Clothes & The Confidence to take up space

Earlier this month, I started a series over on LinkedIn dubbed “#TakeUpSpace” in honor of Women’s History Month. It’s running on Tuesdays – yes, I’m a sucker for alliteration – and while I won’t be reposting all of them on this blog, I felt particularly strongly about this one coming over. It’s all about how our clothes allow us to feel empowered to take up space — enjoy 🤗

LINK TO OP Being that my career started in fashion, you could’ve predicted one of these weeks in this #TakeUpSpace Tuesday series would be about clothing and personal style – this is the week!

When you think about garments “taking up space” your mind may go the literal route to super voluminous pants, a really strong shoulder pad moment or a bolder than bold patterned dress. Instead of thinking about the garments themselves taking up space, I urge you to think more about closet items that will make YOU feel more empowered to take up space.

A few suggestions:

✨ The ultimate goal: Clothes that are comfortable to wear, fit you well and make you feel confident (bonus points if they make you feel like a total badass…in a professional way)

✨ Your clothes should talk, but YOU should be the one guiding the conversation and making the statement

✨ Your industry and company may dictate your workwear dress code, but they don’t decide the personality and confidence you let shine through in how you style and show up in them

✨ On days where you feel like all you want to do is fade into the background: go ahead and wear that all black ‘fit (or your favorite neutral if black is too intense for your liking). Doing this low-effort, monochrome look will alleviate one of the many decisions you need to make throughout your day and will even serve as less visual distraction for your mind during the day, too. It just may free up that necessary headspace to allow for your YOUness to shine through and take up space vs the clothes doing the talking 😉 Sharing this one from experience as you can see in the lower right pic 🖤 alongside Jessica Everett – great minds think alike!

You’ve got this!

There are so many ways to think of your garments as you’re getting dressed – dopamine dressing, uniform dressing, dressing for your color palette, dressing for your mood, dressing for your day ahead, etc – whatever way you view your wardrobe, I hope you dress in whatever fashion is to your comfort level while still maximizing your confidence ⚡

👉 Do you have a go-to item in your closet that brings out your best you? I’ll go first: a sleek black blazer – single button closure, strong shoulder, peak lapels, slit pockets (no flaps), that hits a wee bit below my hips. Classic, pulled together, complementary for my shape, and brings out my best self every time…maybe a little too much as you can see in the middle row pic 😅 I’d love to hear what yours is below ↓