Finding your Style - Jules Reid

As part of the "home cure" we are doing with a group of women I know from church, one assignment is to find your own personal sense of style.  For some people this is easy and for others it presents a challenge.

How do we find something that is very specific and personal to us when so many of us shop in the same stores and see the same stuff all the time?

I think it's one of the main reasons so many people end up going with a look that looks a lot like everyone else.

It's why so many homes are decorated in their entirety from Pottery Barn.  And hey, I'm not putting that down - I like to stroll through pottery barn as much as the next person, and almost inevitably there will be some thing there that I will like, but it does kind of reduce everything to a common denominator (for sure you know you're going to see that mirror you bought or that vase or that lamp in lots of other homes).

One assignment of this task was to analyze your personal tastes - questions like "who is your favorite actress" or "fave actor" or "type of music" or a - what is your personal sense of style from a fashion stand-point?  These things can reveal a lot about who we are and in turn, they can help us really pin point what it is that speaks to us the most deeply - and what we want to surround ourselves with - and how we can create a home that reflects something important about ourselves, which feels authentic and great.

I'm realizing as I'm talking to lots of people who are working on this right now - that many people have trouble with these types of questions.  And then they have trouble translating that from things that they love to how that would reflect in a space.

I thought maybe today I would share one example and then maybe in a different post on a different day (when i can get time! because life is crazy busy right now!) I could talk about how a questionnaire about tastes and likes and dislikes in multiple areas of our lives that seemingly have little to do with decor, actually can help you create decor you love.

But to simplify initially -

Sometimes something just grabs your eye.  Maybe you're shopping for clothes, or maybe you're just wandering through the mall, or perusing a magazine, or looking at some stuff online and something will just stick out to you.  And you'll say to yourself "ooooo I REALLY like that".  When that happens, stop and think for a minute.  why do you love it?  Is it the color?  The design?  The texture?  The lines?  Is it practical?  Flattering?  Why are you so drawn to this thing?  I promise, if you can stop yourself in that moment you'll learn a lot about what you love.  I'm not talking about when you're looking for a black shoe and you find a black shoe that you like and you get happy because it's been hard to find one with the right heel and the right fit and the right look.  No.  That's not it at all.  I'm talking about when you WEREN'T looking and something just jumped out at you.

So let me share one of these moments for myself:

The designer Jules Reid says she views her designs as part gypsy part jet setter, part 60s pool inspired.

Well YES and YES and YES and I love these:

Do I dress like this?  No, only in my fantasy version of myself (which is a version that is thin enough to pull off caftans without looking like Mrs. Roper) - but I am incredibly drawn to it nonetheless.  And who  knows, maybe someday if I have an extra $795 burning a hole in my pocket, maybe I'll buy a hot pink caftan coat by Jules Reid.  But the point is that realizing this is something I'm drawn to - the colors, the bold, the patters.  It says something important about what I really like.

The trick is to combine all of these things we like into some kind of comprehensible whole.

More on that later.

What are you drawn to?  What speaks to you?  What would you wear if money and other random factors were non-issues?  What does the fantasy version of yourself wear?