Real Women, Real Wardrobes // 001

come behind the scenes on a styling session!

Hello Readers,

I’m so happy to be back this week with what I hope can be a fun and inspiring new feature.

The Found Journal was created as a newsletter dedicated to personal style. What it means to us, how to find it, and refine it. So what better way to showcase personal style than actually hearing the stories of real clients?

I’ve shared styling inspiration via my Sunday Styling Series and glimpses into how I wear pieces from my own wardrobe (here | here | here), but my goal isn’t to influence you with everything I’m buying and wearing, or try to dress you like versions of myself, because what fun would that be?!

My job as a stylist is to take an individual’s unique challenges, lifestyle, style goals, and real-life wardrobes and create outfits that help them feel good. Make getting dressed easier all while feeling authentically themselves. Yes, there may be some overlap in terms of the pieces we own, or even how we style them, but guiding you through discovering your unique POV so you can convey how you want to look and feel through the clothes you choose to wear is the ultimate goal.

So introducing…

This series will share a peek behind my styling process, real life examples, and client “a-ha” moments!

I currently offer a few services that cater to different needs as everyone may be at a different point in their own style journey:

• 1 hour sessions - perfect if you are short on time or just need a quick boost of clarity or refinement

• Style Discovery - focused on discovering and defining your personal style and learning how to lay the foundation of an intentional wardrobe

• Style Reset - a full end-to-end high touch service where we rebuild your style and create a fully functioning, versatile, and inspiring wardrobe; I do the heavy lifting for you through each step of the editing, shopping, styling, and fitting process.

• Learn more about these services here

My hope is to share some client stories across these different services and journey points.

Today’s client has graciously allowed me to share photos and details of the looks we created so I’ll be keeping this newsletter behind paywall.

Feel free to upgrade and view the whole newsletter by clicking the link below!

A few notes to provide some context on this client and why she chose to work with a stylist:

• Lifestyle: She lives in a major city, is a mom, and full-time professional who goes into the office a few times a week and is WFH the other days. Her office setting is a bit more casual so she’s still able to wear jeans.

• Current Style: Gravitates towards a classic no-fuss look (her go-to outfits have been a button down and trousers with loafers or tee and jeans with sneakers). Her vibe is relaxed with a bit of fun!

• Current Wardrobe: She did a recent edit but also has a minimal approach to her wardrobe so think streamlined bottoms, lived-in denim, and a range of neutral button downs and sweaters. She’s done a great job prioritizing quality over quantity.

• Biggest Style Challenge: “Lack of direction. I have some items I truly love and most of the time even feel comfortable and happy with my style but there is a lack of cohesiveness that makes it easy to get dressed certain days.”

• Style Goals: “I want my clothing to reflect who I am. It’s an important part of my personality. I want it to be versatile, cohesive, effortless, and still be a reflection of me. Playful and stylish.”

• Style Inspiration:

Having a starting point of a client’s inspiration is helpful for me to glean certain themes. What stood out to me were the very classic pieces but styled in relaxed, interesting ways — exactly in line with how she wants to express herself.

Our Session:

We worked together during a 1 1/2 hour session. As this client did a recent wardrobe edit, our session was focused on styling her “How To Wear” pieces.

These are just some of the looks we created (a breakdown on individual style and outfit learnings shared further below!):

The amount of looks created in a session completely varies by client — some want to learn about styling for their body so we spend more time talking about proportions and alterations, others want to spend time styling their most pressing “How Do I Wear This?!” pieces, and others are trying to discover their style so we do a lot of exploratory iterations and edit pieces that don’t align with their style vision or goals.

A few things to note…

• The styling sessions move quick, in a good way! To make things more efficient:

  • I don’t have clients spend too much time putting shoes on and off for each look. We usually try different shoes on each foot to give the visual and talk through options. I did photoshop the other shoe where I could so you don’t have to imagine as much :)

  • Depending on the client and the look, I may repeat the same piece throughout looks as the client can then iterate within that category coming out of our sessions. For example, this client has a lot of neutral crewneck sweaters but we just chose 1-2 for all the looks and I left notes in her photo album of different color combinations she could style.

• These are real wardrobes of busy modern women! You’ll see wrinkles, things that may need to be altered etc. It’s happening in real time vs perfectly planned for a newsletter post.

• Not all looks will work and that’s actually a good thing. One of the main goals in my styling sessions is to get you out of your comfort zone and try new things! See what resonates and what doesn’t. Knowing that strengthens your POV, which will help you so much more in terms of how to get dressed, how to shop with intention, how to remove the noise.

• Client sessions are all about PERSONAL style. It’s not about me telling them what’s right or wrong, what’s in or what’s out, or what looks “flattering” or not. It’s about helping guide them in uncovering their unique preferences and how they want to feel so they can be more empowered in their decision making and confident in their choices. It’s about helping uncover any blind spots that may be preventing them from getting dressed in their everyday moments.

Let’s move into the styling session!