As a follow up to my last post, I thought I’d share a little bit of my own story and how it has affected my color and style philosophy. As I mentioned, it has changed over the years to reflect feeling authentic, versus following what is supposed to be objectively best for you. And this is why.

Two and a half years ago, I changed my life completely. I moved across the world with no real plan. I spent a year figuring it out, and in that time, I also realized that what I had thought I had been—a Dark Autumn 3/4–was wrong. I felt resigned to my clothing choices, and I longed for things like neon colors and black. I rarely felt like I was presenting my true self. I thought that this discomfort was due to not living my truth, and that I needed to extrovert more.

I now realize that if I were actually a 3/4, going through life head first would just be my natural state of being. I wouldn’t have to force it. And my clothes would support me in that, rather than just feeling like something I had been sentenced to.

Realizing that I’m a 4/3, abandoning Autumn altogether, and allowing myself the clothes that make me happy has changed my life. I have a clear vision of where I want to go with my career and the rest of my life… and I know what the outfits will look like, and how I can dress for any occasion and still feel like myself. I know how to take care of my strong, “slice-and-dice” energy that still needs to go within first. Being able to take care of myself means that I have been able to be successful in the things that are important to me, and going by season was actually a roadblock to me doing so.

Sometimes your result from a “scientific” process just isn’t the best for you. In my draping photos, for instance, optic white is awful. But then in candid photos, with all the T4 elements in place, I don’t see those same effects. I see me, as I want to be, and those effects just aren’t there. I think we all need to consider any kind of analysis, even DIY, very carefully, and whether a) it works as a part of a whole, and b) whether it feels right to us.

Have you also abandoned seasonal color, or do you still feel like it works for you?

Dressing Your Truth, Kibbe's Metamorphosis, My Color Journey, My Kibbe Journey | 12 Comments

Combining Kibbe and Dressing Your Truth

I’ve never been someone who looks at one style system at a time. I have always worked with multiple style systems. My approach to doing so has evolved over the years. In my systematic way, I used to think that you can just write out a list of recommendations for each, and see where they differ and where they overlap. I no longer endorse this approach. This is partially because I now know that “recommendations” aren’t the correct way to go about using David’s work, and partially because I am interested in a cohesive look, and I feel that picking some elements, but not others, could result in something that just looks like a mishmash. I plan to go more in depth in my new workbook, but until then, I will share how I combine the two systems I use in my daily life: Kibbe and DYT.

Color

Color is easy: I stick to Type 4 colors. As I’ve said before, I feel the most like myself in these colors. I deeply appreciate David’s feedback, and maybe if I saw him in NYC and he could style me, I could see how Bright Spring or Gentle Autumn could be me, too. I don’t think mixing multiple palettes in one outfit works, and while I thought that perhaps I would have entirely Spring or Autumn head-to-toes, it just doesn’t appeal to me and I don’t seem to ever do it.

Style

Style I would describe as Flamboyant Gamine being a kind of operating system or framework running underneath, almost subconsciously, in a way. From knowing that I’m FG, I know where my star power lies. I know which clothes will accommodate my particular body, and what is best left to someone else. DYT I can use in a more concrete way, with the particular patterns, textures, etc. that go along with it, and how to balance something that maybe isn’t 100% T4 (although it always is in color!). I don’t carry around a list of recommendations. I can look at things and determine whether, when paired together, an outfit will meet both the requirements of juxtaposed yin and yang with more yang (Kibbe FG) and yin-yang-yang-yang (DYT 4/3). When used together, even in my casual days (which, as a grad student, most are), I am able to feel 100% myself and confident in my choices.

Is It Easy?

For me, it is very easy to make the two work together. My personal T4 style keywords are “Bold, Structured, and Edgy,” and it’s easy to see how FG would fit into that (although of course you could be an entirely different Image ID and those keywords would still work for you!). But sometimes, the options you get from different systems don’t really seem to coalesce. In my case, that would be the season/color palette aspect. I’m sure there are colors on the Spring and Autumn palettes that would fit into T4, but I wouldn’t get my black and white. Trying to satisfy both would leave me with very limited options. In that case, I just had to make an executive decision in terms of which I would choose.

What has been your experience with trying to merge different style systems into one wardrobe?

Dressing Your Truth, Kibbe's Metamorphosis, Style Systems | 9 Comments

How to End Doubt

Even when we settle into a type, we can still experience doubt. I encounter this sometimes–the question of whether you’re enough for a type can remain, even when you have lived in it for years. I feel this both with FG and with 4/3.

I think it’s important to understand the reasons why you feel doubt, and there are several different kinds of doubt.

1. Old stuff is popping up.

This is the one that comes up the most for me with 4/3. This is the “self-doubt” portion of doubt. I think especially when you love the type, you can have a hard time believing you’re good enough for it. This was the case for both T4 and FG, because if I could choose any types to be in their respective systems, it would be these. And I had a belief running that I just couldn’t be what I wanted to be. I also felt that I just couldn’t be T4, because I was…

2. Misinterpreting the information.

I had problems seeing myself as a T4 for the same reasons a lot of T4s do: when Carol says “symmetrical,” in our black-and-white way, we interpret it as something that you can measure by calipers, and if one little thing is off, we don’t qualify. A T4 might try to see how well their face fits the Golden Ratio… but these are not things Carol actually teaches. Symmetry seems to mean more something more like not having a crooked smile (I recommend the face profiling videos on her YouTube channel). But that is just not the way a T4 would think when they hear “symmetry.” Similarly, you can have issues if you are…

3. Going by other people’s definitions.

There are two ways this can occur:
a) You are in a community with other self-typed people, and you compare yourselves to them. This happened to me with FG. I was in the FG group, before Kibbe joined the Facebook community, and all of the FGs were much more yang than I was, because the impression of FG at the time was that it was a “small Dramatic” or a “small Flamboyant Natural,” rather than its own thing and that small Ds and FNs are just… Ds and FNs. So my idea of FG was not that it was a pretty equal split between yin and yang and just a little more yang, even though I knew that intellectually from reading the book. So while I felt like FG was the best place for me, it was hard for me to see how I fit with the other women in this group. And part of the reason for this was due to other people…

4. Listening to other sources.

This is the second way that you end up using someone else’s definition.
b) Kibbe imitators are truly a dime a dozen on the internet. Where there once were “analysts” peddling their Kibbe misinformation, now it’s people on YouTube. I don’t see it as much with other systems, but it still exists–for instance, in unauthorized DYT groups. If you go through the materials provided by the system creator, and then the groupthink you find in communities seems to contradict what you’ve learned from the source–don’t worry about it. Trust your own instincts and interpretation. Don’t let people making a fast buck off of Kibbe or anyone else by charging people hundreds of dollars by doing the quiz from the book (or the equivalent) lead you astray. Don’t pay any attention to what they say, because I can tell you, I have never seen anyone who actually gets it right. And neither has David, as he says on his brand-new website!

Solutions

What should you do? Once you’ve figured out why you have doubt, it’s time to look into solutions.

1. Think of the ways you clearly are the type you think you are.

Sometimes I wonder if I was correct in flipping my primary and secondary type… but I know that T3s cannot wear their hair as short as I do. Also, T3 is just too much movement on me. I never fully dressed it because I knew it wouldn’t look good. Also, you’re not meant to fit 100% of your type’s description. It’s okay to have a heavier foot plant as a 4/3, for example. It doesn’t outweigh everything else.

2. Ignore bad sources.

Just don’t pay attention to people who don’t know what they’re talking about, and don’t let them get into their head. If what they are saying contradicts what the creator of a system is saying… definitely don’t listen to them. Don’t let other people get inside your head.

3. If you’ve gotten feedback from the system creator, remember it.

I have been fortunate enough to have gotten feedback from both David and Carol that seems to confirm my own thoughts about myself. It is a good reminder that I am on the right track.

Sometimes, though, your doubts are correct. I could sense that T3 was wrong for me, for example. If your process is being guided by learning more about the system or seeing yourself more clearly, this is something worth exploring.

If your doubts are coming from outside sources, however, I would say trust yourself. In the end, you will end up in the correct place for you if you stick with any of these systems. And if you are wrong for a time, that is just part of your learning process.

Do you doubt your typing in a system? How do you deal with it?

David Zyla, Dressing Your Truth, Kibbe's Metamorphosis | 28 Comments

Which System Is Right for You?

This post uses affiliate links.

Not only are systems based on different criteria, but they also provide you with different things. Sometimes, people take issue with systems because they are looking for something a particular system doesn’t provide.

I’m only going to be talking about the Big Three here: Kibbe, Dressing Your Truth, and Zyla. There are other systems out there, but these are the ones I focus on in this blog. (I am also interested in Fantastical Beauty, but it’s newer and I’m not quite sure how it fits.)

So I’m going to go over what I see these systems providing their users/clients/customers, and the pros and cons. These are based on my own experiences and observations, having been an active participant in online communities focusing on these groups and knowing people who have received services from all three providers.

1. David Kibbe’s Metamorphosis

If you read the book, David talks about creating the “total look,” i.e., the image that a studio would come up with for a star, back in the day (which is why contemporary celebrities aren’t that great for inspiration in this system–they don’t really do this in the same way anymore):

Legions of artists were employed to create the special and specific image of the star that would identify each star to the public…By viewing an image that was based one each star’s special and unique essence, the audience was able to easily identify and understand the star in a complete and unconscious way…This is as important for you as it is for any Hollywood movie star! A large part of your success in life…is predicated on how effectively you are able to communicate your unique identity to others…Discovering your Image Identity is the first step, for it allows to utilize everything you are–both physically and innately–so that you can integrate your essential uniqueness into your own total look.

David Kibbe, Metamorphosis, pp. 6-7

So as you can see, his intentions are very high concept. It is not simply, “look a little better and have an easier time getting dressed.” It is meant to enable you to become the star of the motion picture that is Your Life. If you see something on the internet along the lines of, “Capsule Summer Wardrobe for the Soft Dramatic Body Type!,” this person has missed the point completely. I am pretty sure David Kibbe is allergic to capsule wardrobes. You need to have separate, fabulous outfits for all of your fabulous occasions. It is not “How to Dress for Your Body.” I think this misconception exists because the parts of the book that made it online were sections like the quiz and the recommendations that are in the book. The more theoretical side of David’s work did not make it.

David’s work is meant to bring your life to a higher level by enabling you to move through the world as a STAR. He is not thinking about how you can look a little more pulled together when you’re making your Target run (although you can be, as a result of following his work). He is thinking about your receiving an award on stage, in recognition of your fabulousness. If you’re not looking for anything except maybe which skirt shape is most flattering on you, it’s probably not the system for you.

It is perhaps the most intensive in terms of “workload.” You not only have to break through seeing yourself for who you are, but but you basically have to relearn how to think about clothing. Especially with the changes in fashion in recent decades, it is a very different way to approach dressing. I have seen absolutely amazing results from friends who have stuck with it, though, even without going to see him in person.

Cost: Going to see him in NYC is very expensive. David, however, is an active participant in Facebook groups and has come up with a series of exercises to help you land on your Image ID, and he will give advice to people as well–all for free.

It’s the system for you if: You’ve ever watched an old movie on TCM and wanted Edith Head to design you an outfit for each scene of your life.

2. David Zyla

David Zyla is fairly similar. He gives you your unique version of an Archetype, and your unique color palette. Both Davids come from working with actors, so to me, the idea of what your starring role would be figures prominently in both.

Zyla gives much more concrete advice. (It is not that Kibbe doesn’t; but it’s more like an idea with limitless possibilities, whereas the advice Zyla gives is very specific.) Your colors are going to exact matches when you buy items with them out in the wild and his recommendations are very specific. He has additional services, such as an extended color palette and the Ultimate Styling Session, where he sketches outfits for you based on a specific need or event (some people do this with him multiple times). He will go shopping with you and consult with you on interior decoration, and more.

There are some people who go and work with Zyla many, many times. Some people can only ever afford the initial consultation. I know people who love what they got and I know people who don’t. The biggest problem I see is that he gets so specific that people aren’t sure what to do when they see something they like, but it isn’t something that they have gotten a definite “yes” or “no” from Zyla about. Some people seem to love what they have for quite some time, and then feel the need to go outside of it.

If you want very clear recommendations and a tight color palette, I think Zyla would be a great stylist to go to. It seems to be the most difficult to DIY to me, even with a book. It is just so much about his vision for you.

Cost: The initial consult is under a thousand, and the subsequent services vary. He travels, both in the U.S. and in Europe. He has a book (still in print, so much cheaper than Kibbe’s!), and while the book has a DIY process and I have seen people get close, it can’t give you the custom look seeing him in person does.

It’s the system for you if: you want a vision of yourself from an Emmy-winning stylist, and could potentially pay for several sessions to really develop your style with him.

Dressing Your Truth

Dressing Your Truth is the one I would recommend most to people who just want to look more pulled together, and can’t either dedicate a ton of time or drop a large sum of cash at once. If you want to introduce your friends and family to something, this would be it. Carol’s system is definitely meant for busy people with practical needs. You can send someone the new Beginner’s Guide and they would be well on their way.

Dressing Your Truth also has a ton of content to help you in their Lifestyle program. They release new content pieces almost every weekday, and I find them fun to watch. If you want to put together a capsule wardrobe with items you can mix and match, this is definitely the system I would choose. It is easily the most accessible of the three. Once you’re a Lifestyle member, there are a ton of informative content pieces on helping you develop your style, and there are two shopping guides posted per type per week in their StyleInspire feature.

In addition, the style work is just part of it, and there is a lot of personal development content that is also valuable, in my opinion.

Cost: The Beginner’s Course is free, Lifestyle is $12.95/month or $7.95 if you pay a whole year, and the style kit is $99 when it’s not sale, but it frequently is.

It’s the system for you if: You want to look better and more pulled together and have a capsule wardrobe, clear guidelines, accessible information, etc. You are interested in personal development systems like MBTI or Enneagram.

What I Use

I don’t use Zyla, because I haven’t seen him. I use a combination of Kibbe and DYT. Flamboyant Gamine always figures prominently in my mind, because it just is what I am. I don’t use a list of recommendations (he doesn’t anymore either!), but I have a general idea of how to work with my yin/yang balance, both how Kibbe means it and how Carol means it (they both use this terminology, but in different ways). I use my DYT T4 color palette exclusively now, but otherwise I find that they can inform one another and my outfits are all both FG and 4/3.

Which system(s) do you use? Do you find that what I have written above to be true, in your experience?

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Dressing Your Truth, Personal | 8 Comments

Five Signs Type Three Was Wrong

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I mistyped myself for about five years. While it took me a long time, there were signs all along that Type Three was wrong.

1. I didn’t like the clothes.

The idea of doing the 30-day challenge didn’t appeal to me at all. I was never inspired by the OOTDs in the T3 Facebook group. The only T3 pattern I liked was leopard. I ordered a handful of things from the DYT store, back when they still sold clothing and accessories, and none of the clothing ever made it out of the bag. The jewelry didn’t fare much better, and a lot of time, it was literally too big for my ears, especially stud earrings. I didn’t know it was possible for jewelry to not fit, but it happened.

2. I felt like I looked different from other T3s.

I always felt like there was just something different in the way I looked. I could see some T3 features, like the lump of clay nose, but the overall quality of my bone structure and skin seemed different. I thought maybe finding my secondary would help, but I didn’t look like the 3/4s and I couldn’t see myself being 3/1 and being the highest energy on the planet.

3. I never felt shamed for what I saw as my T3 qualities.

When I read The Child Whisperer, I thought that I must have been raised very true to my nature, because I related to nothing regarding shaming of a T3 child. (The T4 child? Very much so).

4. I was not a T3 child.

Going from that, when I was very, very young, I barely moved. I sat in a chair and observed the world. I had no need to be physical in the world. I preferred to read and write, once I was old enough, and do my own thing. When it comes to being competitive, the only place I could identify being competitive was… reading. I wanted to read more books than my peers. When it came to sports, however, I would do everything I could to get out of it.

5. Being physical and active didn’t support me.

After about four years of this, it came to a point where I felt very out of sorts. I thought that I wasn’t doing enough to support my T3, that I needed to extrovert myself more (in the way Carol uses it, to describe a quality of movement, versus being more social). But I don’t support myself by getting things done and connecting with the outdoors. I support myself by making sure to give myself time to go within.

Of course, there were many ways I was living true to my nature as a Type Four, even when I thought I was a Type Three. About a year before I realized I was a T4, I got a Type Four haircut. My clothes were basically T4 in T3 colors. And about six months before I realized I was a T4, I started getting up an hour earlier in the morning to have some time to intellectually connect with my interests before my day started, because I was working retail and that required a lot of extroversion. I still do this and I find it to be the single most important change I’ve made in my life, because it allows me to start my day off in a way that supports me. This is the first time in my life that I feel like I’m not underachieving in school, and I think it’s because I have learned how to support my T4 energy in a way that allows me to live up to my potential.

So these were all the glaring signs that I had misprofiled myself. Now, I think that someone could have one or two of these present, and it could be wounding, or that they haven’t found their way of living in their type yet. But I had so many things showing me that T3 was not my primary that it just couldn’t be right. When I realized I was T4, I couldn’t wait to buy all the things, and I related so much to everything Carol says about the T4 child, and I saw how Big Picture Thinking is my way of operating in the world. I like to get things done, but I like to come up with the perfect solution to a problem, not just do things for the sake of doing things.

Even if you’re not interested in DYT, I still think we show signs of when we have put ourselves in the wrong place in any system. What have been some signs that you placed yourself wrong somewhere?

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David Zyla, Dressing Your Truth, Kibbe's Metamorphosis | 38 Comments

Why Each System Must Be Considered in Isolation

I will admit, in the early days of this site, I thought that data from one system could help you understand what you are in the next. There are many people who think this way. But I have come to understand that when systems are looking at different things, you cannot use what you are in one to understand what you are in another.

I’m going to use the three main systems I consider in this blog: David Kibbe’s Metamorphosis, Carol Tuttle’s Dressing Your Truth, and David Zyla’s system.

DK prioritizes the yin/yang balance in the body. Clothes go on the body, not the face or hands or feet. Shirley MacLaine may have a cute, pixie-ish face that would lead some people who don’t understand his system well to put her somewhere else, but her body is all FN, so that is what she is.

Carol looks at the face. Your face will reflect your energy type. Your body type doesn’t matter. You will not always look great in the same things as your sister in the same energy type as you. You will share a color palette and some general preferences, but the exact perfect style for you is individual.

DZ looks at coloring, voice, and all-over vibe (???). His system is the hardest to DIY. Everyone gets their own set of recommendations. It is more like a common thread running through everyone in a certain archetype, and more broadly, a season.

Let’s look at Audrey Hepburn. She is a Flamboyant Gamine, 4/1, Playful Winter.

Does this mean that every 4/1 is also a FG and a Playful Winter? Of course not. It means that she has the body of a Flamboyant Gamine, the face of a 4/1 (reflecting her energy profile overall), and the combination of coloring/voice/anything else that makes David Zyla see Playful Winter for her. You can be a 4/1 and a completely different Kibbe Image ID and Zyla archetype. They are all using different criteria for assessment, and your unique combination of types across different systems is part of what makes you a unique individual.

So keep an open mind, and don’t try to make correlations across systems! Follow the unique process for each system that their creators have provided.

Dressing Your Truth, My Kibbe Journey, Personal | 19 Comments

Dressing For Yourself

I am still firmly entrenched in my Dressing Your Truth experience. Being a 4/3 is natural and effortless for me. There is still some conflict, however.

I still love Kibbe’s work, and remain actively involved in it. I know, however, that he would never place me in a season that gets black and white. The crux of David’s work is to look at yourself with enlightened subjectivity, and to accept yourself as you are. It is easy for me to accept myself as a Flamboyant Gamine. My coloring, however, is a little more complicated in that regard.

I know that based on online photos, he sees me as a Spring or Autumn. In real life, he may switch to Summer, but Winter would just never happen, based on his color theory. But shopping for Spring and Autumn clothes, I’ve discovered, just does not bring me the joy that the T4 saturated hues do. I am happy to open my closet and see bold, high contrast colors.

So here is the conundrum: is it lacking self-acceptance to not wear the season your coloring dictates, or is better to match your inner self, which DYT T4 does for me? With style, it is easy: once you accept your Image ID, you can now express yourself in any way you’d like. But with color, it doesn’t really work that way. You can express a certain mood with any of the palettes, but some things will just not exist for you–like black for anyone but a Winter.

While the T4 palette also limits what is available, it limits to me what is already speaking to me. It expresses my inner self.

So there is a conflict here between what my coloring is dictating, at least according to David’s theory, and what my inner self is satisfied by. So far, the inner self is winning out, because it is just so much more fun for me to dress in T4 colors every day. But again, I have to wonder if it is the best presentation of my physical self.

How do you deal with conflicts in different systems? In the meantime, I have these VERY 4/3 glasses on my wishlist!

Dressing Your Truth, Personal | 17 Comments

DYT Update

It has been a while and I have not yet gotten around to the historical project I started, because I had too much freelance work and then school started up again. But I have also spent a lot of time really delving into Dressing Your Truth.

I have a long history with this system. It may even be the first system I came across when I began this whole process. For a long time, I kind of dismissed it as a style system that was lacking, or more of a “starter system” compared to others. But I think part of that was that I had placed myself incorrectly, so of course the style component didn’t work for me, and since I first discovered it, the team behind it has made real headway in developing new ways to use the information.

To quickly summarize my journey, when I discovered the system, I decided I was a 3/4, since I couldn’t see T4 perfection in my features, and I related a lot to both descriptions. I never liked the T3 clothes on me–too substantial, too heavy, not enough structure. I generally stuck to the colors, because they aligned well with where I had placed myself in Sci\ART, but I never wore the clothes in any real way. Over the course of the years I believed I was a 3/4, I never did a 30-day challenge, for instance.

Then out of the blue, I saw the T4 in my face. I assumed I was a 4/1, because there is a video about how 4/1s and 1/4s can mistake themselves for T3, and somehow that more convoluted explanation made more sense to me than the simple idea of having simply reversed my dominant and secondary.

But after going back recently and watching videos on their website about the yin/yang balance and energy levels of different types, and how to make your T4 style true to you by incorporating your secondary–I realized that an S1 didn’t make sense for me at all. My style instincts were clearly pointing in the direction of an S3, and so was my movement.

Since realizing I’m a 4/3, I have enjoyed shopping so much more. It feels almost full-circle in a way, because 4/3 is fairly close to how I dressed before I ever got into style systems. 4/3 means getting to wear all the things I love, and not feeling like I’m limiting or depriving myself. I still love Flamboyant Gamine, and that is still incredibly informative for the yin/yang balance of my lines. I know how to make things work on me and how to combine them. But 4/3 gives me a different kind of yin/yang balance, the yin/yang balance of how I move through life, and how to reflect that in my style.

The real conflict between the two systems is in color. Right now, I’m enjoying Type 4 colors, and I plan on focusing on them. But I will see how it feels to live in these colors for a longer period of time.

Do you do DYT? Have you tried it in the past? Have you ever mistyped yourself in a system for a long period of time?

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