← Her Style Podcast | Shopping, Color Palettes, Fashion, Wardrobe, Outfits, Clothing
Her Style Podcast | Shopping, Color Palettes, Fashion, Wardrobe, Outfits, Clothing
231 | Wardrobe Gaps: Identifying and Filling the Missing Pieces in Your Closet
00:17:26
Hey friend! I just wrapped up the most incredible week hosting our first ever Shop Your Closet Challenge! It was the greatest joy to connect with you for 5 whole days and walk you through some very simple steps to start wearing what you own. I was so...
Loading summary
Transcript8 lines
- [00:00]
Heather Riggs
Hey friend. I just wrapped up the most incredible week hosting our first ever Shop your Closet challenge. It was the greatest joy to connect with you for five whole days and walk you through some very simple steps to start wearing what you own. I was so impressed by everyone's commitment to keep an open mind, try new things, and look at their wardrobes with a fresh perspective, letting go of the belief it won't work and asking what if it can? Instead, this openness led members of her style community to cut the tags off pieces that had been sitting in their closets for years, rediscover hidden gems they'd forgotten all about, and be inspired to try empowered and courageous outfit combinations that brought out their personalities and confidence in a whole new way. Another, perhaps unexpected side effect of thoughtfully exploring and experimenting with what's in your closet is that you might uncover some wardrobe gaps along the way. If you feel like your closet is missing some key pieces, this episode will help you pinpoint exactly what they are and what to do to fill them in with intention. No more impulse shopping and say goodbye to a closet full of clothes with nothing to wear. Your strategic wardrobe refresh starts now.
- [01:16]
Friend
Welcome to her Style podcast where we're all about empowering you to show up and get dressed every day with confidence. I'm your host Heather Riggs, a 15 year and counting certified image consultant and color specialist ready to build a wardrobe and a personal style you love. Let's get started.
- [01:42]
Heather Riggs
Even as a professional stylist and image consultant, there have been many times in my life when I had a closet full of clothes with nothing to wear. I think the first stint of this was really during my college and young adult years when my shopaholic tendencies were in full swing. I definitely had shiny object syndrome and bought the pretty thing rather than the practical thing nine times out of ten. I know both are really important, but it is hard to get dressed in the morning when you don't have options that work for your real everyday life. And then after having my son grey in like the color G R E Y In 2018, my wardrobe kind of went on autopilot. And whether we want to call it mom brain or being in the postpartum fog, or quite frankly, just straight up survival mode for the first year or two, I just started copying what I saw other stylish moms wearing on their blogs and social media, I really didn't feel like I had the time or energy to figure out what I wanted to look and feel like in this new season of my life. It wasn't that I didn't know what to do. I didn't have the time, energy, or drive to do it. And it wasn't until I had a reality check one day, standing in front of a closet covered in a sea of neutrals. My beige era, as I lovingly refer to it now. It wasn't until then that I realized that while my wardrobe was cute and maybe even a tad trendy, it wasn't me at all. I don't know if you can relate to this. Do you ever feel like you've bought all the things and you have options? You but maybe you just don't love any of them? Even if you have a wardrobe that is working pretty well, every now and then you might find yourself wishing you had some other item on hand. Our wardrobes are gonna continually evolve because our lives evolve and we evolve as people. So I wanna say first that this is completely normal. You're not doing it wrong if you're experiencing some struggles when you go to get dressed and you find that you're missing some key pieces. But I do believe that we can start to get you to do it a lot better. So here's the first step to identifying and filling in those gaps in your wardrobe, friend. You cannot know what you're missing until you know what you have. Now, I shared a lot of really practical tips and training last week, but I think the real magic of the Shop your Closet Challenge was that everyone was operating with more awareness. They weren't just standing in front of their wardrobes in the morning. They were scouring their wardrobes. They were hunting for treasures and hidden gems. They were willing to look at what they owned in a new way. So whether you need to get in there and finally tackle that closet audit that you've been putting off, or if you want to go back and watch the Shop youp Closet Challenge replays, they are still currently up and available. If you want to register@herstylellc.com challenge you can get access to catch up on those replays. I haven't decided how I'm going to leave them up, so I wouldn't wait to get in there and check everything out. But anyway, the point is to look at what you have to take an inventory. Are you drowning in T shirts but you don't own a single belt? Or maybe you've been going hog wild on some cute leggings and workout sets, but you don't have a single pair of real pants. I'm talking jeans or trousers that fit and flatter you. Maybe your sock or underwear collection has seen better days. Figure out what needs to be donated, replaced, or maybe altered in some way and you will start to get a much clearer picture of what you currently have to work with. It's so critical not to skip this step because you cannot pinpoint what's missing until you know what you have. So I do want you to block out some time this week to organize your closet. It's the perfect time to do some spring cleaning, look at what's there, and maybe write down an actual catalog of your pieces. That is step one. Step two is to reflect on your real life. Now that you know what you have, you can start thinking about what you need when you go to get dressed. So what I want you to do is pull out your agenda for the month. Whether you are a paper planner kind of gal or your whole world will fall apart without your Google Calendar. That is me. I'm a Google Calendar girl myself. I'm not suggesting that you just sit and think for 30 seconds about what you have to do today or in the week ahead. I want you to really take even five or ten minutes to sit down and look at what you have going on over the next month or quarter. What does your typical week look like? What activities do you have? Do you have set work hours and scenarios that you have to get dressed for for your job? What do you do with your friends or your family on a regular basis? What hobbies do you need specific outfits for? I think it's super smart to sit down pen to paper or maybe in the notes app on your phone and make an actual list of all the occasions that you need to get dressed for. Don't forget sleep and your downtime at home either or you might end up blowing your whole budget curating your closet for social activities, and then realize that you have nothing cute or comfy or classic to wear when bedtime comes around. I want you to think of every single avenue of your life because you get to feel your best for all of it, my friend. And part of that is making sure that you have the right outfits for all the activities on your calendar. So go ahead and write down every single one. Go through your day, your week, your month, and look for any special occasions that are coming up in the quarter ahead. That's why I like to plan for a full season so you don't have any little surprises. Ah, I forgot about this event and I don't have an outfit now. I have to run out and buy something in a hurry that I don't really love. And I want you to think about how you ideally want to show up for each one. What types of outfits would you love to wear? Go back to your Pinterest style mood board if you have them. What would feel right for all of these different things? And what pieces do you wish that you had on hand to bring those looks to life? Step number three is to make a concrete list of any items that are not in that closet inventory that you took in step one. See, I told you that wasn't a step to skip over. It's going to come in very handy knowing what you already have. You're also going to want to add any of the items you know you want to replace or up level in some way to this shopping list. And now you're going to start to build out a solid list of your wardrobe gaps. Of course, the things you do need to replace and some wishes, some fun items. Because not everything is going to be an immediate need. Some things are going to be a nice to have. Maybe you don't legitimately need to buy that pretty headband to pull the look together for your upcoming date night, but you would really like to have it. If you can swing it in your budget, that's okay too. I want you to enjoy the act of getting dressed each day so it doesn't have to be all practical and boring. You definitely get to have some fun when you go shopping. But if you're on a budget, which I think 95%, maybe even 98 or 99.9% of us are, you're gonna wanna be smart about what you buy first. And what's awesome about this process is that your list of needs and your wants are based in reality because you took the time to do step two. You know, they're all things you realistically will be reaching for in the upcoming season. You know your events, you know what you want to wear. Because you weren't just browsing online or in a store and getting distracted by shiny object syndrome. As you are mapping out this list, you are actually looking at what's on your calendar, envisioning what you truly want to wear and and when you're going to wear it, and then building out that list from there. So that's really different than what you've been doing before, isn't it? Now let's talk about the next phase of this, which is filling in those gaps. Because now you have your list, you know what you need. And if you're listening to this podcast, I have a hunch it's because you're ready to be a smarter and savvier shopper. Am I right? This is the point of the process where you're going to feel extremely tempted to impulse shop. I can tell you this. I've seen it a million times. You're going to have this long or maybe short list of what you want and you need and you might feel the desire to tackle it immediately. I see this all the time. My clients finish their closet audits, which is step four of the Her Style Collective process, and they immediately want to skip right to the shopping phase, which is the very last step six. But I cannot tell you how beneficial it is to slow down. I want you to get strategic and to be honest, I want you to get really picky about what you buy. This is not an overnight process. We're not rushing to fill in your closet with more things. We wanna fill in your closet with the right things, even if it takes some time to find them.
- [10:27]
Friend
So step four is to figure out.
- [10:28]
Heather Riggs
What your priorities are. You might have a list of 30 pieces that you wanna pick up for this season. Maybe you have the means to run out and get them all. That's awesome. Then you could skip to the next step, or I guess step six in the ones I'm sharing with you on the podcast today. But if you've got to be a little scrappy about this, then I want you to go back through that list of your upcoming activities and literally count how many times you think you might be able to wear each item on your list. I know this isn't an exact science, but you just want to get an idea and a clear visual which things are coming up most often and most urgently. What's a one time wear only? Maybe consider just renting it. In that case, if your funds are a little bit tight, or if you know it's really not practical to invest in a piece that you're only going to wear one time, just rent it. And I want you to start organizing the list of your wardrobe gaps by the greatest need or value that it's going to bring to your closet and the least. And then step number five, which is the one I was just saying you can skip if you have unlimited funds, is to allocate your budget accordingly. I have a whole budget planning system inside Her Style Collective. This is my 90 day program. If you're not familiar with that and you never heard of Her Style Collective before, but I do want to quickly mention that it's still on sale today with our Shop youp Closet Challenge Savings and Bonuses. I extended the sale for just one more day. So you have until midnight Eastern tonight. If this is something you've had your eye on, I definitely recommend checking out all the details because you can join us with some pretty incredible savings and special perks right now. All the info is over@herstylellc.com challengesal savings, but this offer is going away at midnight tonight, so don't sleep on it. Love to support you personally through all of these steps. This is exactly what we work through together inside of that program, which you can actually get one month of extended access to right now. So we'll have even more time to team up and accomplish all of your goals. So Again, head to herstylellc.com challengesavings if you wanna jump in with us today. We have an amazing group of women just getting started right now. So you will be in a really lovely cohort of people through this process, including all of our grads who are still in the program and ready and waiting to cheer you on, encourage you, and give you some really great advice along the way. So I can't wait. But even if that doesn't feel like something you're ready for right now, you can still budget all on your own. I want you to figure out how much you want to invest per item and then you might need to get a little creative and rework things to line up with the total amount that you have for the season. That is something that I really love supporting everybody with. There's always a way to make it work, so don't skip that step. Make sure you're checking out your budget to make sure that you can get the most important things first. And then step six, the last one that we're going to talk about today is finally to start shopping. Isn't it crazy how it wasn't like step one, figure out what you need. Step two, buy all the things. There's so much more nuance that goes into thoughtfully curating a closet that you love and that works for your real life. You're going to want to take your time if your schedule allows. Having to shop in a hurry rarely leads to empowered buying decisions, so it's great if you can get ahead on this before that next big event creeps up on your calendar. I don't want you to have to rush this step. I want you to instead evaluate your options, keep your budget in mind, and slowly start to fill in those gaps in a picky way. Right. We're building a wardrobe we love, not building a wardrobe we can settle for. So do keep reevaluating your list of wardrobe wants and needs as you go and as your life continues lifeing. The steps that we follow in my method are very strategic. They're meant to be timeless. You can revisit them season after season as often as you need. What you're going to find is that the longer you stick with this process, the more you'll learn about yourself and your style, what you like and what you don't like, and the more you're going to want to keep raising the bar on what's in your wardrobe. And inevitably, you're going to experience more changes in your your life that need to be accounted for. As much as I wish that this was a set it and forget it kind of thing, you work through your wardrobe once and it's that way for the rest of your life, you're going to want to keep doing this work now and then just to make sure that your wardrobe is aligned with you and your actual real life needs. Now, if this is something that you want to figure out together, if you want to learn this system that you can rinse and repeat for the rest of your days, then I hope you will seriously consider joining us inside Her Style Collective today. While you can save $100, you'll have the option to get a free personal color palette hand designed just for you by me. A small group foundations audit call at the 30 day mark so we can make sure that you are crystal clear about your signature style and what flatters you. You'll also get my plug and play outfit formula, which makes implementing everything that you learn extremely easy. And it will take all the guesswork out of building outfits that you can look and feel amazing in. And as I already mentioned, you get 30 days of extended access. So when you jump in today, we'll be working together all the way through mid August, which means we can get to work right now on your spring and summer wardrobe so you can feel your best this season and we'll be able to set you up for success before fall comes back around. So this is the perfect time to dive in. If you've been thinking about it, head to herstylellc.com challengesavings for all the details and to get started and just to quickly recap, here are the six steps that you do want to take to identify and fill in the gaps in your wardrobe. Either way, number one, I want you to figure out what you have. Secondly, look at your real life activities and outfit goals. Third, make a list of what you're missing, what could make getting dressed for those activities infinitely easier. 4. Prioritize your list. Step 5 allocate your budget accordingly. And finally, finally in step 6, you're going to take your time shopping and evaluate your options carefully. There are bound to be some hiccups and questions along the way. I would love to support you through every one of them. So friend, I do hope I get to welcome you inside Her Style Collective today. But either way, I'm always here for you on your style journey and I'll be back with another episode to guide you very soon.
- [16:39]
Friend
Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you want to stop copying everyone else's style style and start dialing in your own swoon worthy signature look, head over to take my free 5 minute personal style quiz which you can find at the link in the show notes. If you've enjoyed our time together, please be sure to rate, review and subscribe to Her Style Podcast so you never miss an episode. Finally, I invite you to make this.
- [17:05]
Heather Riggs
A two way conversation and send me.
- [17:07]
Friend
A DM over on Instagram eatherrigstyle to let me know how I can best support you on your style journey. I'm always here for you in Style and service. Until next time.