During the last 5 days you probably discovered a variety of new options within your existing wardrobe that you didn’t even realize you had. This will give you a sense of novelty and plenty of new combinations to look forward to wearing.

But there is another important step in this process that will guarantee you don’t feel stuck in a rut again – evolving your style on an ongoing basis.

What does evolving your style mean?

Giving your style tweaks and upgrades.

It can be done in a variety of ways:

• by introducing new styling solutions

For example, by mixing tailoring with sporty elements – you can team a suit with a t-shirt and trainers for a more casual vibe. You are not necessarily bringing in new items, but are co-ordinating existing pieces in a way you haven’t done before.

This way of evolving your style requires keeping an eye on fashion and contemporary styling trends (styling trends are not the same as fashion trends. Styling trends only refer to how things are being co-ordinated. For instance, putting a belt over a buttoned blazer is a big styling trend at the moment).

• by expanding your wardrobe’s colour palette

You can add new colours to your existing wardrobe and give yourself a sense of newness this way. For example, you wardrobe has a lot of neutral colours, but adding bright colours to them will give the outfits a completely different feel.

This requires the understanding of colour co-ordinating rules.

• by introducing new cuts and styles

For example, you could do that by introducing skirts and dresses in the midi length (which very on-trend) to a wardrobe that doesn’t have that length in skirts/dresses.

Or by introducing styles/garments you didn’t have before – for instance, bringing in a blazer into a casual wardrobe that only has cardigans as the layering option.

This will require some awareness of contemporary style aesthetic. 

• by reinventing your style & wardrobe vibe and overall aesthetic 

Have you ever had pieces in your wardrobe that you loved originally, but then went cold turkey on them? More likely than not your style preferences changed and the item was just no longer the right aesthetic/vibe for your new sense of style.

All of these approaches can work super effectively as they’ll be continuously expanding your comfort zone and keeping your look modern and fresh.

The Lookbook Collective will efficiently keep you on track with evolving your style.

But I’m also going to give you an alternative tool that can be very helpful during the process of revamping your wardrobe.

This is what we’ll focus on now – your Style Moodboard.

What exactly is a moodboard?

It’s a visual representation of your aspirational style.

Mind it, it’s not something that can be done in an hour. It’s quite an elaborate process that requires planning, testing and post-production to do it the right way. But I’ll give you a simplified version that you’ll complete in a short period of time.

So here is what you’ll need to do:

1. Head to Pinterest (ideally download the app on your phone if you don’t have it yet). Create a new board.

2. Start searching the images by putting in key words relevant to your moodboard. For example, if you are creating a moodboard for your weekend wardrobe, you might search for things like:

• weekend style inspiration
• casual outfits
• weekend looks
• casual looks with skirts
• weekend outfits with a blazer

You are looking for images that will inspire you, give you style ideas for your own wardrobe, give a reference point for new style aesthetic, other outfit formulas, colour combinations and so on.

Keep in mind the above ways of evolving your style – pay attention to little styling tricks, specific colours put together, specific cuts, fits and styles and also the overall vibe of pieces.

Pay attention to whether you are drawn to, let’s say, tailored and crisp looks, or maybe you are the craving the laid back feel of minimalistic neutral looks, or maybe you want a feminine touch and the looks you are attracted to are playful and girlie.

3. Pin anything that jumps out at you. Focus on elements I mentioned above but don’t overthink it. We’ll do it in the next step.

Once you are done searching for style inspiration (let me remind you – you won’t be done with it after pinning for 15 minutes over a coffee, this is why I said it takes a while to complete it. You want to do it when you are in different ‘moods’ on different days, because your wardrobe’s contents have to faciliate all of those ‘moods’), we’ll need to give it a reality check.

Take your Style Blueprint, read through it carefully and now unpin anything that doesn’t fit your practical requirements.

DON’T do this step along with initial pinning – your mind will get overloaded with practical elements and instead of getting excited and letting your creativity flow, you’ll be paralyzed by scrutinizing small details.

Let your imagination flow first and then validate it with the Blueprint.

So anything that doesn’t fit the practical aspects needs to be removed. 

1. Once you have a tested moodboard of looks that have a proper potential to work for YOU, write down all the outfit formulas you see. Remember, it’s not about colour or other details, just combinations of the type of garments.

Now compare them to outfit formulas in your own wardrobe.

What’s different?

Write down outfit formulas that you don’t have but are excited by.

2. Write down 3-5 colours that are being featured on your moodboard that you don’t have in your wardrobe but really like.

3. Write down the cuts/styles of 3-5 pieces you like the most.

IMPORTANT –  if you feel after this step that your moodboard feels more or less the same as your existing wardrobe, you need to go back to Step 1 and do a bit more ‘soul searching’. You haven’t stepped out of your comfort zone and looked for the same looks as you already have. The point of the exercise is to look for fresh inspiration, not to give a visual representation to your existing wardrobe.

Now we will write down your Moodboard Blueprint. I have a table below that you can use as a reference point but it doesn’t have to be done in a table, you can just free write whatever comes to mind alongside the elements I have in the table.

Based on your Moodboard Blueprint I want you to write a list of 3-5 items that you think your wardrobe will benefit from the most.

It could be based on colour, based on a specific vibe or a cut, basically, based on anything that you feel has the most potential to bring something totally new into your wardrobe.

This list is going to be your Moodboard Shopping list. 

And this brings us to all of our shopping lists so let’s look at them in the next step!

We now have 5 shopping lists in total: 

• Replacement List from Day 1
• Outfit Gaps List from Day 2
• Missing Pieces List from Day 4
• Orphans List from Day 5
• Moodboard List 

You might have more items on some lists than the others, you might or might not have a Replacement list. There is no right or wrong way of doing this, it all depends on the current state of affairs in your wardrobe.

As a rule of thumb, these lists go in the same priority order. You start replenishing your wardrobe from the items on the Replacement list (or Outfit Gaps list if you don’t have anything on the Replacement list) and work all the way down to your Moodboard list.

IMPORTANT- you might feel tempted to start with the Moodboard list. I understand – those are new exciting pieces, it’s a great overall sense of novelty and it might feel like THIS is the recharge your wardrobe needs.

But here is the thing – we worked our way through the wardrobe in a specific order and there is a reason why the Moodboard list was the last one.

When it comes to establishig priorities, I would recommend working around the 80/20 Pareto rule:

Give your existing wardrobe 80% of your efforts and budget (that means satisfying the needs of your existing wardrobe by bringing in the items from Lists 1-4) and 20% to evolving your style (buying things from your Moodboard list).

Most women do the opposite – they keep focusing on what they WANT to add to the wardrobe without addressing what their wardrobe NEEDS.

This is a completely wrong way of doing this so please next time you feel tempted to buy something just because you like it, ask yourself whether you are doing right by your wardrobe or falling back into old patterns.

Here is the only compromise that I can suggest for those of you who are bored out of your mind with your existing wardrobe and really feel like jumping to the Moodboard list:

1. Compare the contents of your Moodboard list to the rest of the lists. Look for the same item types.

Let’s say you have trendy mom jeans on your moodboard but you also need to replace your basic jeans that have worn out.

See if mom jeans can be fit for the same purpose. That way you are not bringing in two items of the same type and are immediately going for the new fresh version of the item.

2. Replace any of the pieces from the lists with their version from the Moodboard.

 If you crave novelty, I would recommend turning to the first approach of evolving your style: introducing new styling solutions. This is a FREE way of updating your wadrobe and is pretty much mistake proof so start building up your eye for style and your fashion IQ. 

1. What you’ll need to do now is review anything on the list with a fine tooth comb.

You need to make sure that all of these items are going to give you numerous possibilities and are completely in line with your Style Blueprint. 

2. This step below will only apply if your budget can’t cover the entire list in one go.

You need to separate the list into two sections:

• things you’ll need to buy in the coming weeks
• things you’ll need to get for the next season

Let me explain the difference.

Take a pair of black jeans – you can wear them all year around. You need them, like, yesterday if your regular pair is no longer available.

Or take a winter coat – you got rid of the old one, technically you have no other alternatives, but if you buy one now, you’ll only be able to wear it a handful of times before you have to put it away. So realistically it’s not as much of a burning need as the jeans would be and can wait till later.

3. If your budget can cover all of the items on the list, then there is no need to split the text and you can start looking for the right pieces from your shopping list.

That’s it for today!

Remember – your moodboard is going to be work in progress for a while, but a lot of the upcoming Style Notes here in TLC will help you to shape it effectively along with what you might pick up on Pinterest. 

I hope you understand now how important is the process of evolving your style to your wardrobe’s well-being. Trust me, when you start managing your wardrobe properly, you will no longer be craving random purchases just because something jumped out at you. You’ll be adding pieces that will bring a sense of newness in a practical and strategic way. 

Keep playing with the board and adjust your Moodboard shopping list if necessary to reflect the changes. 

I’ll see you tomorrow when we’ll give your wardrobe one last big blast – a spring clean! x