← Her Style Podcast | Shopping, Color Palettes, Fashion, Wardrobe, Outfits, Clothing
Her Style Podcast | Shopping, Color Palettes, Fashion, Wardrobe, Outfits, Clothing
241 | 7 Outfit Planning Habits That Will Change Your Mornings Forever
00:16:35
Welcome back to HER Style Podcast, my friend! I’m so glad you’re here, because we’re taking on one of the biggest challenges I hear about in our community. If you’ve ever stared into your closet for way too long, feeling like you have nothing...
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- [00:01]
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Welcome back to Her Style Podcast, my friend. I am so glad you're here because we're taking on one of the biggest challenges that I hear about in our community. If you've ever stared into your closet for way too long, feeling like you have nothing to wear or confused about how to put your pieces together, that changes. Today, I'm about to make getting ready faster, easier, and dare I say, a whole lot of fun. In today's episode, we're going to dive into seven outfit planning habits that will seriously change your mornings for forever. No spreadsheets or apps necessary. You can pick one or two that resonate with you or try them all. The goal is to find something that works for you. I promise integrating even one of these fast and foolproof habits into your week will make a big difference in your experience of getting dressed. It doesn't have to be tricky or time consuming. Stick around and I will show you how.
- [00:56]
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Welcome to Her Style Podcast where we're all about empowering you to show up and get dressed every day, 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.
- [01:22]
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Before we dive into today's topic, I just want to take a moment to recognize that it is Memorial Day here in the United States. And really today is a time to remember and give thanks for the brave men and women who gave their lives in service to our country. And I want to thank those who continue to serve in our military today. I hope that we are all able to make some time to reflect on our history and the sacrifices made by those in the service, both then and now. And I say this all the time. Moving on to the focus of today's podcast episode, we have to get dressed every day, right? It's fairly unavoidable and we also have to make thousands of decisions every day. And I believe that what to wear shouldn't be the one that sends you spiraling even before you finished your first cup of coffee. This really can be easy and fun and you can keep it flexible. But if you're constantly trying to choose your outfit at the last possible second, it's likely become a way more stressful experience for you. And of course, the goal is to build a wardrobe that you love. And once you get to that point where most of your pieces look and feel amazing on you, you love what you have in your closet, it becomes infinitely easier to just reach in quickly and grab any random assortment of items and put together a pretty incredible outfit without a lot of forethought. But if you're not there yet, if you are still early in your wardrobe revamp journey, or if you're still auditing what you own and you're trying to be more strategic about buying what you need to fill in those G, or if you're just starting to realize that your wardrobe isn't working for you anymore, then you might be in that messy middle stage where getting dressed feels a little bit frustrating, or maybe a lot of bit frustrating. And one of the best things that you can do for yourself in this stage is to eliminate the last minute outfit scramble and start planning ahead. Outfit planning is not about being rigid. It's about setting yourself up for success. And it doesn't need to take you an hour or more each week. You don't even need to plan that far in advance. This can be as simple as taking two minutes the night before to set yourself up for an easier tomorrow. I want to start out with a fast refresher of some basic outfit planning tips that I have offered up before. And then we're gonna build on this with some new habits that you can work on putting into place. You can stack these one at a time or just do them as it makes sense for you or appeals to you. But first, there are a few essential that I want you to think about before you get dressed for your day. The first thing that we've gotta check out is our calendar. I want you to look at what's on your schedule for the day. Do you have meetings or errands or kid pickups? You obviously need to know what you're dressing for. So first you've gotta pull out your calendar and let your day guide your outfit. Secondly, I want to encourage you to think about how you want to feel as you go about your day. Do you want to show up in a way that makes you feel really powerful or comfortable, creative, approachable? Let your personal preferences and your goals for the day play a role in your styling choices. Thirdly, check the weather. This one, I'm sure is self explanatory, but it can be easy to overlook. And I know from personal experience that a great outfit can turn into a pretty horrible failure if it doesn't hold up to the weather. It's always worth confirming the elements as best you can before you finalize your look. Obviously, not everything is within our control. And then the last thing is to work to balance comfort and style. If it's going to be a long day, if you're walking a lot. You're going to want to think about the functionality of your outfit, too, and find that perfect blend of style mixed with practicality for whatever you need to do. So those are really four key factors to think about when you're getting dressed every day. But I also want to present you with a few helpful habits that you could try out to make your morning so much easier and more fun. Also, to keep your wardrobe feeling a little bit more fresh, to keep you inspired and more creative when you get dressed so you don't get stuck in those ruts of wearing the same thing the same way every single time. Getting dressed can actually feel good and it can be enjoyable. So let me give you a few simple ideas to help you feel better about this. You can again, just take one and test it out for yourself or feel free to have it stack them all. I'm going to share them in what I feel is probably the easiest to maybe the most advanced technique. But you can totally take on each one of these. I totally believe in you. You can do this, my friend. So the first thing, and we have talked about this before, is to keep an outfit library album on your phone. This one's so simple. Every time you wear something that you feel good in or that you receive a lot of compliments on throughout the day, I want you to snap a quick mirror selfie. You can create a photo album for these sort of greatest hits. When you are stumped in the morning, you will have inspiration from within your own closet. If you don't know what to wear, just pull up this album on your phone. Take a peek through what you've worn before and felt great in so you don't have to keep reinventing the wheel. It's kind of going to give you a secondary Pinterest style mood board, but this one's all you. And there is no shopping or outfit adapting required, which is extra special. All right, the second thing that you can do is rotate your collection. If you always grab the same things from the same hangers or drawers, you can try moving things around every few weeks. You don't need to do this all the time and you don't have to move literally everything in your closet. But I want you to do a little shuffle and bring whatever's in the back up to the front or whatever's buried at the bottom of the pile up to the top. You, I think, will be really surprised how refreshing it feels to see a dress or a pair of pants that maybe you forgot about right in front of you again. It's like shopping for those hidden gems in your own wardrobe. I also remember a trick that I heard many years ago, and I apologize. I have no idea of the source. It's just something that's stuck. And maybe you've heard this one too. But you can also tie ribbons or rubber bands on each of your hangers. And then as you wear something, you take off the ribbon or rubber band. Whether you hang that piece back up at the end of the day or you toss it in your laundry basket. And you're just going to keep working your way through your closet until you've worn all of the pieces. And this is really going to encourage you to mix things up a little bit and better utilize what you already own. At our recent Shop your Closet challenge back in April, I think the unanimous experience was that it was so much easier to get dressed simply because of the focus and intentionality that everybody had that week to use their pieces to try new combinations and really just to be willing to experiment. So rotating your collection, whether you complete a full audit and reorganization every so often, or you just move pieces around and reorganize a little bit here and there, it's going to help give you a fresh perspective on your clothes again and again. And if that feels like too much work, you can also organize your closet by category and color. This is the third tip that I want to share with you because when your closet is arranged with like things grouped together. So for example, you put all of your tank tops or camisoles together, all of your jeans are in one section, and when you color code everything or kind of have it in order, it's so much faster to quickly grab matching pieces without digging around to find what you need. This is going to save you a lot of time in the morning when you have everything in its place. You are also going to spot forgotten favorites more easily when everything is visible and well organized. So I know this isn't necessarily an outfit planning tip, but it is going to help you plan your outfits when everything is nicely arranged, easy to see, and fast to find. All right, number four is to start with an outfit anchor. Instead of feeling pressured to plan your full outfit in advance, get try deciding on one key element the night before. Maybe it's a new necklace that you picked up for the season, it's your favorite pair of shoes, or a fun pattern blouse. And then I want you to work the rest of your outfit around that piece. Sometimes you really just need a starting point to get your creative juices flowing. So Let that piece anchor your outfit the next day. And hopefully this is going to make getting dressed feel more like a fun challenge instead of a choreography. Tip number five is to set up a weekly style routine. And I know that people do this for meal planning all the time. You have a set type of meal that you eat every single night of the week. I've tried following a cleaning schedule each week. It sort of works. Sometimes I don't always stick to it, but on Mondays, I will dust and vacuum the bedrooms. On Tuesday I'll clean the upstairs bathrooms. On Wednesday I dust and vacuum the first floor. And then on Thursday I clean the main bathroom floor and maybe the basement if I have time. And then on Friday, I tackle the kitchen. And it's a really nice way to break up those chores into small bite sized pieces throughout the week instead of spending my entire Saturday morning cleaning the whole house. But have you ever thought about trying this with your outfits again? It can take out so much of the guesswork. So maybe on Monday you're gonna pick something that's, that's neutral and feels really chic to start your week off on the most stylish note. And then maybe on Tuesday you focus on bringing in a pop of color. On Wednesdays we wear pink. No, I'm just kidding. But you could totally do that if you want to. And then maybe on Thursday you want to incorporate a print. Friday is maybe casual denim with something more elevated to balance it out. You could choose a couple of go to outfit formulas that make you feel your most confident and then just rotate them from week to week with new pieces that fit in with that sort of formula. Or you can create a go to look for certain situations. Maybe a blazer and a T shirt and jeans for casual client meetings. Or a dress and slides for hot summer errand days. These little style shortcuts are going to be lifesavers. When you don't want to think too hard, you can just have some preset ideas ready to go. So I want you to write down a handful of go to frameworks or outfit elements that really feel like you and then use them as a starting point on those busy mornings. Or feel free to plan them into your week in advance. This is really going to help you to keep some variety without reinventing the wheel every single day. All right. Number six is to create an in a pinch outfit section. And what you can do here is to reserve a small rack or space in your closet for two to three pre assembled outfits that you know you feel great in. These are going to be your emergency backups. They're perfect for mornings when you are running late, when nothing else is working, or if you're low on energy. You can treat this as a little mini boutique of some of your current favorites to rotate through. If you just have this always in place and stocked and ready to go, it can save you so much stress in the morning. Or to take this one step further, our last one, which is probably going to be the most complicated but definitely worthwhile, is to build yourself a mini capsule. If again, you're kind of in the messy middle of this process and you're not completely satisfied with what's in your closet yet, instead of trying to take on a full wardrobe revamp, you could pull together a handful of pieces that work well together and reflect what you're loving this season. Maybe it's 10 or 15 mix and match items that you keep at the front of your closet for easy access. These are going to be your MVPs. Your most valuable pieces are for the month or for the whole season, whatever feels better for you. You could do this every single month or you can just set it and forget it. But I want you to think about grabbing some versatile tops, bottoms, easy shoes, maybe a layering piece or two, and just a couple of simple accessories that you love. It's especially helpful to build these pieces around a cohesive color story or with the help of a personal color palette to ensure that everything works together seamlessly. Make sure that you're infusing your personal style into this. This doesn't not have to look like a cookie cutter capsule wardrobe of neutral basics. You can really have fun and play and experiment with this. But again, making a little mini capsule for the month is a fantastic first step on the way to building a complete wardrobe that you love. So there you have it my friend. I want to know which of these outfit planning habits you are gonna try first. We talked about 1 keeping an outfit library album on your phone 2. Rotating your collection to get a fresh look at your items every so often or number three organizing your closet by category and color so you can very quickly find what you need when you're ready to get dressed 4. Starting with an outfit anchor or one key piece and then building the rest of your look from there 5 is setting up a weekly style routine to reduce your decision fatigue. Number six is to create an in a pinch outfit section, a couple of looks that you know that you love and feel amazing in. And number seven, probably the most time intensive is having the planning time to build a mini capsule for the season or the month. Remember, I want you to start small. Don't take all of this on at once, but just try one of these approaches this week and watch how much easier your mornings become. And if you love this episode and you want help building a full wardrobe that you love, I would be so honored to support you inside my now 90 day group coaching program, Her Style Collective. We will simplify and personalize the entire process to work for your preferences, your personality, your lifestyle, your body, your budget, and the time that you have to make it happen. The art of getting dressed gets to be fun. Outfit planning doesn't have to be a rigid routine. I want you to think of this as a little gift to yourself. So it's just two minutes of prep time that can make your morning smoother and your closet feel way more creative and cohesive all at the same time. For now, have fun trying one of these new takes on putting your outfits together and definitely let me know how it goes.
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Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you want to stop copying everyone else's 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 a two way conversation and send me 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.