The Fine Art and Science of Being You

When I started this blog back in 2013, the very first height of my styling abilities was color blocking. It was what I felt drawn to when I observed other style bloggers, and it was something brand new to me as a concept, so for a long time, I had a good fun playing with it. Now when I look back, I see how simple my outfits were. But for someone who for a few years lost her interest in style, coming back can be quite overwhelming, to the point that you just give up and go back to your routine (in my case, it was dark blue boot cut jeans & some kind of cute top or jacket). I spent a few months mostly just reading about style before I pumped up the courage to start experimenting and created my blog. Color blocking was a good place to begin, and I think I did pretty well.

By no means do I consider myself an expert now, but I know that I developed a keener eye and get genuine insights into personal style. Colors were what I noticed first, but then I learned to see beyond them. I am more interested in details than before, as well as in fabrics - mixing patterns and textures. The latest thing I'm learning is proportions. That's just what I see looking back at my style journey, of which this blog is a precise and honest document. 

I wore this skirt and blouse multiple times in all sorts of combinations, bur for the first time they met in one outfit. I've paired this coat with the skirt before, but  everything else in this outfit, to the smallest detail, is completely different.

I've had the malachite earrings for almost 10 years now, and they really grew on me -

I appreciate their design more and more every year.

When I look at these pictures, I see that I basically created a blue outfit with green details, and color blocked it with the orange coat (if you look closely, you will see that it also has blue and green threads in the pattern). That's really what it is, though it doesn't look like color blocking at first - but essentially, it is a more intricate form of it. 

If you look at this discovery of mine this way, mixing patterns isn't nearly as complicated as it might seem at first! And it doesn't have to be dull and predictable then. 

Look at pattern mixing as the next level of color blocking, 

and you can mix any colors you like, 

while they also provide pattern mixes!

The background blue and shades of golden yellow bind the two patterns together. I added more green accents (jewelry, purse and scarf are all different tones of green). My hair (freshly cut and colored by Erica) always adds to my favorite warm reddish/brownish palette, as well as the new pair of inexpensive sunglasses. I like the masculine element the engineer boots add to my usually ultra feminine outfits.

I like experimenting with my style. It still doesn't feel "done" to me, and I wonder not only whether it ever will, but whether there is even a need for it to be "done". I enjoy exploring, and it seems I always find something I haven't done before or haven't realized before. It's as if to say, I became a good writer, and that's it for me - I don't need to learn anything else, I know it all. But I don't know it all! I am eager to learn! I don't want to ever feel like I'm done learning, and there is nothing for me to explore. Of course, I understand that my eureka moments might seem trivial to some knowledgeable and experienced stylists - but they really aren't. We can take a book and memorize all that it says, and consider ourselves wise and knowledgeable, but mostly we are just an annoying "know-it-all".  Books won't make us wise or insightful, they only can give us a hint as to where to dig for what we're looking for. Or confuse us - create a distance between where we are and where we want to be, that also very well can happen. When we discover our style (or anything else about life) from within, by experiencing and not being afraid of making a mess - then we gain the most precious knowledge of all, the fine art and science of what it is to be OURSELVES.

Everything is remixed from my wardrobe:

Blouse - thrifted

Skirt - eShakti

Coat - c/o eShakti

Boots - Born

Purse - B Makowsky (via TJ MAXX)

Jewelry - silver, malachite and jasper - gifts from Justin and old friends

Sunglasses - via Fireworks

Linked with Visible Monday

* * *