New Year New You Style Challenge
If you’re not sure what this post is all about you might have missed my #NewYearNewYouStyleChallenge introductory post. Go back and check that out here for the 411 and for all the social media details. I hope that #NoJeansJanuary helped to break you out of your style rut at least a little. I have so many clothes that I didn’t even notice not having all my jeans in my wardrobe. Perhaps I might continue going no jeans for the rest of summer. It would have been a great deal harder in colder weather though.
Alongside doing #NoJeansJanuary I also did a few different style challenges on Instagram like #januarywearwhatwhere #simplystyledjanuary #anySTAGEstyleJanuary and #stopdropstylejanuary. I think majority of these bloggers must be from America where it’s winter at the moment. A lot of the daily prompts were winter related and thus not gonna happen here in the HOT Aussie summer.
It was fun to see how many daily prompt challenges I could squeeze into the one outfit. All of these style challenges are actually competitions as well so the more you post with their hashtag the more entries into the competition you get. If you ever feel like you need more of a challenge give some of these a go as well. I’ll be continuing to keep an eye on these throughout February as well and include as many of the daily prompts into my outfits as possible. Check out my Latest Instagram Round up to see some of the outfits I put together this month while not wearing jeans.
Follow Suit February
This month’s challenge is to go searching on Pinterest or even just google images and find a ton of photos which stylistically stand out and appeal to you. Then everyday this month use an inspiration picture you’ve found and base your outfit around it. The idea of this is that it should give you some new ideas that you’ll want to take on board permanently. You’ll also start to decipher what it is about the outfits that appeal to you and be able to narrow down your own personal style more.
It can be useful to search for outfits around a particular item if you are having trouble coming up with new ways to style it. Otherwise look for models on the runway or celebrities that you think have a rocking sense of style and see if you can recreate some of their outfits. It’s a good idea to find people who have a similar body type to you but don’t limit yourself to this.
If you are really bold you could look for your inspiration on the streets. Snap a pic of people you see around the place who’s style you admire. It’s up to you whether you stalker pic them or actually ask. I’m sure it would be a great compliment to them if you did ask though. You could even go really abstract and just find pictures with a certain mood that appeals to you. Base your outfit around how those make you feel. If you go this route I’m really intrigued to see how it turns out so please share with me. This challenge is pretty open, the only requirement is that you base your outfit around an inspiration photo each day.
Using inspiration photos is a big way that I come up with new outfits especially for certain pieces in my wardrobe. I am searching and saving them all the time. Even if I don’t have anything similar to the pieces in my closet. I still save it and keep it for later. You never know what you might buy in the future. Also If I find a recurring item in the photos I keep saving, that isn’t in my closet yet, it’s a good indicator that I should put it on my shopping list. These items are then always in the back of my mind while shopping. Whenever I’m thinking about buying a new piece I search “How to wear…” online and save all the photos I love. Before I even buy the item, I already know I have a bazillion ways to wear it.
I am constantly saving photos I love to my stylebook app inspiration section. I can then use the picture as a springboard for new outfits. Stylebook is my favourite wardrobe app for organising my clothes and coming up with new outfits. If you missed my post about it a while back you might want to go and check it out. I still save outfit photos to Pinterest but tend to forget about the outfit unless I save into Stylebook. Below is an example of how I use inspiration photos within the app. In the notes/tags section within the app for each inspo pic, I write every piece of clothing in the picture with specifics. When I’m trying to style a particular item, I can search for it and every outfit with that item in it comes up.
When I’m creating my new outfits I either start with a particular item, if I have something specific I want to style or I just scroll through my inspo pics and see if I have the pieces needed to recreate the outfit. You don’t have to have the exact same pieces. Instead if it’s the colours that attracted you to the inspo pic then focus on the colours. If you don’t have a mustard yellow skirt but you do have mustard yellow shorts that will work as well.
Other times it’s the silhouettes that are more important. For example in the outfit above you could swap out the grey maxi dress for pretty much any colour and have a similar effect. In the outfit above I managed to really closely match the inspo pic. But sometimes it just doesn’t work with what you have in your wardrobe. Sometimes the recreations just don’t work at all. I say, “No harm done” and just move onto the next one.
Another blogger who I follow, that does the whole inspiration photo thing particularly well is Js Everyday Fashion. One of her fashion commandments is “Following outfit recipes is a great time-saver and creativity exerciser, it’s not “copying”.” Check out her blog for the many ways she has built an outfit around an inspiration photo and made it her own. She even has a specific post on Using Inspiration Photos.
I’d love to see what you
come up with!
I’ll try to post everyday with my inspiration photo and the outfit that I come up with on Instagram. You don’t have to post everyday but you can if you want to. When you post use #FollowSuitFebruary on Instagram and please tag me in your photos @stylewithingrace or you can post to the Style Within Grace Facebook page as well. I’m so keen to see what you come up with. Here’s to rediscovering and challenging your style. Have Fun and Good luck!
