Your Style Strategy for 2011
Tackle 2011 with Aplomb. Not just to the NYE party, silly. | Flickr AnnaGay
Take a moment to ask yourself:
Who do I want to be in 2011? Where am I going, what do I want to feel, and how do I intend for this year to play out?
Sound familiar? Too resolution-y? Okay, how about this one:
Will my clothes facilitate my life and the changes I want to make this year??
If my theories hold and what you wear reflects how you think, then the strategy of personal style must be part of your 2011 gameplan.
Need a nudge? Skeptical that your wardrobe can change without massive $$$? Fortunately, I haven’t been writing at Rethinking Style for 5 months for nothing! Let’s get to your style re-invention, pronto.
The Challenges:
The Advice:
- Ten Ways to Rethink Style Right Now
- When Your Personal Style Isn’t Unicorn Vomit
- Wear It ‘Till You Feel It
- A Shirt Is Not A Shirt
- Style Anxiety? Interviews on wearing confidence, magic, and self-love.
What else have you got?
- Try rearranging your closet/drawers in a meaningful way. Maybe you put the daring stuff at the top, so you’ll be more likely to go for it in the morning! Or arrange by textures if you’re a tactile person. What about drawers arranged by feelings?!
- Repeat to yourself: I think, therefore I dress for myself. Anyone want to translate this into Latin?
- Instead of buying a new wardrobe, why not go the opposite route and limit your old one altogether? Challenge yourself to a temporary shopping ban and get creative! This can only help your $-related resolutions. Yay two birds and one…arrow (you’ve got to admit a stone would never work.)
You could even kick off the year with your very own 30-for-30! Now THAT would be badass.
If you’ve been eyeballing my personal consults, or think I’m funny but wait till I hear about YOUR style dilemma or story, then shoot me an email! Working with me 1:1 will be an option when the decade ends…And I love a good challenge 
Cheers to your strategic success,
Tessa
P.S. Thanks for being patient and excited to see my new design breakthroughs, guys! My good friend Andreas is finishing up the video edits & it will be up on the 1st of January!
Redefining fashion design forever, yo. (And the results of my style consult contest!)
Remember back when I said I was sick of being a “fashion designer”? That I no longer wished to dictate style choices, but instead was working on designs to liberate the wearer?
Welcome to the cut and sew collection boldly entitled Style Yourself Free.
This semester, I’ve conceptualized, cut, and draped within an inch of my sanity to produce knit pieces that would be size-adjustable, convertible, and all around accessible. Clothes that felt good to wear and play with…but also challenged you to complete the picture and made it impossible to be a mannequin.
Yeah? Who’s with me?!
There are so many more photos and VIDEO in the midst of editing madness, but I was too excited to wait & wanted to share a preview with you guys.
Intrigued? Want to see how these work/possibly get your hands on a piece? Check back soon!
In the meantime, check out Kristin Low, the winner of my 1:1 Style Consult contest! An excerpt from his entry: “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy where my own awesomeness is compounded by others, and in turn compounds their own awesomness, empowering everyone into a general state of…well, awesomeness!”
And I thought we were just talking about style 
He also happened to write a ridiculously amazing article about style and truth on his own revolutionary site, and I’m featured in the piece! I encourage you all to read it if you get a chance!
Anyway, congrats Kristin, & a huge thank you to everyone who entered my contest! More where that came from & opportunities to work with me in the near future. Finals at RISD are finally over & I’m unwinding with a vengance… and strategizing for 2011. Bold and beautiful things are on the agenda (site redesign, anyone? )
It may be in your best interest right now to subscribe to Rethinking Style! Stay in touch as I unveil this design collection & my next steps, to better facilitate YOUR style freedom.
Love and holiday cheers,
Tessa
Birthday Love: Win a 1:1 style consult!
Having seen all the pay-what-you-can birthday giveaways in the blogsphere, I’ve been brainstorming about kicking off something special on my own day.
So to celebrate turning 20 today (new decade?!), I’m giving YOU GUYS the present!
Ooh what do I get what do I get?
(Like it’s not in the title already… just play along and hold your breath!)
Dun dun dunnnn.
Ready?
One lucky reader will win a one-on-one style consultation with me!
Think email Q+A extravaganza, followed by a 30-min consult over phone or Skype! & super-helpful email follow-up as needed for a limited time.
And SINCE I’m planning on releasing these sessions to the public in 2011, this giveaway also comes with the opportunity to get featured on Rethinking Style for promo purposes 
To win, all you need to do is to leave a comment on this post & fill in the blank: I wear clothes because ___________.
That’s it! Winners will be chosen at random with a possible bias toward the most amusing/truthful of replies.
Entries close next Wednesday, Dec. 15th!
As one of my readers wrote in an email recently, a consult with me will be a bit like “Self discovery meets style school” ! This may or may not be the most energetic, set-your-mind-a-spinning conversation you’ve ever had…and about fashion, no less! Only those looking for audacious inspiration need apply.
Ready to play? | Pulguita on Flickr
Good luck! Spread the word/retweet if you think the idea is rad!
Love,
Tessa
I’m not a dictator and you’re not a mannequin.
If you think you have lots of options for dressing, you may not realize that you’re being humored.
Sure, we have more wardrobe choices than ever before. Yet what we really have is a thousand different ready-made interpretations, courtesy of the fashion industry, celebrity culture, and media (blogs definitely included!)
The reality is that no one in these industries is facilitating your style freedom. Designers, editors, and stylists everywhere make a case for “developing your own style” and yet dictate a preconceived notion of what “looks good” through editorials, trends, and fashion shows. You could make a case for them expressing their creative talents, but I think an important question to put forth is: Is it at the expense of others’ creativity?
Who's the stylist? | Gustavo Minas flickr
There seems to be this idea that only certain people are creative, or that designers are a special breed. While I definitely believe we all have different talents and strengths, I think a lot of this kind of thinking boils down to elitism. A pocketful of people in the industry hold the reins. They determine at their leisure and whimsy that we should look a certain way, and you can damn expect that it’ll filter out onto the streets in time.
Therefore, I refuse to be a part of it!
When I started Rethinking Style this summer, I was overflowing with ideas for what one could do with existing clothes, but not how to call them into existence. In other words, after a year of studying Apparel Design, I still struggled with finding a design approach would reflect my greater philosophy on individual expression & decision-making.
Finally, I realized what it boiled down to:
I could no longer dictate my vision onto a passive body.
Inspiration and ideas come and go every single day– crazy silhouettes, innovative draping, color palettes that make me gasp and fumble for some markers– but if it’s just going to be dictation, I can’t carry it out anymore. Not unless people could actually feel inspired themselves in my designs, and be empowered to discover their own style through them.
Because you are not a mannequin. I promise you that. Why should I tell you what to wear, or how to wear it? Clothes are nothing if not for the wearer, after all.
*
Design Philosophy
As a designer, I feel that my responsibility, besides to fulfill my own expressive needs, is to create accessibility to autonomy. I want to:
- Provide relevant choices that are really choices, leaving styling up to individuals.
- Challenge people into reconsidering passive stances towards clothing.
- Democratize creativity
- Offer up a vision that involves you.
And there you have an inkling of what I think about every day in studio!
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Want to see it in action?
This semester, I’ve been working on a collection of pieces this semester, entitled “Style Yourself Free,” that reflects all of these ideas. I’m super excited to share it with you guys as soon as I get things finished/photographed. Check back for updates very soon!
Thank you for all the recent support- I’ve been really encouraged to delve deeper into the essence of this blog, and I hope that you’re enjoying my excavations! Remember– you are truly free to make your own style decisions. No one can hold you back or design you down
Your style sacrifices, superpowers, and (world) changing abilities.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wakingphotolife/
I met the amazing founder of Falling Whistles recently, and in between impassioned conversations about war and marketing, we talked style. He said (and I paraphrase), “It’s a deliberate decision on my part to pare my wardrobe down to the point where I don’t have to think about clothes.”
I was about to protest, but then I realized that Sean was being perfectly reasonable. Considering he’s a perennial nomad on-the-go, complex styling and a big wardrobe just doesn’t make sense. I was going to link him to my post on packing light, but realized he probably wouldn’t have the time to read it, much less act on it.
And that last part—time—is really the killer factor when it comes to conscious style.
Even if you’re not traveling the world campaigning for peace, you’ve probably felt at some point that you were too busy for fashion. If you’re like Sean and several other smart dressers I know, you probably can get by and look pretty good without putting much thought into it. And I’m here to tell you that hey, if you feel that way, I totally respect that…
Just remember that it’s a sacrifice.
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How, you ask?
Your relationship to clothing is a telling one. It’s not as simple as wearing hot pink to show your flamboyance. It’s about decision-making. It’s an exercise in autonomy.
Think of it this way: Clothing doesn’t just attach itself to our limbs without our express permission. Yet there is a stark difference between wearing your shirt backwards because you like the neckline, and accidentally putting it on that way.
If you’re not thinking about style, that is a choice.
And going on autopilot for anything—especially something as constant as styling— makes one susceptible to doing the same when it comes to things that really matter. The BIG or split-second decisions that you have to make at any given time.
The fact of the matter is that something as simple as consciously selecting a shirt to wear in the morning hones your intuition, mind, and creativity.
Consequentially, the sacrifice really isn’t just aesthetic.
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Some tough love (feel free to disagree):
- If you’re wearing a uniform of any kind (corporate, college sweats, head-to-toe Forever 21)—you’re compromising your autonomy.
- If you’re pairing the same tops with the same bottoms every time you wear them, you’re making an intellectual sacrifice.
- If you think only certain colors go with others in a certain way, you’re missing the chance to experiment with your expression.
But if any of the above is a conscious decision, you have my respect. And my appeal:
Clothing is powerful, powerful, powerful. It resides just outside of your skin, closer than a lover. It’s more immediate than your speech or personality for first impressions. It distinguishes you from or blends you into the masses. It engages you every morning, and disrupts that daily routine from bed to door. It follows your every movement.
And because of that, how you dress and who you are become intrinsically, unavoidably intertwined.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gustavominas/
The reality of rethinking style is that it gets you very, very honest with yourself. And that can feel uncomfortable, even frivolous. You might not immediately know what your “authentic” style means, or how to wear every shirt you own in five different ways. That’s totally understandable—I haven’t got the answers to those either myself.
But taking the leap to acknowledge the compromises in your decision-making, and starting to understand where your style choices come from—will make you extraordinary. Most of the world’s population lacks even the awareness (or the luxury!) of such lucidity.
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I won’t dance around the subject anymore:
I truly believe that through developing style consciousness, we can each begin to change the world.
How about you?
(Your feedback is as welcome as ever. Just in case I haven’t expressed this fully before—I think it’s amazing that you’re here, and reading. Thank you.)
A Dedication
For:
The self-proclaimed stylists.
Those who consider themselves “fashion outsiders.”
Anyone who’s ever dressed to impress.
Anyone who’s despaired over a full closet in the morning.
Anyone with clothes piling up on the floor.
Those willing to think outside of the shirt.
Those waiting for the fashion industry’s mirror to turn outwards.
Those who can’t remember what they’re wearing right now without looking down.
Anyone who finds erotic the contact of skin to cloth.
Anyone who would rather wear his birthday suit.
Those who have teared up looking in a mirror.
Anyone studying the choreography of buttons.
Anyone who, as a little kid, wanted to design dresses.
Anyone who’s ever raged against uniforms.
Anyone who’s ever uniformed herself against rage.
And…You. No matter who you are, how you look, or who’s told you so.
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Because the freedom of rethinking style is all yours, love. Yours and mine. This website wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe in our liberation.
Keep inspiring with your lovely selves,
Tessa
(P.S. Ever wish your clothes were as interesting as you? Discover how you can bridge the chasm between how you dress and who you are! )