Category: style story

Whenever people ask me how I would describe my style, I have trouble using words. I can say it’s creative and colorful, but I would also say it’s quirky and comfortable. Instead, I find myself referencing characters from tv shows that I watched growing up, because I think my taste in fashion originated from moments when I was sitting in front of my tv as an impressionable little girl, and thought, “I wanna dress like that.”

Looking back, I can definitely see the huge influence the outfits of these leading ladies left on my style today. Check ’em out and let me know if you too would still wear these outfits as a now twenty-something year old woman:

Jenna Rink from 13 Going on 30

Who didn’t want Jenna’s wardrobe, hair, job and best-friend-turned-husband (aka young Mark Ruffallo) growing up?

I’m pretty sure this movie single-handedly sparked my interest in fashion and lead to my dreams of working in a creative field.

Every time I watch this movie, this dress always reminds me how much I love bright, bold, retro prints and fun and flirty silhouettes.

Alex Russo from Wizards of Waverly place

Ah, middle school: the days where all I wanted was to own as many converse and vests as this girl did.

Did she sometimes wear a questionable amount of layers and accessories? Yes. Did I love every second of it? Yes. She was cool and quirky, edgy but feminine, and her wardrobe never let you forget it.

Mixing patterns and layering are still art forms I’m trying to master today, but I’m lucky that Disney Channel gave us this introductory course a long time ago.

Kelly Kapowski from Saved By The Bell

Saved By The Bell was a show that was before my time, but even as an adolescent catching reruns of it in the late 90’s, I was super jealous of this girl next door’s fashion sense.

Decades later, young women are still drawing inspiration from outfits like these – whether they realize it or not. The crop tops, off-the-shoulder blouses, biker shorts, and high waisted denim are all things I too still find myself gravitating towards when I go shopping.

Now, if only I could figure out how to pull off those bangs!

Who were your style icons growing up ? Do you still find aspects of their outfits seeping into your daily style? Leave a comment below!

 

The Summer before I started middle school, I moved to SoCal from a small town in NorCal. My mom had checked out Ventura before moving my brothers and I there with her, and she told me that there was so much bargain shopping to do.

Growing up, I was used to going straight to the clearance racks at retail stores with my mom, but I had never been keen on the idea of wearing clothes originally worn by other people. When she first took me into a thrift store in downtown Ventura, I felt yucky. I also hated that I had to sift through a bunch of random pieces of clothing until I could find something that would possibly fit me and what I was looking for.

Until one day, she came home with a whole bag of clothes for me.

Do you remember that episode of Lizzie McGuire when Lizzie insisted on buying that expensive, sparkly pair of jeans off of the mannequin at the mall?  Then, her mom decided to go bargain-shopping instead and found her an even cooler pair of black jeans with rhinestones down the side – for a fraction of the price? Lizzie’s jaw dropped and she felt a little guilty for doubting her mom’s shopping skills, and that’s sort of how I reacted when when my mom pulled out this emerald green, cropped vest with gold stud buttons.

It was similar to vests that I had put on my wishlist from expensive stores like Free People that a girl my age had no reason to spend her mom’s money at, but it was also like nothing I had ever seen before – it was better and it looked brand new! I couldn’t believe that she had found so many cool pieces from the same kind of store I had so quickly dismissed before. Not only did I love everything she found, I was impressed that she had only spent about fifteen dollars total.

She told me that if you go into a thrift store with a closed-mind, you’re less likely to find something. “You have to be willing to search.”, she told me, “You have to put in the time, that’s when you’ll find the treasures.”

So, I gave thrift store shopping another chance. Once I realized that: 1. it takes some patience to find what you’re looking for – or something you weren’t looking for, but love anyways and 2. you can wash the used clothes you buy (duh), I fell in love with it. I did most of my back-to-school shopping at Goodwill and Salvation Army throughout middle school and high school. Doing so allowed me to experiment with many different styles, and put together outfits that were trendy or unique.

To this day,  thrifting is  still one of my mom and I’s favorite things to do, separately and together. I love that thrifting has become the, “cool” thing to do among girls who are the age I was when I first rejected the idea.

Moral of the story: thrifting is cool, and mom’s still always right (well, most of the time. )

When I younger, I wanted to be like everybody else. I wanted to wear the same clothes and shoes as my friends, even if it wasn’t what I truly felt good wearing. So, in elementary school, when my  friends went through a tomboy phase and started wearing basketball shorts to school everyday, I begged my mom to get me some from the boys section. Every piece of clothing I picked out at the store, every outfit I stepped into in the morning was dictated by what my friend’s would think. I just wanted to be cool.

I remember finding this amazing pair of polka-dot canvas flats at Ross; I loved them so much but wouldn’t wear them to school because I thought they were too fancy and girly. All of my friends wore sneakers, so I knew they would poke fun at them, and as a fairly new member of my friend group, I didn’t want to do anything that might put my membership in jeopardy.

Then, a new girl showed up at our school. She dressed super cute, and was unapologetic about it. Her outfits had embellishments: ribbons, sequins, patterns – everything that my sporty friends wouldn’t be caught dead wearing. She reminded me of every fashionista I’d seen on Disney Channel that I wanted to dress like but didn’t dare to.

But what impressed me even more about her style, was how  unapologetic she was about it. She looked cool – she was cool, because she felt good and confident in what she was wearing. She made everything she wore cool, and nobody gave her a hard time for it, because she just decided that that was who she was, and she didn’t care if anybody else didn’t like it. She had nothing to lose.

I then realized that by not dressing according to what I felt good in, I wasn’t being me, and that wasn’t cool. – so if the other kids didn’t like me when I was trying to fit in, I had nothing to lose either if I tried to stand out. If they still wanted to be my friends, great; if they didn’t want to be my friends anymore because I didn’t’ want my wardrobe to consist of t-shirts and 5 pairs of polyester sport shorts, so be it.

One morning, I worked up the courage to step into the brown, green and pink dotted flats from Ross, instead of the Payless sneakers I wore in an attempt to blend in. I paired the flats with some brown gaucho pants, and an embellished tank that came attached to a brown, cropped sweater. I loved this outfit, but felt terrified to show it off to my friends.

When I arrived at school, they laughed at me.

“What are you wearing?”, said friend #1, still dressed in blue basketball shorts, a sweatshirt, and nike shoes.

“Why are you wearing flats?“, said friend #2, dressed  in a green t-shirt f rom the previous year’s Fun Run, sweatpants and converse.

Initially, I was hurt, but I finally shrugged and replied, “Because I want to. I like what I’m wearing”

And that was that. Nothing else happened. They didn’t shun me from their friend group, they didn’t continue making fun of me. They didn’t have a reason to do anything else because they didn’t have a reason to. I was still me, I was just dressed differently than they were used to.

My outfit also sparked a conversation, and eventually a close friendship with the fashionable new girl. I started hanging out with her more often, and we would have fun talking about new trends and showing each other the deals we got.

Eventually, not only did my other friends get used to my new style, they even started taking notes from my outfits, and asking me for style tips. By the end of the year, a lot of them had bought a pair of flats and gaucho pants, while some still preferred sneakers and basketball shorts but never made fun of anyone else for their fashion choices- and we all remained friends.

Looking back, I realized that it was then that I developed my style and my confidence by allowing myself to decide what I felt good in, and deciding that if anyone had a problem with that decision, that was their problem, not mine.

As Dr. Seuss once said, “Be who you are and say how you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”