Searching for my style mojo

Style is very personal. It has nothing to do with fashion. Fashion is over very quickly. Style is forever.

Ralph Lauren

I know I've said it before on this blog, but becoming a mum has coincided with a complete loss of my style mojo. 

Miss S has just turned five years old and I'm still somehow bumbling about in the dark with no real sense of my own style. 

Ok, so I've had two more children since then and my body has swelled and shrunk and swelled and (not so much) shrunk twice more. So I haven't spent the last five years sitting in a box and ignoring my style, it's just been massively in flux. 

I just can't feel my way through clothes like I used to. I can't see something and think "yep, that's the top". It's like all my instincts have left me and I have no idea what on earth feels comfortable anymore. 

I only know that I am not. Comfortable, that is. I've bought clothes from new shops, and while there is nothing wrong with them, and in fact I like other people in them, they just feel wrong on me. 

When I see photographs, I don't see me. I see me in someone else's clothes. I don't see the person I feel I am, because the clothes don't fit (literally and figuratively in some cases). 

There are pieces of her still there, that girl with the instinctive feel for what she wanted to wear, who she wanted to present to the world. 

I found a piece of her in Gap, when I discovered that they were still selling bootcut jeans (I bought five pairs!). 

I found another piece when I discovered I was coveting a new black leather jacket (which is still on my list, because it's expensive!). 

It doesn't help that the me has changed somewhat. I'm much more interested in being outdoors, because it engages us as a family, and connects me with the kids. So I now need walking boots and rainwear which I definitely have not needed before! 

I have to be comfortable and able to cart a baby on my hip and deal with chocolate covered fingers and snot. Those things don't really make shopping easy. 

Since I found the bootcut jeans, I've been re-assessing my wardrobe, considering exactly what makes me feel good, and what definitely does not. 

I'm trying to look at my wardrobe as a whole and seeing the gaps, the small things I need to add to the wardrobe which will tell the story of me. Which will present me to the world, rather than someone I don't really know. 

It's a little like a breath of fresh air, to have that tiny piece of me, even if it's only five pairs of jeans bought in the sale (and taken in because I promptly dropped three kilos and ruined the look of those perfectly fitting jeans). 

It's given me hope that I can feel like me again. That style won't evade me forever. 

I'm hoping that now I'm done with the maternity clothing, I can finally find more pieces of me, hidden like jewels  amongst the rails.