← The Everyday Style School
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
Jennifer Macky
Foreign of the Everyday Style School Summer Shorts, our weekly summer series sharing a quick style tip to help you save time, save money, and get the wardrobe you've always wanted. I'm your host, Jennifer Macky. Mary. I've been dressing women for over 25 years and and I'm on a mission to help you love the way you look every single day if you followed me for any length of time. Today's tip is probably one you've heard before, but it's also probably my favorite on this list. So let's just get right to it so I can talk about it some more. Here it is. Your closet should be the boutique you shop from each morning. Why do I love this one so much? Well, it comes down to two things. First, I just like to shop. Stores make me happy. I love the feeling of finding a cute little boutique where everything in it is my style. You go in, you're like, I want everything in here. It's like stumbling onto a buried treasure chest. But the other reason I love this one is that I know how much power your closet has to make or break your day. The time you spend getting dressed in the morning can leave you feeling like a hot mama ready to take on the world or a hot mess who just wants to hide in the house. Do not underestimate how powerful that part of your day is and how much your closet and wardrobe can affect you. So doesn't it make sense that you'd want to start your day off on a positive note? I think so. When I say your closet should be the boutique you shop from each morning, there are really two parts to this. Number one, what's in it. And number two, how the space makes you feel. Let's go on a little visual journey together for a minute, and I want you to imagine that you need an outfit for a work event or a night out. So you go shopping. You stumble into that treasure chest store I described earlier. Everything in it feels like it was just made for you. It's your style. It fits you. And there's more than one great outfit that would work. In fact, it's hard to choose which of the great outfits you should buy. How do you leave that store feeling? I'm guessing, pretty amazing. You're looking forward to the event, feeling pretty darn good about yourself. Now, let's say instead of that magical boutique, you stumble into a store that has lots of things but none of them are quite right. And there's a salesperson who's very sweet and she's bringing you options to Try on the first dress she brings you. Doesn't fit, but she says, you know, if you lost 15 pounds, that dress would be perfect. Well, you'd be like, yeah, but I have to get dressed tomorrow. And the next outfit she brings fits, but it's a little bit dated. And she says, oh, but just wait, that that's going to come back into style. Then she brings you a blouse in a color you don't feel great in. But she says, but it's on sale. How can you pass up a deal like this? The next outfit is a pantsuit, and when you try to explain that the event is pretty casual, she says, well, yeah, but you never know when you're going to need a good pantsuit. Finally, after all that, you find a skirt you love, but they don't have a single top to go with it. You're in there for what feels like hours and you leave with another pair of plain black pants and a top that'll work even though you don't really love it. How do you feel leaving that store? I'm guessing a little bit different than the first one. You're probably feeling bad about yourself and dreading whatever it was you needed the outfit for in the first place. If those two stores represent actual closets, which do you have when you get dressed in the morning? Do you struggle to choose which of the great outfits you should wear? Or do you struggle to put together something, anything, that's simply passable? Those scenarios also give you very different energies and, and you carry that energy with you into your day. Do the clothes in your closet represent who you are right now, right now? Your style, your body and your lifestyle? Or does your wardrobe belong to someone else? There's a second part to my your closet should be the boutique you shop from each morning, quote, and that is. It's not a museum to the person you used to be or, or a storage facility for the person you might become. Think about all the things you're hanging onto that you can't or don't want to wear right now. The too small dress, for example, is that a reminder of thinner days or are you hoping to get back into it, quote unquote, someday? The suit that you are unlikely to wear now that you work from home full time, is it a memento from a life you used to have, or. Or are you hanging onto it because you might go back to an office someday, even though that's not in your five year plan? A closet full of clothes that you can't wear, don't like, or don't want to wear makes getting dressed more difficult. It takes a lot of time each day to rummage through everything looking for the gems, but we'll talk more about that in a minute. It can also be damaging on a deeper level, though. All of those unwearable clothes often serve as a daily reminder of weight changes and past versions of yourself. And sometimes where you are right now doesn't feel like success. I don't know if you've ever felt that. I know I have. We remember when we were younger, thinner, more stylish, had more disposable income or more exciting lives. And that can trigger guilt and regret and sometimes even a sense of failure. I don't think that's a fabulous way to start your day. So you need things that make you feel good about who you are and where you are right now. But that's the first part. What's in your closet? Now, let's talk about the space itself. When I had you imagine walking into that treasure chest of a boutique, what did you visualize? For me, it's a space that's light and bright, with ivory walls and white shelving and big windows and bold wallpaper in the fitting rooms. Everything in there is organized in a way that makes it easy to shop, and there's enough breathing room between the hangers on the racks so that I can flip through things easily. The hangers are nice. They have a little weight to them. The store even smells good. That's my ideal boutique. Now, your ideal boutique probably looks a little bit different from mine, but I'm guessing no one, not one person listening right now said, my ideal boutique looks like the clearance section of Old Navy at the end of a busy Saturday with with clothes sliding off of their hangers, folded, piles falling onto the floor, racks packed so tight you can't look at anything, and a random baby sweater stuck in the middle of the tank tops. Again, very different energies in those stores, right? So just like we did before, ask yourself if your ideal boutique was an actual closet and my version of retail hell was an actual closet. Which does your closet more closely resemble? But back to the energy thing. Both of these spaces make you feel some type of way. My ideal closet makes me feel calm and in control. And maybe that's not how you want your closet to make you feel. Maybe you want to feel energized or happy or cozy. I don't know. That's up to you. But again, no one says I'd really like my closet to make me feel frantic or chaotic. But that's what ends up happening when you can't find the one black tea you want and in the pile of 15 other black tees. Or when your blouses are sliding off of those terrible plastic tubular hangers, creating a mess that you have to put away later. When we do our ultimate closet cleanout challenges, it's incredible to see the closet and wardrobe transformations, but what's really amazing to me is how the owners of those closets feel when it's done. They feel lighter, less stressed, more in control, and more stylish. Just having a space that looks and feels nice makes women want to dress better. Hopefully at this point you can see how having that ideal boutique closet makes your mornings and your style better. And maybe you even realize that your closet is more of a museum or a storage unit or an Old Navy clearance section. But so what? What do you do about it? Most of us don't have the budget to completely rebuild our wardrobes from scratch or to do major home renovations. But that doesn't mean you can't do anything. You can make small changes that eventually add up to big results. And the first thing you need to do is take everything that isn't a part of your wardrobe out of your closet. Remember, your wardrobe is not all the clothes you own and it's all the clothes you can and do wear. And I'm not going to tell you you have to get rid of all the too tight jeans you're definitely going to wear again someday. That's a discussion for another day. But I will say they don't deserve to be in your boutique. So go through your closet and pull out the clothes that are not a part of your wardrobe. If you're ready to part with them, great. If you're not, put them in a bin, get them out of sight and as you add to your wardrobe, ask yourself if that item is boutique worthy. If it's not, don't buy it. Stop buying filler. When it comes to your boutique's physical space, a lot of women think if they don't have a Pinterest worthy closet, they're just out of luck. If I can't have a marble topped island and a love seat and a TV in there, why bother? Friends, we should know by now that Pinterest is not real life. In my career I have been in some of those closets and they were gorgeous. And did I have closet envy? Absolutely. But the reality is the vast majority of my clients had small closets, awkward closets, closets they shared with their husbands, builder grade closets that weren't functional. So I guarantee you, no matter what social media tells you, you are not alone in your unspecial closet. But again, there is always something you can do. Start with organizing your closet better. Our members know that the everyday style way is to hang all like items together. All dresses, all skirts, all pants. Then the easiest, most cost effective way to upgrade your boutique is to simply swap out your hangers. Trade those terrible plastic tubular hangers in random colors for matching ones in either slim velvet or wood. Pro tip. By the way, if you want your closet to look more expensive and upscale and luxurious, choose white or ivory hangers. Then if you're able, change out the light fixture. Lighting is so important and most closets don't come with fabulous or even functional lighting. Heck, you can add battery powered or rechargeable lights if you can't wire something. Finally, add personal touches. If you have the room, add a piece of art that makes you happy. Put a few drops of good smelling oil on wool dryer balls and stash them all around your closet. Paint the inside of your closet a color that makes you happy. None of these things need a contractor or a construction loan to happen, but they'll make a big difference in creating a space that makes you feel the way you want each day. When you start to look at your closet like a boutique instead of a dumping ground that doesn't matter, you start to make better choices about what you buy, what you keep, and how you take care of things. It creates standards for your wardrobe that you might not have otherwise. You stop wasting money on filler and your style just naturally improves. Best of all though, when you create that ideal boutique, what you've really created is a launch pad for a better day. And that's really what this is all about. That's all I have for you in this episode of Summer Shorts. I hope it inspires you to take even one small step towards turning your closet into your ideal boutique. As always, remember that your everyday matters, so get dressed for it. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next week. And that's a wrap. Thank you for listening today. If you're loving the Everyday Style School podcast, I'd like to invite you to become a member of the Style Circle. It's our monthly all access membership that gives you everything we create to make style easy so you can save time and money, have easier mornings and more confidence all day long. You get our seasonal capsule wardrobe guides, all of the masterclasses we offer, and our exclusive members only podcast the Everyday Style School extra credit. Plus you're invited to the Facebook community where you can get even more style support and inspiration. I would love to get to know you and and support your style journey. It's just $19 a month less than the cost of a clearance shirt you're never going to wear. Come join me and make your everyday style easier.