The Curated Weekend | Your Closet May Already Know

I’ve spent an almost ridiculous amount of time lately studying a year’s worth of outfits.

Not trends. Not Pinterest. Mine.

Apparently, somewhere along the way, I turned my own closet into a research project.

But there was a reason I wanted to go this deep.

I want to feel like myself in what I wear.

That sounds simple enough. It isn’t.

We spend a lifetime learning how to dress for all sorts of things—a job, a body type, an occasion, a trend, a stage of life. Sometimes we’re dressing for the person we think we should be, or the person someone else sees when they look at us.

Somewhere underneath all of that is a much harder question:

What actually feels like me?

I’ve been writing about style for years, and I’m still figuring mine out. But lately I’ve felt a need to understand the difference between clothes that look good on me and clothes that make me feel like myself.

So I started with the evidence.

I looked back through a year’s worth of outfits I’d saved and pulled out the ones I remembered genuinely enjoying wearing.

There were fewer than I expected.

Whoa. Now that was interesting.

Because a lot of the other outfits looked good.

Some looked really good.

But I didn’t particularly like wearing them.

In a few, I almost felt like an imposter—as if I’d done a very convincing job of dressing someone who wasn’t actually me.

Looking good and feeling like yourself aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Suzanne Bell

Apparently, I’ve Been Telling Myself All Along

Once I stopped looking at individual outfits and started looking for patterns, they were everywhere.

I like movement on the bottom—long wide-leg or flared pants, ankle-grazing skirts, pieces that skim my hips and move when I walk.

On top, I usually prefer something more fitted, often with a little definition at the waist. And I frequently add a third layer—a jacket, blazer or long duster.

Even my shoes were telling me something.

Sandals, mules, clogs, sneakers, pointed booties. Occasionally a low kitten heel.

For years, I probably would have described that as choosing comfortable shoes.

But I’ve realized that’s not quite it.

Flats are part of my style.

I feel more confident when I can move naturally in my clothes. I love the feeling of a long skirt or wide-leg pant moving around me as I walk.

I want to feel as though I’m gliding through a room, not hobbling across it in a pair of heels.

I’ve always wanted to feel elegant as I move.

Ironically, a high heel—something we’re often told makes an outfit more elegant—can make me feel exactly the opposite.

If I’m thinking about my feet or how I’m walking, I don’t feel particularly elegant.

Or confident.

Then There Was the Banana

Another pattern took me a little longer to understand.

I’m naturally fairly straight—or what is commonly, though I’m not quite sure why, called a banana shape.

I don’t have a lot of natural curve through my hips.

Yet again and again, the outfits I loved had movement there: a long flared jean, a floor-grazing skirt, a wide-leg pant. Something that skimmed my hips and then moved away from my body.

Eventually, I realized that movement gives me some of the softness and femininity I apparently want from my clothes.

Not by trying to change my body.

Just through movement.

That little bit of swish makes me feel more feminine. Pair it with something more fitted or defined on top, and suddenly the proportions feel like me.

And that’s where this became about more than figuring out which clothes I liked.

No two bodies are exactly alike. Even two women with similar proportions may feel completely different in the same clothes.

Someone else can tell us what they see.

They can’t tell us how we feel.

Someone else can see the outfit. Only we can experience ourselves inside it.

I Thought I Was Looking for What Was Missing

Part of the reason I started this project was to figure out the voids in my closet.

What did I need?

As it turns out, not very much.

Instead, understanding my patterns sent me back into my own closet.

I started looking at pieces I hadn’t worn in a while and asking why.

Sometimes there was a good reason. Other times, I simply hadn’t been styling the piece in a way that felt like me.

A skirt I wasn’t reaching for might not need replacing. Maybe I simply needed to recognize that I feel better in a skirt that falls close to my ankles than one that stops in the middle of my calf.

A jacket wasn’t necessarily wrong. Maybe I needed to stop trying to wear it the way I thought I should and put it over one of the combinations I already knew worked.

Suddenly, I was creating new outfits with clothes I already owned.

I also moved some of the pieces that weren’t working out of my everyday closet. I didn’t get rid of them. I simply stored them somewhere accessible.

And suddenly there was less noise.

With fewer distractions, I could see what was working more clearly.

The more I did this, the more I realized I wasn’t really discovering something new about my style.

I was finally noticing what had been there all along.

What Does Your Closet Keep Repeating?

You certainly don’t need to go as far down the rabbit hole as I did.

Trust me.

But sometime this weekend, pull up five or ten photographs of outfits you’ve worn and genuinely felt good in.

Not necessarily the ones that received the most compliments.

Not the ones you think looked the most fashionable.

The ones where you felt like yourself.

Then just look.

What keeps repeating?

Maybe it’s a length. A neckline. A proportion. A certain kind of shoe. Maybe you love structure, movement or color. Maybe you always push up your sleeves.

Don’t worry about naming your style or finding the perfect three words to describe it.

Just notice.

And then ask yourself one more question:

What am I continuing to buy that almost never appears in the outfits I actually love wearing?

That one might tell you even more.

How do I want to move through the world?

SUZANNE BELL

This Week’s Reflection

The more I’ve done this, the less interested I’ve become in defining my style perfectly.

Our bodies change. Our lives change. What feels like us changes, too.

But I do think there’s value in understanding ourselves a little better—especially when there are so many voices ready to tell us what we should wear.

Because ultimately, I don’t just want clothes that look good on me.

I want to feel like myself in them.

And perhaps the better question isn’t simply, What looks good on me?

Maybe it’s:

How do I want to move through the world?

I want to move comfortably and confidently. I want my clothes to move with me. I want to feel elegant as I walk into a room—not distracted by my shoes, tugging at something that doesn’t sit right or wondering whether an outfit looks as good as someone told me it did.

Maybe personal style isn’t something we need to keep searching for.

Maybe it’s something we’ve already been practicing.

The favorite skirt we reach for again and again. The shoes we can walk all day in. The proportion that always feels right.

The clues are already there.

Maybe we just need to pay attention.

Until next weekend,