How To Create Your Own (Quick but Powerful!) Style Profile

Congrats, you’ve made it to the second half of the Cure, which means that you’ve got one week and lots of sorting down! Your closet and drawers should be less crowded and hopefully you have a stronger sense of what clothing has and hasn’t been working for you, which is half the battle. Today, we’ll focus on a little assessment and introspection, so we can take a bit of a breather before we dive into rebuilding.

In the past week, through sorting through your wardrobe, you’ve learned lots about what you truly like to wear (your “true loves” and other keepers) and what you don’t (your donation box contents!). Don’t let that knowledge – which you’ve gained through actively looking through, sorting and assessing your current clothes – go unexamined. Now is the perfect time to create a quick style profile for yourself, based on your impressions and the info gained. If you took pics/notes when doing the “true loves” exercise, they can come in handy here, too.

Create a quick style profile for yourself that captures the info about your fashion preferences that you can use to make better buying decisions moving forward. This is more about thinking and processing than writing – the lists don’t need to be long or anything you sweat over. This is an exercise that can take whatever form works for you and the analysis is what is helpful. So, don’t feel like you need to spend too long on this (30 min max!) and just enjoy spending some time assessing all the sorting work you’ve done.

Here is what to include:

Sizes: Note your real, true best sizes right now for: Pants, Skirts, Dresses, Tops, Bras, etc. This isn’t the size you were or the size you plan to be, this is what fits right, right now. It’s important info to have and something that can be adjusted at any time if your size starts to change, but having an accurate picture of what sizes look and feel best on you currently is important info.

Fabrics: A two part section (dos and don’ts) that should include the fabrics you like and the ones you should probably avoid. For many of us, this might seem straightforward at first, but it can be worth spending a few minutes thinking about what you sorted out of your wardrobe this past week to see if there are any notable takeaways. For example, were the sweaters you were letting go of almost all cotton rather than wool? Did all the jeans that didn’t work have a higher spandex count as opposed to regular denim?

Colors: A two part section (dos and don’ts) that should include the colors you like and the ones you should probably avoid. To do this, sneak a peek at your current “keepers” and write down the 5-7 colors you see most well represented. A quick glance at your donations should yield a similar list. When writing them down, be descriptive, so you are forced to think about which shades of the colors work (or don’t). For example, don’t write just “green” if you can expand to a “dark warm army green/khaki”.

Shops/Brands: A two part section (dos and don’ts) that should include the brands that you like and the ones you should probably avoid. Are there any shops and/or brands that occur several times in either your keeps or donations? That is valuable intel about where you should be looking for new items OR steering clear of moving forward. Even a super-sale bargain isn’t a bargain if you don’t wear it often, and the sources where you purchase clothing is often a key indicator of how successful a new buy will end up being, once you do this analysis.

Shapes: A two part section (dos and don’ts) that should include the overall shapes you like and the ones you should probably avoid. This can be hard if you don’t normally think about clothing in this way, but try to pull out at least three shapes that you know work (such as: high neck halter top trapeze dress, ankle cropped slight flare pants, three quarter length sleeves on tshirts) and three that really don’t (like: pleated skirts, turtlenecks, low waisted jeans).

Red Light/Green Light: A two part section (stop/go) that should include the things you have plenty/too many of and the things that you don’t have enough of/need to replace.

Good luck with your style profile – working through this will definitely help inform your wardrobe building moving forward. When you are through, let us know how it went in the comments and feel free to share any insights you’d like from your big sort this weekend – how are you feeling about the current state of your closet?

Previous Closet Cure Posts:

• Assignment 5: The Big Sort: Slimming Down One Step at at Time
• Assignment 4: The Great Jeans Judgment Day
• Assignment 3: The 30 Minute Super Speedy End of Season Sort
• Assignment 2: Finding Your True Loves
• Assignment 1: Getting Back on Track