How to Find Your Signature Style

Posted by Jeanine Byers Hoag on April 13th, 2011 in Blog, beauty and fashion | 6 Comments

In some ways, it feels to me like I have been on a quest to find my signature style my whole life! Deciding to find a way to feel beautiful and then to help other women feel beautiful, too, was the first step in a passionate lifelong pursuit!

My Quest for Style

I took quizzes. I tried to be a winter and then, an autumn. I read what to do if you’re an apple or a diamond or a circle. I became a skin care consultant, a wardrobe consultant, a stylist and everything else I thought might help.

And always some mysterious something kept me from fully discovering my style!

Only in the past year have I felt like I was closing in on it. Most days now when I get dressed, I like what I see in the mirror. I feel beautiful!

Here’s What Changed

I found a typing system that worked for me and then, I took a few 30-day wardrobe challenges, which gave me a fun way to practice what I was learning and refine my developing style.

What became clear to me is that the process of finding your signature style is comprised of four important steps. Each one builds on the one before and at the end of the process, you will know what to do to look and feel beautiful, to express your signature style.

(1) Identify your Dressing Your Truth type

The Dressing Your Truth system features an online course that helps you determine your beauty type and then, tells you which shades or tones of colors will be best for you. They even send you a card with the colors on it.

There are four beauty types based on elements in nature. We each have all four elements but one of them will be dominant in us. Once you know what that is you can learn how to honor your type as you develop your style.

Looking back on the things I was unsure about, didn’t love, or that didn’t seem all that into me, either, I invariably found that in one way or another, they were not what is best for my type.

(2) Find out what you really love

I have clothes now that I love so much, I don’t want to take them off! And once I really got it that that was possible, I became more willing to let go of the ones that were just okay. Why bother with them, if I can have love?

(3) Make sure that what you love loves you back

Do the clothes you love make you look your very best? Or are they really not that into you?

As a short, curvy girl with a Buddha belly, I know that there are some things that look great in the store or in the catalog but when I try them on aren’t quite right. It would be easy to give up and settle for looking okay, but instead, I decided to go for the gold and I think you should, too.

Find the shirts, pants, dresses, and skirts that will love you just the way you are! They’re out there, I promise.

(4) Experiment to determine what expresses the inner you

The Dressing Your Truth online course comes with a book that offers a list of words that describes each of the four types. I decided to look at the list for type twos (my type) to pick out words that reflect what I want my style to express.

The words I chose were gentle, soft, sweet and warm. Believe it or not, once I had that list, I understood why some of my clothes were okay but still didn’t feel quite right for me.

I took everything out of my closet except for the things that meet all four of my criteria. They are type two clothes I love, that love me back and express who I really am.

In your own quest to find your signature style, don’t compromise. Make a commitment with me to wear only what you love that loves you back and that expresses who you really are.