The Everyday Icon Style Podcast

Episode 179: The In-Between Season: When Nothing in Your Closet Feels Right

• Tiffany Howard

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This episode challenges the conventional wisdom that sends us straight to shopping when our wardrobe feels misaligned. Instead, I offer a more thoughtful approach to navigating this transition. 

For high-achieving women navigating career transitions and personal growth, this episode offers permission to let go of what no longer fits your life (not just your body) and embrace the style that lets you exhale. I introduce my Executive Wardrobe Refresh service, designed specifically for women in this in-between season who need guidance without a complete overhaul. Remember: you're not behind or off track. This evolution is exactly where you're supposed to be, and your style gets to evolve with you. Ready to dress like the woman you're becoming? Let's talk.

https://stan.store/StyledbyTiffanyO


Speaker 1:

This is the Everyday Icon Style Podcast the space for style-conscious, career-driven women who are ready to look like the next-level version of themselves. Each episode helps you build a wardrobe that reflects not only your executive presence but your real life. With a little bit of guidance, intentional edits and no full-blown transformation required. Let's elevate your style and your authenticity one outfit at a time. I'm Tiffany, your style coach. Let's elevate your style and your authenticity one outfit at a time. I'm Tiffany, your style coach. Let's get started.

Speaker 1:

Today's episode is for the woman standing in her closet thinking nothing in here feels like me anymore, and if you've had that thought recently or in the past, and if you've had that thought recently or in the past, I'm here to offer you some truth. It's not a style crisis. It's actually a call to evolve. Many times, we think that evolution is everything else, but we never think about evolving our style as we evolve. And that is where the huge disconnect comes from. And if we even think about it, it's like, well, I'll just put it to the side and I'll worry about it, or you might not even think that you relate to the evolution of you and you also have to evolve your style. You may not even think about that either. But this is what I like to call the in-between season that not only that you're in, but I'm into, and it's really uncomfortable because you have grown and you're trying to figure out. What does this version of me, how does she dress? How does she look like? What does she want to feel like? It's a difficult place to be in. I'm here, I'm living through it, live and in living color. But instead of me rushing to fix it, going out and buying more clothes because I know that's not going to solve the problem at all, I want you to go and I just want you to pause and I need you to take a breath, because what you're, what you really want right now, you don't need a must have list, and I'm realizing as I'm doing research and even just in my own life, I don't need a list at all. The must-have lists are outdated, I think, unless you're starting like from the beginning and say, maybe you're like in college or something like that, okay, but if you're at an age, at a level of your career, the must-have lists I don't think they matter anymore. And this is the time where, instead of doing a list, maybe your list is what is it that? Your must-have list, but not a actual must-have list. And it's also a time for you to just come back to yourself, and that's what we're going to talk about today.

Speaker 1:

So first up, let's talk about this season called the in-between. Now you may not think about this, but your clothes. They just don't feel quite right and you can't really put your finger on what that quite right is. So you just go along the day, put your finger on what that quite right is. So you just go along the day putting on clothes, blah, blah, blah. And this could be because jobs or your career has shifted, your role might have expanded, your personal life has expanded, or maybe, just maybe, you've quietly outgrown the version of you who used to wear these pieces, and I think kind of for me, that's where I am actually at that I've quietly outgrown the version of me who would wear X, y and Z and trying to figure out what's next. So how that looks is you feel really disconnected. And the crazy thing is, there is nothing technically wrong with your clothes. They just don't reflect the woman who you are actually becoming right now. And that's what this moment is. It's a style shift that kind of mirrors a life shift. So when your style shifts, when your life shifts, your style is going to shift as well, and you have to kind of pinpoint what is that shift and just to sit with that. And what we think we should do is is we think we should go out, buy a whole new wardrobe and just start from scratch. But before you even do that, you just need a space to think it through. Always remember this Style is a marathon and not a sprint.

Speaker 1:

So I want you to take these questions into consideration as you're in this in-between season. What in your closet still serves you? There are a few pieces that still do. Well, these are probably the pieces you would want to put aside, and sometimes these are the pieces that I call like your mini capsule wardrobe that you have within. But that's going to be your definition of what a capsule wardrobe for you is. So what exactly is still serving you? Definition of what a capsule wardrobe for you is. So what exactly is still serving you? What is draining, slowly draining your energy? Yes, clothes can give you energy and clothes can drain energy. So what is actually draining your energy when you put it on?

Speaker 1:

And I also want you to think about. What do you actually want from this next chapter in your life? See, there are things that we don't think about, and personal stylists and other style coaches don't want you that. Don't go through this part of it, and I want you to remember when it comes to this this has nothing to do with clothes and has everything to do with you on the inside, as a person. Clothes are not the enemy here. Yes, it's easy to go get a whole new wardrobe, a whole new style, but you spend all this money and guess what? You don't wear them after two months or three months and you've wasted a lot of money. So we want to take a step back from that and we want to look at style differently now and not the way, the old way, of thinking and looking at style. So then, in the whole process of thinking about this, I also have realized that you don't need a blueprint, and this is where style conversations. They actually tend to go wrong.

Speaker 1:

And here's what you think. It's time for a full closet detox and a shopping spree Yay, but that's a lot of money. You're not going to wear these clothes in like two months. You're going to be back. It's almost like a never ending hamster wheel, but you're not here for another performance of perfection, right? You don't want a uniform.

Speaker 1:

What you're actually looking for is truth. You're looking for who am I? Who are you? Who are you becoming? We know that you have outgrown, so now what are you growing to and what is that truth? And here's a little bit of the truth. When it comes to high achieving women like you, you're not debating whether or not you need support. You've made the decision that you actually need support in this part. But what you want is you want support that feels clear, that it's calm and it's deeply personal, because style is personal. It is not being cookie cutter True style. When you see people that are truly stylish. Truly stylish, it is personal to them and that is why they stand out.

Speaker 1:

And when you're going through this process, you need something. It's no pressure, no long-term commitments. It not a six, seven, eight month process. What you really need is just someone to walk you through, sort through this season, not just clothes, but what they actually does not mean. You have to start over. But here is where you actually need to begin Now. This isn't about fixing anything. It's just about listening to what your clothes are telling you because your clothes in your closet are telling a story. So here's the thing that blazer that they always tell us to wear, that makes you feel powerful, but it now makes you feel stuff and old, and maybe that doesn't define or ref doesn't define what power means to you now, and you get to redefine what that means and looks like to you. The dress that you keep passing over every single morning maybe that's what's draining your energy and that's fine and you just wear it when you actually have to wear it.

Speaker 1:

We have to allow ourselves and finally give ourselves permission to let go of what no longer fits your life not just your body, but your life and that's is hard and that is something that sometimes we have to process, which is why, when you're going through your closet and getting rid of stuff, that's what's hard. It's allowing ourselves to let it let to let it go, even clothing. People will let people go. Before they let clothes go. They will keep something in their closet for 50 years, but it takes two minutes to let an actual person go, and we have to be able to do that with our closets and clothes as well, and instead of going through and asking ourselves what to replace it with Any items with, which is what we've been told and taught to do. Going out and buying a new wardrobe.

Speaker 1:

I want you to think about and consider these questions what would feel like ease to you right now? What's one outfit that would let you exhale? This will be the beginning of your next level style. So if you have a journal somewhere, I want you to write these down. Listen to this episode, to get the questions over and over again, if you need to come back to it when you need to, especially when you go through, because, guess what, you're going to go through another evolution at some point again as well, and we want to make sure that you're asking yourself now the right questions and not what we've always been taught to perceive to be the right questions. So, through this conversation, and if it's actually speaking to you in a new way, in a different way because I want to refrain how we look and how we build our style I invite you into something just a little bit different that I haven't seen anywhere before.

Speaker 1:

Now, with this, it's not going to be a full transformation, it's not even a style makeover. It's just a moment for you to pause in partnership with me. In partnership with me, to help you walk through this next phase and this next evolution of your style and this is where my executive wardrobe refresh comes in, because I've designed it for this exact reason and season the in-between, because all of us are going through this and you don't have to go through this in-between season alone. So in this two-hour space, we look at what's working, what's not working and what you actually want moving forward, what you want, not what I think is good, because I'm really going to help you, be a sounding board for you and guide you through the process. You don't need to commit to a program and you don't even need to have all of the answers. You just need a space to reconnect with yourself and I want to help you do that One piece at a time, one level at a time, because there's actually levels to this right and it's not what we're used to seeing from personal stylists or even style coaches.

Speaker 1:

So if this sounds like what you need, you can book a free discovery call using the link in the show notes below, and I am looking forward to helping and serving you and being on your journey, taking you from the in-between and beyond. So I want you to keep this in mind, that you're not off track and you're not behind and I know that feels some type of way, because, guess what, I feel like right now I'm off track and I feel like I'm way behind, but it's a part of evolution and it's a part of us evolving and what comes out of this evolution will be so good and so great that you will look and think, well, damn, this wasn't so bad after all, and you will feel as if you have come home to yourself and as your style gets to evolve with you. Because that is the key that we never do. We never allow our style or think about our style evolving with us.

Speaker 1:

This is the in-between season and it's not a problem. It's actually an invitation to be honest, to slow down and to dress like the woman you are becoming, and I would be more than honored to walk with you through that. So I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did, please remember to leave a review, like and share with someone that is in the in-between season of style, and also, if you are ready, I invite you to book a free discovery call. The link is in the description of this podcast episode below. So I hope you enjoy the rest of your day, stay healthy, stay safe, and I will talk to you in the next podcast episode.