Transcript
Unknown Speaker (0:00)
Foreign.
Jennifer McCoy (0:11)
It'S week seven of the Everyday Style School Summer Shorts, which is our weekly summer series sharing a quick style thought or tip to help you save time, save money, and get the wardrobe you've always wanted. I'm your host, Jennifer Mcy. Mary I've been dressing Women for over 25 years, and I'm on a mission to help you love the way you look every single day. One theme we've touched on a couple of times in this series is the idea of style being this thing you put on when it matters and take off when you want to be comfortable versus style as a way of being. If you remember, we talked about the difference between dressing well and dressing up and giving yourself permission to just like what you like. Both of those are really important if you want to move from having stylish outfits to being a stylish woman. And today's tip is another piece of that particular puzzle. It's all about where to start if you want that transformation, which I assume you do since you're listening to this show. So here's today's style truth. Stylish women don't wear ratty underwear. You heard me. I said what I said, and I will say it again. So stylish women don't wear ratty underwear. As a matter of fact, stylish women have nice underwear, loungewear, and pajamas. Today I want to talk about why the things people don't see are actually more important to your style than the things they do. And I want to share a couple of things that you can do to approach style differently. But first, let's go back real quick to the idea that style is either something you put on and take off or. Or something you have all the time. There's a quote from legendary basketball coach and personal development guru John Wooden that says the true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching. With respect to Coach Whitten and a little bit of poetic license, I want to borrow that for this conversation and just change it up a little bit to say the true test of a woman's style is what she wears when no one is watching. If you want to be a stylish woman, this is where you need to start in order to flip the script. And I swear I can hear all the way in my office in the middle of nowhere, Minnesota women out there saying, ugh, but I don't wear those fancy pajamas, or nope, I'm not wearing uncomfortable bras. And if that described your reaction to the idea that stylish Women are stylish, even when no one's watching. With love and respect. I want you to go back to the first episode in this series because you might have a mindset block that's telling you style means dressing up in uncomfortable clothes. And you know what? It's okay. A lot of women are stuck there. But until you change that idea, that mindset, if your life doesn't require you to dress up in uncomfortable clothes, what you're basically telling yourself is that you can't have style ever. And no matter how much you say you want a fabulous wardrobe for the way you really live, you're never going to get there until you change that thinking. But even as I say that, I know, I know convincing women to prioritize clothes no one sees is a tough sell. Just getting my clients into better bras was a challenge sometimes, and that is literally step one to looking better in your clothes. Over the years, I have heard things like, I'm the only one who sees it, so who cares? Or I don't want to spend that kind of money on things no one sees. So if you are skeptical about the importance of nice underwear, loungewear, and pajamas, you're not alone. I get that. But I just want you to suspend that idea for a little while and just hear me out. Let me make my case, and then you can decide if I'm full of it or if maybe I have a point. To me, there are so many reasons that these unseen pieces are important. But in the interest of time today, I'm just going to share three with you. First, what you wear when no one's watching says a lot about who you believe you are. It's really easy to dress up for others, but what you wear in private reflects your true self concept. And when your true self concept is vastly different than what you want the world to see, you're often going to feel like you're putting on a costume. When you try to be more stylish, style feels performative. When at your core, you see yourself as the hot mess woman in a stained tee and leggings, lounging on the couch, too embarrassed to answer the door. It's in our nature to want to feel authentic. So to erase the disconnect between the person that people see and the person you see yourself at home, what normally gives is cute outfits, right? And then, even though you have nice clothes that are appropriate for your actual day, you find yourself passing over those things and choosing clothes that are closer to the woman you really think you are. The trick is to have as little gap between all parts of your style self as possible, so that when you come home from wherever you go, whatever you do, you change from your outside self to your inside self. You still feel like the same person. Now, like I just said, one way to erase that disconnect is to dial down your outside style and not wear the nice things that are hanging in your closet, which is what a lot of women end up doing whether they realize it or not. But another way, and may I say a better way, is to dial up your inside style when you look and feel a little bit better when no one's watching. It doesn't seem like such a stretch to make an effort when people are. You are far more likely to wear stylish outfits outside of the house if you don't feel like a total train wreck inside the house because all parts of you are aligned and you stop feeling like a style fraud. And this really is how you go from being a woman who has stylish outfits sometimes to being that stylish woman. You have to see yourself as a stylish person all the time, not just when it quote unquote matters. And you can't get there focusing only on the outside style you. The second reason these unseen clothes are so important goes a whole lot deeper than just the clothes themselves.