How I Upgraded My Daily Style

Getting Dressed Has Been Quite Easy Recently

Even after spending a few years in the style Substack world and the Tibi-verse, I still sometimes struggled to get dressed day to day. Something was always off, and my style uniform was not really one I felt proud of. However, in the last month or so, something shifted: getting dressed became so easy, and I mostly love what I am wearing. I looked at my outfits and tried to figure out what changed — and here are the things I did.

I Stopped Wearing T-shirts and Replaced Them with Blouses

I know what you are thinking: T-shirts are the key ingredient, and fashion Substack is full of images like the one below.

Source: Vogue

And yet, I found that on my more rounded figure, these looks translate quite differently. T-shirts can look frumpy, too casual, and just meh. Tucking them in does not solve it for my body type. And yet every morning, I would pull out a new T-shirt out of sheer habit and convenience, then wear it with fairly casual pants, sweatpants, or jeans. No wonder I was not feeling good about my daily uniform, and it would lead to looks like these.

Uniqlo T-shirts, Tibi sweats, Tibi skirt, Tibi jeans, Cos pants, Flattered bag, Wandler bag

These looks are not super bad per se, but they do underdeliver. As a result, I now wear white T-shirts only as a layering tool and try to avoid other T-shirts, even for WFH, unless there is a specific reason for it. Even with the same pants and skirt, the looks are so much better (at least to me!).

Tibi skirt, Massimo Dutti blouse and shirt, Cos pants, Le Monde Beryl shoes

I Bought a Few Key Hero Pieces

It is amazing how certain pieces can suddenly open up so many possibilities when it comes to wearing what you already own. These are my hero pieces this spring that made getting dressed so much easier.

Shoes // Shirt // Jeans // Track Jacket

Le Monde Beryl shoes are a perfect combination of modernity and practicality. They can be both a business shoe, because of the sharp vamp, and a casual shoe, because of the rounded front. So they literally work with everything - skirts, pants, etc. My best purchase of the year.

COS track jacket. I was not wearing any of my wool blazers for WFH, and as a result, the layering I could do was limited. However, I recently discovered that shorter, more casual jackets can be the answer, and this track jacket from COS was my gateway drug. I am sure I will look for more similar cropped blazers and track jackets to elevate my looks.

Massimo Dutti blouses. Massimo Dutti is amazing when it comes to unusual shirts and blouses. Yes, the quality can be hit or miss, and you really need to try them on, but once you find the right ones, you get that relaxed yet somewhat polished vibe. I am continually scanning their assortment for more options.

Toteme jeans. I was looking for beige/gray jeans and scoured the whole internet before settling on these Twisted Seam Toteme jeans. I love the color and the cut, and they instantly help me dress so much better day to day.

What I am still missing is a few dresses that work casually. I am eyeing this one from Unlabel, but it remains to be seen whether it looks the way I want it to on me.

I Discovered My Palette

In the past several years, I’ve been fully indoctrinated by Tibi Ring 3 theory and purchased many items in those dirtyish Ring 3 colors. What I discovered recently, with the help of AI, by the way, is that these dirtyish colors make my face look tired and dead. I’ve played with seasonal color analysis - I still don’t know if I am spring or autumn - but even without that analysis, I saw that wearing something warm, fresh, pastel, pure, or even neutrals in clear colors, like cream and chocolate brown, makes me look great. Dirtyish colors just do not do anything for my complexion.

I then realized that I really dislike blue jeans, and overall, denim blue in my wardrobe. I find that blue jeans are excellent if you have a primarily neutral wardrobe, but I like some color, and matching that with blue jeans is much more difficult. Beige or gray jeans open up many more possibilities.

I also cut black almost completely from my wardrobe, though it still trickles in - black is very hard to avoid. Nevertheless, I try to default to ivory, chocolate brown, and similar shades.

As a result, my previous palette looked like this.

And I replaced it with this one. The difference might not be immediately obvious, but I absolutely love it.

Note that this is not proportionate - I mostly wear pieces in the neutral colors and use the bright colors as accents. Nevertheless, removing denim blue and focusing on non-black neutrals, as well as softer taupes and creams, looks and feels so much more harmonized.

I Got Honest About My Lifestyle

On the lifestyle side, doing a school run every day to a muddy outdoor school means I cannot wear pants that drag. All blouses need to be machine washable, not dry-clean only, as I change them daily. The clothes need to be comfortable for WFH - I am not wearing wool pants and blazers, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise.

So that created quite a bit of clarity: ankle-length or full-length pants that do not puddle and are convenient for daily wear. Casual jackets, like the track jacket, COS sweatshirt-cardigan, or Uniqlo windbreaker, or blazers that are not wool. Blouses that are machine washable and not too expensive - no $400 Tibi tops for me - as the risk of them getting dirty from daily wear is quite high. As a result, when I start dressing in the morning, I have options that actually work for my lifestyle.

I Am More in Tune With What Works for My Body

Over the past several years, I experimented a lot with different styles and clothes. My dream was to have a vast variety of clothes that I could pull from and choose between, across different styles. I thought that having many items in a similar style was not a good idea, because all stylists seem to claim this is the case. I changed my mind after doing a Kibbe-style experiment on myself. It made me understand very clearly how our bodies are just more in tune with certain styles.

There are many femininity archetypes - from femme fatale to tomboy, from cute girl to royal queen to natural bohemian - and you are not all of them at once. My body is quite soft, so when I push for something very sharp, like elongated sharp shoes, it contrasts in a way I do not like.

Trying out all Kibbe styles - from the sharpest, most angular and tall, to the most rounded and small.

I also prefer to dress in a way that is proportionate to my body. For example, now when I see narrow, cropped pants like the viral High Sport ones, I immediately think, “gamine.” Yes, these would look good on Emily in Paris, but on me? The proportions are off, and I feel like a woman in child’s clothes.

It is spring!

Finally, as fashion people know, spring is an amazing time to get dressed. Coats can make the outfit, and you can wear shoes that look good instead of shoes that are simply trying to keep you warm. It is easy to layer nicely, but it is not so cold that you have to tuck yourself into five scarves just to feel fine. It is also not hot, so you can actually layer multiple pieces.

Uniqlo skirt and jacket, Tibi skirt, Massimo Dutti blouse, Uniqlo coat, Le Monde Beryl shoes

Who knows - maybe this style expertise will melt away together with summer?