1. love of that cutesy, “country” Americana,
2. love of crafts and decoration (I’ve run out of things to make and decorate for the holiday, so I’ll decorate myself!), and
3. “thriftiness”/pack rat tendencies (it only gets worn once a year, so it’s too nice to toss).

Do you see yourself in any of those?

I’ll be honest; if I were ever tempted to wear that kind of thing, it would be because that’s what my host(ess) was wearing and I wasn’t sure how to translate “casual” + “festive” into my own idiom.  But I’m thinking, this year, that my new dark brown trouser-style cords will come in handy.

What’s your Christmas casual formula?

Share This

A flat boot selection for each energy type:
1. light, upward movement
 
2.  fluid, flowing movement

3. active, reactive movement

4. constant, still movement

BTW, see boot #1?  Those are my newest footwear!  They are Puma’s and my hero bought them for me (for $45) from an online liquidator.  Light colored footwear is generally a no-no for me, as is a mid-calf height boot, but for whatever reason, and I’m sure it’s more complicated than energy movement, they work for me. 

Any insights?

Share This

Dr. Schor from Harvard University wrote the book The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don’t Need
which provides some marvelous insights on television watching. She conducted a large-scale study of American spending and saving habits and correlated the results with other lifestyle factors.

She concluded that for every hour of television a person watches per week, the average American spends $200. Sitting in front of the television five extra hours a week (two sitcoms a night) raises your yearly spending by about $1000.

Indebtedness as an outgrowth of TV watching arises not so much from viewers repeated exposure to advertising, but from their attempts to emulate the lavish lifestyles enjoyed by fictional characters in soap operas and prime-time television dramas. The more television people watch the more they tend to believe that ordinary citizens have servants, limousines, and huge houses.

TV will show 24 year old waitresses with expansive lofts and exotic sports cars, not ratty one-room apartments and battered Geo Metros. In addition, folks who watch a lot of TV are more willing to go into debt in pursuit of what they believe is an accurate depiction of normal life. Consumers rack up heavy credit-card debt chasing the televised fantasy or in academic jargon “engage in competitive consumption for the purpose of image management.”

Contrary to popular conceptions, Dr. Schor found a positive correlation with higher education and indebtedness. The further people have climbed up the educations ladder, the less likely the are to save money.

The heaviest shoppers are women with graduate degrees, which may be attributed to their heightened awareness of the trappings of social status.

Those most likely to live within their means and save money are the millionaires next door, folks with less formal education who have worked hard building their own businesses. Not surprisingly, the more successful people are with their own businesses the less time they have for watching TV.

Kids are by far the most voracious viewers, A report in a recent JAMA claims that children in the US watch 15,000 to 18,000 hours of television between he ages of 2 and 17 as compared to 12,000 hours of school.

Many medical studies have correlated excessive TV viewing with childhood obesity and adult depression. Certain crime statistics also correlate well with the market penetration of television, larceny and burglary both increased as a corresponding rate following TV’s rise in popularity in the 1950s.

Share This

Her premise is not unlike DISC, in that she divides everyone into four groups. Based on the “movement” of a person’s energy, her Types are noted by:

1. light, upward movement
2. fluid, flowing movement
3. active, reactive movement
4. constant, still movement

(I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not those correspond roughly to disc designations or not.)  The part that’s hard for me to buy is this:  under the resulting Dressing Your Truth system, literally everything is suggested by one’s primary energy movement.  Fabrics, prints, colors, career choices, all depend on the which of the four Types of energy expression predominates in you.

A paranthetical word about four division systems:  when Carole Jackson came out with Color Me Beautiful, it worked for enough people to become a phenomenon.  But it didn’t really work for me, or many others, until the twelve division system was introduced, adding chroma (color saturation) to temperature and value.  With Carol Tuttle’s Energy Profiling system, I look forward to seeing further refinements.  Will she describe how to incorporate a second-strongest “energy movement”?  Can the four groups be somehow subdivided to be more specific?

The creepiest thing about this system is the assertion that one’s “energy type” is visible in one’s facial features.  (What if my face doesn’t look like what I know I’m like on the inside?  See this post’s opening question.)  For the purpose of this review, the Dressing Your Truth professionals invited me to send in a photograph.  Lo and behold!  They agreed with my assessment of myself as a Type 1.

Applying the principles:

• over and over, the point is made:  it’s okay to be yourself.  How much of my wardrobe trauma could be done away with if the only voice I listened to in my head was my own?
• most of the specific recommendations for my “energy type” I could have worked out “longhand”, applying the principles taught in The Triumph of Individual Style : A Guide to Dressing Your Body, Your Beauty, Your Self. But it’s nice to have it in “big picture”.
• the color system just doesn’t work universally the way it’s layed out.  However, for the person who’s truly had it wrong, it may present an improvement.
• the big, BIG deal:  HAIR CUT AND STYLE!  I truly have not found anything better at suggesting hair-style, hair-style which has such a profound impact on one’s appearance. 

Now, go back to the list of descriptive words for the four types.  Most of the “types” suggest hair-style in the two-word description.  Does one of those appeal to you?  Personally, I am going to specifically instruct my stylist to make sure my hair never looks neat and tidy, ahem, that is, constant and still.   And I’m planning on going a little shorter.  Or upward and light.

Share This

But - yikes!  What if it’s me that’s not authentically expressing my natural personality?

Sniffing out the clues: a recent craving for pattern, a feeling of being restricted from expressing my personality more exuberantly until my “nest” is completely empty. Smells fishy!

(In the meantime, I’ve been investigating the Dressing Your Truth system. More on that to come.)

This diagram is roughly the same as the previous, but with the center axis flipped and with less definition of style types.  Anybody feel it fits them better?

Share This

Share This

If:

1. you are by nature or necessity frugal AND
2. maybe you are interested more in things other than visual aesthetics  AND 
3. you really don’t want your closet to resemble a thrift store AND
4. the last letter of your Myers Briggs code (I took a free online version, but I can’t remember where) is P

The reason this makes sense:  Judging or Perceiving (the fourth trait called out in this personality profiling system) describes one’s preferred “structure” of dealing with the outside world.  In dealing with the outside world, do you prefer to get things decided (J) or do you prefer to stay open to new information and options (P)?

In other words, the perceiving person likes options and likes to keep their options open.  (Probably this describes everyone to a degree.  In our household, it sometimes looks like not getting rid of something that is worn out because it’s still good enough to wear for painting or gardening.  And then forgetting and wearing it to church!)

In my wardrobe, problems are nearly always related to not having something I should have, rather than having too much or holding on to stuff I need to let go.  I’m a J.  How about you, is your challenge not having what you need or having what you don’t need?  And could an image consultant or trusted friend help?

Share This

Essentially what you have here is DISC (the quadrants described by the labels on the axes) overlaid by Tori Hartman’s style personality divisions (the six italicized style designations) from the book Fabulous You with a few modifications by me. 

The little pink fleur de lis is me.  :)  The breakthrough came when I realized that if I flipped the axes on the DISC model and plotted myself that the result would occupy the same position on a graph as my style personality, if there were a tool to test and graph it.

So, my question to you is:  can you see yourself in this model?

Share This

They are:

1. unity and variety
2. balance
3. emphasis and subordination
4. directional forces
5. contrast
6. repetition and rhythm
7. scale and proportion

And, since this is the crazy way I normally think, I immediately wondered if the artists, or whoever it was, who “discovered” these principles were thinking about them as they relate to the nature of God.  For example, in number 3, emphasis and subordination, Christ is, in all of life, both the One emphasized and the One who subordinated Himself to the Father.

But, on to something more practical that we can apply to our wardrobes today:  Unity and Variety (or unity and diversity, from which we get our word University), also a description of the Trinity.  Wearing a coat the color of your hair can create unity, but without some variety it will not be a pleasing composition.  Think little old lady:  beige coat, beige skin, beige hair.

Share This

1)  I love the fit of these Levis, but I just don’t wear a medium tone except in the summer.  They needed to be dark.
 

Using one bottle of “denim blue”, I simply followed the directions on the box for dying in the washing machine.  The color is a bit bright; if there is a “next time”, I will try a different shade.  

Now the creative juices are flowing in all sorts of colors!  I think I’ll tea-stain some of my white shirts, try kool-aid on a boring blue cashmere sweater …   

Have you ever dyed anything? 

Share This