What’s At The Core?

I’ve been wanting to write this post for ages, but didn’t know where to start. It’s because I have so many ideas and a genuine excitement to try all of them, nailing my colours to the mast feels like quite an ask! However, I saw a post this morning which totally inspired me – @chriswoodsews on an IG reel doing blind outfit selection of 5 looks from her wardrobe (top, bottom, outer layer), and everything just worked. It was sublime to watch. And I yearn to be that coherent!

Not happy with lazy choices or a sense of just coasting with a ‘that’ll do’ attitude, I want to develop a sense of my own ‘together’ style that really celebrates me, my life and my love of design, and shift away from a wardrobe that adds to the confusion of day-to-day, or the sense that I’m not living up to the potential. There’s enough of that going on in the world without me causing more problems for myself.

So, this feels like something I can fix. What is the problem then?

As I chart through the middle years of life, I am getting hung up on what I think I ought to be wearing, and that conflicts with what I am drawn to, and where I’d like to explore … all sorts of things washing around and the water isn’t flowing in any one direction. It’s feeling quite choppy, the swirls and eddies pulling in different directions. Lately I’ve been on a bit of an all-out frenzy of trying new colours, shapes and ideas. I now have so much more confidence in my making ability and a boldness in my design that I’ve never experienced before in all my years of being a design professional!

I want to wrap myself in threads that are true to me. I want to grow into a new season of myself with elegance, style, grace, energy and joy. Peace, stillness, joy, grit, strength, thoughtfulness.

VALUES.

To take this forward with intention, I need to find some focus.

I need to find out what my core threads, colours and shapes are, and dive deep into those.

My next exercise then – take some pages in my sketchbook and sum up the fabrics I love, the colour palette I keep coming back to, the shapes I love to wear and feel good in. See if I can narrow it down to some key pieces that I can rotate around, riff on, that could become a more joyful every day uniform without sacrificing my values.

Threads, colours, shapes – what’s at the core?