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Posts Tagged ‘4/3’

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.

closet

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.

Box

How it comes

Contents

How the clothes are packed

Clothes

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?

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!

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, Personal | 8 Comments

Five Signs Type Three Was Wrong

This post uses affiliate links.

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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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?