Feel Good, Dress Better

If you're anything like me, you have a long list of bloggers/Instagrammers who you love, and then a handful who you essentially stalk and spend a borderline creepy amount of time looking at. Nicole from Writes Likes a Girl falls into the latter for me. While I'm guilty of not reading nearly as many blogs as I used, Writes Like a Girl is one of the few of which I still read every post. Nicole is such a captivating writer, funny, relatable, and has essentially my ideal closet, and I feel so lucky that I've been able to connect with her through the Internet. I've been on the edge of my seat waiting for her style workbook to come out, and I somehow managed to snag an advanced copy. I'm so excited to share with you a few of my takeaways from it! 

If you somehow don't obsess over Nicole's updates like I do and are unfamiliar with her workbook, Feel Good, Dress Better is a comprehensive guide to transforming your closet to better reflect your personal style. Filled with tips and worksheets, the guide is a helpful way to start looking at your closet as an extension of how you feel. I always stay away from style guide books because most present a set of rules that are impractical and don't take personal style and preferences into account. Feel Good, Dress Better is more about using your clothing for self-expression, body positivity, and confidence. This honestly could not have come at a better time for me, as I've mentioned that I've been doing a lot of thinking about this. I've been struggling with defining my style, gaining weight, and spending an obscene amount of time on Instagram comparing myself to others. Some days I feel like I'm letting people down if I'm not "on-brand" and wearing all thrifted clothes. Other times I think that I look like I'm trying too hard by dressing in a vintage style. I also find myself wanting to define my style by who I follow and building my closet around what will get me close enough to looking like them. But what I've finally decided doing lately is just saying: fuck it. I'm going to wear what makes me happy. Feel Good, Dress Better's closet cleanout section proved to be a huge help in this. I started getting rid of clothes that I don't feel good in or don't fit (which meant being more honest with myself about my weight gain). I stopped saying that certain trends weren't for me or being worried that people were judging me for anything, and I've started buying things that make me happy. 

In this process, I've been wondering how I define my style. It hasn't exactly strayed far from what I've always worn, but I've felt so much more confident in what I've been putting on lately. Feel Good, Dress Better has a great section on creating your personal style ID that proved helpful. I took a list at Nicole's word bank and chose a few that I felt like I identified with: colorful, consistent, feminine, modern, and vintage. To sum it up: colorfully feminine with a vintage-inspired twist. In all honesty, choosing a style ID felt so silly at first (why do I even need to define it?), but actually has really helped me think about it while I'm shopping. Does this fit with my style ID? also translates to will I actually wear this? or will I feel like myself and/or confident in this? 

More thoughts below the jump!

I wanted to wear something for this post that fit with one of the style challenges in the workbook, which focus on outfits that give you a specific feeling. It acknowledges that while we may have a specific style, we also might feel differently about what we're wearing depending on the day. I wore this last week to work, and it actually fit with a few of the prompts, but especially this one: feminine and creative. I loved this outfit because the adorable collar makes feel cute and girly, and I decided to add a little black ribbon bow to it to give it my own touch. It also helps that I finally started buying the size that I am, rather than the size that I was, so everything fits so much better. 

I know this post is a lot of rambling, but now that I've reached the end of it, I feel great about how my style journey has taken off. In full transparency, I started writing this to help promote Nicole's book, but in all honesty, reading through it and writing about it has given me some much-needed confidence. I still have so much more of it to read, and I can't wait to really dig into it.

Feel Good, Dress Better will be available for purchase as a digital download tomorrow, 06/08, and I cannot recommend it enough! Give Nicole some love because the amount of work she put into it is insane.

Top: Dangerfield (ribbon added by me)

Skirt: c/o ThredUp

Bag: Thrifted