When you feel it’s time to step up your game. When you’re ready to find out how to feel good and dress better for you. That’s when it’s time to stop taking style advice from people who can look good feeling uncomfortable.
Some of us can pull off looking good while feeling uncomfortable, but most of us have a really hard time doing so.
For most of us, when we feel uncomfortable – in our clothing or skin or our environment – it shows.
So when you’re ready to feel good and dress better, the key is comfort.
When we’re comfortable, we feel different, look different, act differently than we do when we’re completely uncomfortable. When we’re comfortable, it shows. It shows in our face and our body and our posture and how we interact with the world.
We can’t make one look like the other. We have a hard time masking when we feel uncomfortable. If we manage to do so it’s draining, brings us out of tune with ourselves, and can throw everything out of whack.
There are people, (usually “fashionable” or “stylish” people), who prioritize their look over their physical comfort. These are the people whose shoes are killing them, they’re adjusting their clothes and fixing their hair without a second thought. They look fantastic, and they aren’t self-conscious about their physical discomfort.
How they dress and look outweighs physical comfort for them.
There are others, who if they were made over snap-your-fingers-fairy-godmother style and dressed in that other person’s outfit, would be self-conscious about adjusting with their dress or fixing their hair. They would only be paying attention to the discomfort of their feet and distracted from everything else happening around them. Their discomfort would show.
Even though both people would be dressed in the same outfit. One would look stunning. The other would look uncomfortable.
If you’re someone who prefers physical comfort and you’re ready to learn how to dress better, don’t take style advice from someone who is willing to withstand physical discomfort for their look.
It’s hard for those people to understand why you would change what you’re wearing for your physical comfort. Because that thought wouldn’t occur to them.
I spoke with a guest on Talking About Clothes who illustrated this very point. We ended up talking about looks and comfort at the end of our conversation. She said she never thinks about how physically comfortable she is in her clothes. Again, it just wouldn’t occur to her. You can listen to that whole conversation here. We got into this train of thought towards the end of the conversation.
So, when you’re ready to figure out how to feel good and dress better for yourself, start by finding people to take advice from who prioritize what you prioritize. If dressing better to you means your look takes priority above all else – find someone who does that. If dressing better to you means embracing your comfort AND ALSO looking better – find someone who will do that and respect it.
Plus if you want more about comfort (of all sorts) and clothing, listen to the whole first collection of Talking About Clothes with Holly Chayes right here.