Your Aesthetic Style BLOG
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 (article written originally for People over Product magazine)
Imagine this: You open your closet and can’t help but smile. It feels like your clothes are smiling back. Every single item, you’d wear in a heartbeat. That’s the beauty and ease of embracing a timelessly personal wardrobe curated for nature’s seasons. Each season has its own pieces you adore and look forward to wearing during that time of year. Timeless doesn’t mean essential staples. Timeless means personal joy on repeat. Counterintuitive as it may seem, buying new items each season (no matter how cute!) creates more styling work. Since they’re new, you don’t know their quirks or how they work with other pieces in your closet yet. Having go-to favorite seasonal items makes styling easier because of familiarity. You don’t have to think twice. You know how to work your favorite cardigan and it looks good every time. When you love your clothes, it shows! Building a closet of clothes you adore takes patience and trust in yourself. Take a cue from Mother Nature and embrace the process! To quote Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” Below are three keys to owning a timeless wardrobe that feels like you. 1) Be an observer of trends and seasons. Both seasons and trends are cyclical. When observing nature, the timing and temperature of each season isn’t always the same. Some years, there are unusually warm or unusually cold seasons. Transition times between seasons are especially great for stepping out of your styling comfort zone. Fickle weather requires using items you might not often pair together. In the past, fashion seasons were more in sync with nature’s seasons. These days, trend cycles move extremely fast. This makes it harder to re-wear clothes without looking dated. This is where styling is your best friend! Style is about curation with intention and observation is at the core of intention. Choosing to wear an item differently than the way it was worn as a trend, gives that item a different vibe. For example, the linen vests/waistcoats worn as a top with matching wide-leg linen pants were a big trend in summer 2024. One way to shift from that trend look, is to unbutton the vest/waistcoat and layer it over a jumpsuit or dress. Being an observer means you don’t have to participate in every trend or season. When we think of fashion as ‘rules’ it gets too rigid and can feel restrictive and hard to be ourselves. Each season means something different to each person. Embrace what you love about each season and express it in how you dress. 2) Approach outfit styling like you approach recipes Dressing seasonally often gets summed up as prints in spring, colors in summer, layers in fall, and textures in winter. Actually, these can be worn in all seasons! The key is focusing on what excites you most. The list below isn't about ‘dos’ or ‘don’ts’. See them as recipes to experiment with to find ‘flavors’ you love for each season. Have fun and let your closet surprise you! Prints: There’s a wide variety of prints: tiny, large, bold, subtle....etc. Take note of the similarities and differences among the prints in your closet. Pair prints with solid pieces or mix and match them with other prints. A helpful way to wear different prints together is to focus on a shared element in both of the prints. For example, if both prints have squares, that's a shared shape. Or if both prints have pink that’s a shared color. Remember opposites attract! Don’t be afraid to pair opposite prints together like a bold stripe with a subtle stripe. Colors: Nature’s seasons are great inspiration for color palettes. Why not come up with your own personal color palette for each season? If color feels intimidating, remember to trust your eyes! All colors have a relationship to each other. The best way to observe how colors work together is by placing them next to each other. NOTE: black, white, and gray aren’t colors. They exist to brighten or darken colors. So pairing colors with black, white, or gray often makes them more intense. A simple way to play with new colors is to pair them with either a blue, red, or yellow garment. Those are primary colors which means they have a relationship with every color. That’s why blue denim is so versatile! Layers: When I survey friends about their favorite styling season, fall is the most common answer. The main reason being the layering of various pieces from sweaters to jackets to scarves. However, there are also many thin layer options for warmer seasons. If layering is something you love, challenge yourself to come up with different layered looks for each season. I personally love to wear scarves year round; lighter ones in warmer months and thicker ones in colder months. Textures: An instant way to add visual interest to an outfit is with contrasting textures. Smooth and rough, sparkly and matte. Opposite textures are fun to play with and, more often than not, they look great together. The key is to let your eyes decide. A lot of times we dismiss amazing ideas because we’re too much into our heads. Thinking “those don’t go together” but if you’re open to trying, you might be pleasantly surprised! 3) Have seasonal date nights with your closet The secret sauce to a wardrobe you’ll love again and again, is that the individual pieces and the outfits they create together feel like you. As you might’ve guessed, the way to do this is by observing what you like and why you like it. The best clues are in your favorite pieces, the ones you can’t help but smile at. Below are a few questions to help you reflect on what inspires and challenges you about the current items in your closet. Make it a date! Grab a treat, then go to your closet and ask yourself the following questions.
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 (article originally written for People Over Product magazine May 2024)
This month as we honor the mother figures and impactful women in our lives, why not try celebrating together in coordinated outfits?! It’s said that imitation is the biggest form of flattery ;) Here’s the twist, instead of rushing out to buy something new.. try shopping your closet! Remember our most sustainable clothes are the ones we already own. Plus it’s FUN! Maybe even more fun than being in a fitting room because you’re not rushed for time and they’re clothes you’re familiar with. Below are three coordinated looks you can create with items in your closet. They work for all ages whether you want to coordinate with your toddler or teen daughter, your grandmother, aunt, cousin, or best friend. Shopping your closets together is memorable and will give you renewed appreciation for the clothes you have. Idea 1: Twinning Let your wardrobe basics be the MVP in wearing almost identical looks. Dressing alike has a celebratory energy and lets people know that you planned it! Items to look for in your closet:
Idea 2: Remember When… This look is all about meaningful items and memories i.e. souvenir tank tops you both bought from a trip, or jewelry you’ve gifted each other. Other people might not see the connection and that’s the point! It’s something only you two understand. Items to look for in your closet:
Idea 3: Cover Shoot This look is subtle and sophisticated because it’s not immediately obvious how your outfits are coordinated. The secret to coordinating something that feels cohesive is to choose a shared design element or principle that you’ll both wear. It might seem hard at first but the key is to focus more on the shared element or principle than on the item itself. For example: You choose ‘pattern’ as your coordinating principle. Then both of you look in your closets and observe what type of patterns you have. Turns out you both have a lot of floral. One of you has a floral skirt and the other a floral jumpsuit - boom! They’re different items, different floral patterns and colors, which is the point. This look is all about subtle intentionality. Items to look for in your closet:
PRO TIP: Finalize your look together, either in person or on a video call. Show each other the items you found based on the shared design element or principle. Try them on to see which ones are most cohesive. It’s crucial to try them on. Your eyes will tell you which ones ‘click’. Whatever theme you decide - it’s a memorable way to appreciate the women in your life and make sure to take lots of photos! P.S. If you get stuck, try my VIBE class - in this class I walk you through step by step how to recreate any outfit from your shopping wishlist with clothes already in your closet.  Do you love the ‘idea’ of shopping your closet more but every morning you open up your closet it’s ‘meh’?
Even though you just bought that CUTE shirt that looked amazing online 🤩 but hanging in your closet…not as cute anymore. 😒 The worst part is this happens with most things you buy even though it’s embarrassing to admit. 😅 I feel you and I’ve been there. Now as a business owner who understands marketing, I see even more why this feeling persists.We’re sold fully styled outfits but when you buy an individual product, that’s all you get - the jacket. OR even if you buy the entire LTK linked look…it’s not fun to only wear that look.Items we buy don’t magically ‘sync’ with the rest of our clothes, precisely because they’re new. I’ve spent years finding a way to recreate an experience similar to an ‘aha’ moment that transformed my relationship with shopping in 2019. And I finally cracked the code with my VIBE class! You and me side by side in our closets turning our shopping lists into outfits. I’m not talking about a practical shopping list like I need a cardigan lol - I’m talking DREAM wishlist items 😍 you’ve been eyeing but are wayy out of budget or not sure you could ‘pull it off’. THOSE are what we use as outfit inspiration 💃🏾 because you can get that look you love now. Not after you’ve bought _______ or after you’ve lost ____ lbs Right now 💗 You don’t even have to believe it’s possible, you just have to want it. Want it enough to take the first step.What I want for you more than anything else is to feel JOY from the clothes & home you already have.I’ve made that first step simple & FUN 😉 with the VIBE class. There’s nothing else out there like it - to shift the way you see your clothes right now 🤯In creating this class I’ve gone through it multiple times and the last time I was sooo skeptical that I’d come up with another new outfit idea that I couldn’t wait to wear…but guess what? I did 😆 It works every.single.time - it’s not magic, it’s brilliant design. Click here to sign up & get your vibe on 😍  When you mix a variety of colors together, the result is often brown—a classic neutral. Neutrals are those in-between tones that don’t stand out too boldly but can help balance and ground an overall look. One often-overlooked neutral is olive green. It’s a muted color created by mixing green with a bit of red—its opposite on the color wheel. That slight addition of red softens the green and turns it into a more neutral tone. On the flip side, a soft pink can also become a neutral when it has a little green added to it. That mix dulls the brightness and creates a more versatile, toned-down version of pink. What’s interesting is that these two colors—olive green and soft pink—are opposites, that work beautifully together. That’s one of the most fun things about neutrals: opposite neutrals often pair effortlessly because their muted nature helps them balance one another without clashing. This is a great starting point if you’re looking to explore more color in your wardrobe or home. People often avoid bright colors because they already have so much grayscale (black, white, and gray) in their closet. Black, white, and gray get mistakenly called neutrals but they're not. They're not colors because they aren't on the color wheel. Black, white, gray are added to colors to give them a brighter tint or darker shade. For example, combining something crisp white with a bright pink can feel very vibrant and energetic. But when you use a neutral version of that pink—one that’s been slightly toned down—it brings softness and calm. True neutrals help to quiet an outfit, while black, white, or gray often amplify a color's intensity. See the video for visual examples. So when you're styling a look—or even styling a room—think of neutrals as tools for harmony. They're what allow you to play with color without being overwhelmed.  Don't wait to create a space that reflects you. Don't wait. You can do it right now.
It's not later, if and then when that happens and that's exactly what we do the Vibe Class, it's all about "Look at that image. Let's make that now." That vibe with what you have. You can absolutely do that now. The same thing applies in your home. So I wanted to give an exercise just to help give that. Oh my gosh, this is gold. I don't often talk about this enough. Ask yourself this, "In my home right now, in the space that I've created, does the decor, the look of it, aesthetic, reflect my emotions? The emotions I want to be feeling most dominantly." And if it doesn't, what can you do to change that? Does the setup, the order, where things are placed, reflect the way that you really think and organize? My desk is a very messy space because I think very messy. I've let go of trying to Pinterest, beautify it. And I really just let it be piles and drawers that I can take out and spread on floors and put back quickly. Since I think very messy and like to have multiple things out at a time, I've let my desk reflect that. And lastly there's...Function. What are the things you want to be doing more? If it's playing guitar, if it's playing a certain sport, are those items visible? Are they easy to get to? If you want to just collapse on the comfy couch, right? Is it easy to walk to your couch? Do you have to like maneuver over all these things before you can relax? What are the things you see when you come in the front door? Do they make you happy?... These are all really important questions to ask. This is an exercise you can do now. Do it now. Don't wait. Create a space you love. It's so, so important. And if you need help with this, if you need a coach and teacher, that's what I'm here for. Everything I teach, everything with redesign aesthetic style, it's so fast because it's already in you. Your style is in you. We're just unleashing it! No more "ifs," "shoulds," "what's," "have," "buts" that we've inherited from all these other places! You know what you love. Let that be expressed in your surroundings, in what you wear, and in so many other creative ways. |
Author
Yun-A (rhymes with 'fun' 'Ah') CEO of Your Aesthetic Style. 
Join this class on how to see your clothes with FRESH eyes.
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