- 👠 My shoe collection is not a headstone. It’s official! I have given up every pair of unwearable-for-me shoes in my ‘Shoe Museum’ and couldn’t be happier. This has been a long process of learning AND ACCEPTING (the distinctly harder part) what I can physically tolerate as I’ve aged, what I have wanted to keep emotionally because they were simply beautiful works-of-art-to-me, and an acceptance of my current priorities (I’d rather have a tight collection than a wide range of options I am less likely to use). This has taken some decades of constant growth, and I am fully okay with the knowledge that my perspective may once again change in the future. I get to say that for myself, no one else, and to leave some space for continued change.
- 📊 Not every trend is for me and THANK GOODNESS for that. Perhaps it’s simply my age, or the return of silhouettes I recall with a shudder having ‘barely survived’ (*insert eye roll for hyperbole here) the first time around. Maybe wearing them makes me feel like an oversized baby or straight up uncomfortable…just nope. It is such a gift to have more of a bird’s eye view on the lengths to which I am (un)willing to go, to ever-more increasingly prioritize dressing for my own agenda rather than for others’. Also, this still leaves me uncountable and unknowable options and possibilities, such as that old chestnut, ‘Never say never’!
- 👑 I now prefer accessories to clothes. What does that mean? It sounds – and feels- a little bit like heresy but let me explain. This is a more recent development for me. I’ve always known that I adore accessories (I especially need more fingers, necks and wrists stat). Clothes were equal if not primary in terms of transmitting my mood, personal creativity, how I wanted to show up, etc. In recent years I have come to appreciate using my clothing as more of a blank canvas on which to splatter the accessories as paint. (Who says my Art History degree is useless? Metaphors are useful!) The versatility that comes with this sideways approach is truly awesome. I know, it sounds counterintuitively bananas, but it’s not! Promise.
I hope to get your wheels turning on how you feel about YOUR specific manner of dress today, and I hope you’ll leave room for the evolution and growth of your style – and self – always.
x Stephanie
