Curated Closet Workbook Exercise: Talking Silhouettes and Formulas

What type of silhouettes and fits did you wear most often? For example: skinny jeans, flared skirts, loose tops, fitted blazers and so on. Why?

This outfit above is pretty common for me.

• Skinny jeans or pants and a top (loose or fitted)
• Wide-legged pants and a tighter top
• Top with a skirt has to be tucked in, knotted in front, or cinched with a belt in some way to give it shape.
• Sweater and skinny jeans or pants
• All my blazers are fitted, and hit at the hip because any longer and I feel frumpy, and any shorter and my shoulders look too wide to me
• 90% of my pants are skinny. The other 10% are wide-legged. There are no in-betweens.

I always feel the need to layer something over it unless it is a complete top, like if it is a sweater, a turtleneck, a blouse with longer sleeves like below:

If it is just a tee, I get an urge to add a jacket, a topper of some sort!

If the top is VERY loose, I also get the urge to either tuck it in, or belt it. I cannot just let it flap around like that.

And with ALL dresses, I always feel a belt makes it better:

Do you tend to follow a specific formula for putting together your outfits? Do you have a uniform?

Tight with loose, and high with low.

If I wear a tighter fitted top, the skirt or bottom is loose, and vice versa.

If my skirt or dress is on the shorter side, I wear longer sleeved/blousier and more covered up tops

If my top is more revealing or tight, the pants generally aren’t skintight, they are looser, or the skirt is loose.

The only exceptions are if the dress is meant to be bodycon. Then I rock it, and I wear boots with it to tone down the sexiness like so:

Other than that, open to almost anything except certain styles like:

• Strapless tops
• Bootcut pants and jeans
• Straight-legged pants and jeans
• Skater skirts (really leaning away from A-Line skirts as of late)
• Boat necklines
• Racerback or front necklines
• Mini skirts although I am okay with mini shorts as long as they aren’t skintight and are looser
• Harem pants
• Complicated garments where I cannot breathe, eat or sit, unless I am prepared for it
• Cropped tops
• Cropped jackets ONLY with high-waisted skirts

All of that is because I have an inverted body shape and I do not like to emphasize my shoulders.

How much variety do you need? Do you enjoy wearing a wide range of different colors, silhouettes, and details, or do you like having a signature look that you repeat with only minor variations?

YES!

YES TO ALL the colours, silhouettes and details.

For colours, I stick to: cobalt blue, magenta and dark amethyst as my ‘staples’ for colour.

I also like to throw in some very deep vibrant orange or yellows on occasion but the only colour never to make it in my wardrobe unless it is a leather accessory or top, is brown. I just hate it on me. And all shades of brown, even lighter taupes that are too yellow-y.

Even this faux suede jacket in brown, is not really something I reach for regularly.

I like blue-toned colours, clear, strong and in your face. I am not into tones like mustard yellow, orange-toned reds that are too orange to be a true red, and too red to be a deep orange, or yellow-y greens, pale browny pinks or taupes, or yellow-toned greys.

For orange, I don’t own much of it, but I love this sweater in this exact shade of orange:

For details, I don’t like busy ruffles or small, overly bohemian or Little House on the Prairie prints, anything too tiny or precious. I prefer prints that are loud, graphic, but not too rainbow-y these days, and if there is too much fussing, I am over it.

I do love a good draped, pleated, or small detail like a twisted hem.

Do you prefer being overdressed or underdressed?

Over. Clearly.

Even in my college days, I refused to wear sweatpants to class. I couldn’t. I just didn’t see how it was any more effort to wear jeans instead.

If anything is athleisure-ish, or too casual, I feel the need to make it a little less casual, like so:

You will be hard pressed to catch me in a hoodie or sweatpants outside of the house, and if I do it, it is because I am on my way to yoga or am planning on vegging somewhere, NOT because I want to look like that.

This is my most ‘vegged out’ casual outfit I can muster. It is simple and easy to wear.

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Interested in reading more?

Flip through all of my Curated Closet Workbook pages and notes.

A little about this series:

I am embarking on a 8-week (or longer) excursion to do this exercise from one of my favourite style books – The Curated Closet – and to show you what my Curated Closet Workbook (companion workbook to the actual book) looks like at every step of the way.

Why do this?

Because I know what I like but I have no idea why I like what I do. I just do, and it seems very hodge-podge and all over the place. Being very Type A, I kind of want to pin it down and to know WHY.

I feel like it would help me narrow down my style personas more, and stop me from making bad / stupid shopping mistakes.

Also, I really like reading about these kinds of things from other people. I love it when people go through and talk about their style evolution and why.