Real Women, Real Wardrobes // 002

come behind the scenes with one of my clients!

Hello Readers,

As part of our March Styling month, I’m excited to do the second installment of my Real Women, Real Wardrobe series featuring one of my Winter Style Reset clients!

This is a series I am really passionate about sharing as The Found Journal is 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 that’s not what personal style is about.

My job as a stylist is to take an individual’s unique challenges, bodies, goals, and real lifestyle and create a wardrobe full of outfits that help them feel good. To make getting dressed easier all while feeling authentically themselves. Guiding a client through discovering their unique POV in order to better convey how they want to look and feel through the clothes they choose to wear is the ultimate goal.

This series will share a peek behind my styling process using real life examples and sharing my clients’ own “a-ha” moments!

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

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

Get to know a bit about my client -

• Lifestyle: A young professional in a highly visible management position in a traditionally male-dominated industry. She works out of an office 5 days a week. Dress code is business casual (allowed to wear jeans) but she needs to dress business professional one day a week. She also travels for work and personal every few months. Her day-to-day outside of work is casual.

• Current Style: Classic and casual but feels she’s lacking a POV in expressing anything “personal” in her style.

• Current Wardrobe: Prefers a streamlined closet and had done some big wardrobe clean outs but had two major challenges with what was left:

  • 1) Clarity: “It feels difficult to determine what I like in my wardrobe - if there are pieces I really like, or I just liked the idea of them on someone else.”

  • 2) Decision fatigue: “Struggling with time and energy to figure out how to rebuild my wardrobe to feel more like me.”

• Biggest Style Challenge:

  • “I’m having a hard time reconciling my work wardrobe and my non-work wardrobe. I feel like both are mediocre and nothing feels cohesive.”

  • “I don’t feel excited by the clothes I have, but I’m also exhausted by the idea of buying and returning more items. Sometimes I dread going out because I don’t feel like I look the way I want to.”

• Biggest Shopping Challenge:

  • “Finding pants that fit my measurements (short waisted with long legs and a curvy hip-to-waist ratio) and fit well to my proportions.”

  • “My body has changed in the last few years - I’ve gained a tiny bit of weight, but mainly my waist:hip ratio has changed and I have a hard time finding clothes that make me feel good.”

• Biggest Concern: “My only hesitation with working with a stylist was making sure I still looked and felt like “me.” It was important to me to find a stylist who emphasized understanding my personal style goals and my lifestyle needs as part of the process. I didn’t want to look like a capsule wardrobe template on Pinterest. I wanted elements that made it feel specialized.”

• Style Goals: To leverage the pieces in her wardrobe she liked but round out with versatile pieces that were more interchangeable and felt truly “her” in terms of how she wanted to express herself.

Before, my client felt her style was classic but felt “blah” with no real POV (in her words!). After, we brought the personality and interest she felt was missing through intentional styling details, playful pairings, and purchases that still felt like her but were more aligned with her personal style. A big win was finding pants and jeans that fit with little to no alterations needed!

Our Styling Process:

I work with clients in many different ways but for my Style Reset service¹, we work together over a 6 week period with the following key 1:1 sessions:

• Style Discovery - We take the time to create a client’s “style language” (how they want to look, feel, and show up in the world through their clothing choices). We dig a layer deeper than just pulling inspiration images to uncover what a client really resonates with, unlocking clarity to their authentic preferences.

• Mindful Edit - I help audit the existing wardrobe and determine what to keep, replace, alter, or edit out. We troubleshoot why things are or aren’t working. Gain clarity around what really resonates and why. We style the trouble pieces. We identify the gaps.

• Curated Shopping - Based on the wardrobe gaps, I scour the internet to find recommendations that meet an individual’s body shape, measurements, budget, lifestyle, and preferences. I show how the new items can be worn through personalized styling so there’s no second guessing on how the new items will come to life in their everyday moments. All my client needs to do is review and click to purchase within their own digital closet portal.

• Styling & Fit Session - Once all new purchases have been received, we do a detailed styling and fit session where I’ll help review and advise on fit, along with styling looks, so the client can feel confident in the longevity and versatility of their new purchases.

A few things to note…

• The styling sessions move quick as we are getting a lot done in a short amount of time so capturing images for content is more of an afterthought for me! Hence some of the blurry screenshots :) My hope is to provide a BTS across the range of age groups, heights, sizes, and aesthetics I work with so I’ll try to get better at this so I can share more in the future!

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

• Client sessions are all about PERSONAL style. It’s not about me telling you what’s right or wrong, what’s in or out, or what looks “flattering” or not. It’s about helping guide you in uncovering your unique preferences and learning what you feel the very best in. Giving you the space to learn how you want to feel so you can be a more empowered decision maker and gain confidence in your choices. It’s about helping uncover any blind spots that may be preventing you from getting dressed in your everyday moments.

Let’s move into some key learnings from some of our sessions!