Fashion for Self-Love
Fashion is about expanding who you are, not hiding behind a wall of fabric and brands.
What is fashion? It’s generally known as a popular or the latest style of clothing, hair, decoration, or behaviour. So what does that mean when we go to buy clothing and dress for ourselves? Well for all of us it means we want to buy something we feel GOOD in. What better way than wearing something you feed good in. All my experience and research into fashion and personal development leads to using Fashion for Self Love.
- Only 4% of women think they are beautiful
- Young girls are more afraid of being fat than getting cancer or nuclear war or losing their parents
- People with low self-esteem are less likely to start their own business and less likely to leave an abusive relationship
- 80% of women are told negative things about their body from friends and siblings
- 51% of women wear jeans when they felt sad or depressed and 33% of women would wear jeans when they felt happy or positive.
The jeans statistic always amazes me because personally, jeans are the LAST thing I go for! I have to be feeling pretty fit and slim to put mine on – so love to know if you wear jeans if you are feeling good or down…
Now how can fashion help?
Fashion has been used for hundreds or thousands of years to do 2 things it seems…
1. Keep us protected from our enemies, animals & weather.
2. Communicate our Wealth, Status, culture and religion.
So these 2 important uses helped us survive and attract the right partner in love and in work.
They also did more research into the affects of fashion on people’s mood and behavior, some telling results give us the answer:
Students wearing white lab coats responded more accurately than those wearing casual clothes.
When Students wore a Superman T-shirt they tested to be more confident and slightly stronger physically.
When a group of men and women took a Maths test in their swimming costumes, the men performed better because they were less worried about their bodies (unclothed Cognition).
Yes, our clothes affect us for sure and you can see that self esteem is an issue for so many. I’d love to give you some tools in order to use your wardrobe to help you start your day on a ‘self-loving’ note – because remember, if you don’t love YOU no-one else will.
Beauty has so many forms, and I think the most beautiful thing is confidence and loving yourself.
Getting back to ‘feeling good’ – when you then break that down, good can feel different for every single person. Some things people may consciously or unconsciously feel is ‘attractive’, ‘accepted’, ‘sexy’,‘slim’, ‘unique’, ‘vibrant’, ‘inconspicuous’, ‘rebellious’, ‘glamorous’, ‘pretty’, ‘powerful’, ‘girly’, ‘normal’, ‘playful’, ‘stylish’, ‘manly’, ‘hippy’, ‘controversial’ and of course ‘fashionable’. So HOW do you want to feel good? As a Brand-Maker, I focus on building people’s profiles as well, I get people to look at what they want to say about themselves. Funnily enough most people don’t even think about it, they instinctively buy and dress (again) to what feel’s good, even feel’s right for them. I always ask the question, okay if you were a brand ‘What are you selling about yourself?’ Here are some examples to illustrate my point…
Casual and dressing down – I don’t care about myself (or you), a Power suit – I am powerful and I respect myself (and you), Hippy style – I want to feel free in my self-expression with myself (and you), sometimes it can also feel like I rebel against society (and you)
What we are saying about ourselves, also communicates what we feel about the person we are with (unconsciously).
Ultimately if you said to yourself when you dress, I want to wear something that shows I care about myself – what would you wear? I’m a big black yoga pants and T-Shirts with Birkenstock girl, but my Birkenstocks are gold, my T-Shirts are original Adidas or something a bit fashionable or quirky. I also have my big black glasses, so I’m not hiding, I’m still caring about myself enough to wear something that is my brand and my message which is that freedom, comfort is important to me and I want to bring that to you! Hence I love helping people feel better about themselves in a comfortable ‘easy’ way.
Awareness is always 50% of our healing, so just own how you feel and what you want to say and go for it! If you want to be ‘inconspicuous, then be the best at being inconspicuous! Get off the fence and own it, that way you take your power back cause you are being responsible for your own self-expression. One part I wanted to share was something that always fascinated me. I can put an outfit on and feel AMAZING, then the next time I put that outfit on I feel fat and ugly. Huh? Go figure. It proves to me that our perception of ourselves is determined by our moods (of course) but so obviously here!
How can we fix that feeling, not you!
What are you trying to say about yourself to the world?
I’ve been experimenting and I found 7 great tips for getting around those fat or ugly days – or just when nothing is working! What is fashion? It’s generally known as a popular or the latest style of clothing, hair, decoration, or behaviour. So what does that mean when we go to buy clothing and dress for ourselves? Well for all of us it means we want to buy something we feel GOOD in.[/bigletter]
Can I just digress here and talk about COLOUR! Last year (can’t believe I’m saying that already, but I went to the US and experienced and amazing colour stylist, who looks at you on a whole spiritual level in regards to your colour. You could say I had a colour intervention. I am such a black and white girl and when I learnt that colours actually made my whole energy change to myself and to others I was truly shocked!
So open your mind to colour. You now sometimes you wear colour and someone says, ‘wow you look great’ or ‘that colour looks great on you’ – notice! You’ll see that your eyes and your skin tone is the keeper of your colour secrets. She said to me, when you wear the colour that suits you, it will create more abundance! I think she’s right, I did have big changes after our session.
The Wardrobe Cleanse.
Clothes can often remind us of good and bad times, get rid of the clothes that make you feel bad, uncomfortable or self-conscious. Clothing also holds energy, so it really is important to cleanse your wardrobe.
Create your ‘GO TO’ outfits.
Have 3 outfits that are your ‘go to’ bad dress days – it brings some consciousness that when you have worn these before you do look and feel good (bit of NLP).
Be Comfortable.
Make sure you are comfortable! Not being able to breath or if you know it doesn’t fit as well and you are not able to move fluidly then that restriction will energetically block you. Plus sometimes I put a pair of high heels on and they feel awesome and ready to jump into life and then I’ll put them on and I feel gawky – that’s my intuitive self saying, not today Glam Rabbit, today is about feeling grounded and earthy and I put my gold Birkenstocks on and off I go!
Make time to get ready.
Give yourself time! If you are in a rush it’s worse, so make sure you have enough time to process how you are feeling, trying different things.
Ask yourself.
Check in to see if there is anything else worrying you and just uncover that because it will play out in your wardrobe! (I had one women come to me after a presentation I gave and said I hate my hair – I responded with ‘it’s not about your hair’ what else is going on? Of course it was an issue she was having with a woman at work.)
Nurture yourself.
If everything is looking yucky to you, it means you need to give yourself some self-love. Self-Love IS the best remedy to most things, so don’t beat yourself up even more when you look in the mirror, say something you LOVE about yourself or your body and change your vibration and attitude. Continue that by doing some nice stuff for yourself during the week.
Dress for Your Future Self.
One thing is for sure, if what we wear affects our mood and life, then why not wear what the ultimate YOU would wear! As many ‘law of attraction’ experts say ‘Faith it until you make it’! It just means if you dress the way you would want to look if you were the person you dream of being, whether it’s successful business person or a famous celebrity, dress as if you WERE that already. Try it and see how your day unfolds!
