“Hello, my name is Brittany Ort and I have nothing to wear.”
This thought goes through my head every single day. I enjoy expressing myself through my style and pay close attention to my appearance nowadays. The same things become boring though, so I like to rediscover new styles to try out. This has become easier as over the past eighteen months, I have dropped eighty-five pounds. This means that the pants I started out my weight loss journey with, no longer stay up when buttoned. So I had to go shopping. Sounds easy, right? Not when I had no clue what I even liked anymore. I had succumb to buying just “What fit,” and not what I really wanted for two years. I ended up with a wardrobe consisting of leggings, yoga pants, and ex boyfriends ratty t shirts. I screamed glam, baby. Tiny cocktail dresses just did not come in size 18/20 for a 255 pound broke diva. This was a new found freedom I had discovered because I could fit the trendy clothes at the mall again. Score! I just had no idea what my style was that went with my new look.
This meant I had to go shopping and buy things in smaller sizes. However, as I am sure you know, women’s sizes do not correlate between brands. So I still have to do some guessing and checking in every store. Anyways, I made a bad habit for a short period of time. I was buying clothes just because they “fit” again. Yes, being able to squeeze my thighs into a medium skirt is the bomb.com. However, I found that I would not even wear some of the items I bought. Then they would outgrow me anyway so I would be back at square one. Nothing to wear.
After this happening with a few too many clothes, I decided to change how I shopped. Instead of grabbing things that I saw in my size, I really take my time to think if I will actually wear it. Now how did I do that? Looking at a lot of fashion boards on Pinterest helped. I still wanted to keep some aspects of my tomboy look, but add some girly touches I had been neglecting. I was aiming to rebuild it into a collection where I only spend a few minutes trying to find an outfit I feel good in. Rather than ten outfits, three meltdowns, and a snack break to recoup from trying to wear clothes that just were not me enough. Rather dramatic, but I worked hard on my new body and just wanted to work it. So I went outside my usual style and bought some flashy clothes in my new look and just went with it.
I bought a jacket that is very eye catching because it is all silky and fluorescent cream/grey colored. It is very shiny so naturally, I felt like I stuck out when I first wore it. Similar to how some of my friends say they shy away from looks they think they, “can’t pull off.” I know you have heard people say this before. Maybe it was you. Well newsflash everyone, you can wear whatever the heck you want. To feel confident in something flashy, you have to wear it out! I may look like I am wearing a reflector jacket in this thing, but guess what. I feel like a bada$$ in this coat. It totally is outside what I used to wear and it was weird to leave my comfort zone, but I ripped the band aid off. Anyone can do this, but you have to be open to change for it to work positively.