My Vibe Is the Best Style

Rosalind Jackson Strewart

There is something delicious about becoming a woman who doesn’t need an occasion.

I mean that there is a particular kind of freedom that comes when you stop saving yourself for somewhere special. The dress doesn’t need dinner reservations. The shoes don’t need an event. The jewelry doesn’t need a reason. You most certainly don’t need permission to feel beautiful on your favorite day when your biggest plan is running errands and figuring out what you’re going to eat later.

At some point, I stopped asking, “Where am I going to wear this?”

Baby, wherever I go…that’s where.

Because somewhere along the way, I realized something that would’ve saved me a whole lot of unnecessary consideration over the years: My style isn’t hanging in my closet, it’s in the way I wear myself. You know, that realization changed everything.

I Used to Think Style Was Something You Put On

For years, we’re given these little invisible rules.

a. Dress for your age.

b. Dress for your body type.

c. Know what’s flattering.

d. Know what’s appropriate.

e. Know what’s in.

f. Know what’s out.

g. Don’t do too much.

h. But don’t look like you’ve given up either.

DAMN, it’s a pair of pants.

And somewhere in all those rules, it’s easy to forget the person actually wearing the clothes. Me.

What do I like?

What makes me feel good?

What feels natural on my body?

What makes me catch myself in a mirror and think…Oh, there she is.

That’s the question I care about now. Not whether somebody else would’ve chosen it or whether it’s trending or whether a woman my age is supposed to wear it. Does it feel like me? Because I’ve discovered that when something feels like me, I carry it differently.

My shoulders know, my walk and my face knows. Confidence has a posture all its own.

My Confidence Is Part of My Style

And I’m not talking about the loud kind of confidence. Not the kind that needs to announce itself every five minutes or convince everybody in the room that it has arrived.

I’m talking the quiet kind. The kind you earn, that comes from having lived through enough versions of yourself to finally stop auditioning for another one. That’s different.

I’ve been young, unsure, second-guessed myself, and I’ve changed my mind. Loved things I eventually outgrew. I’ve probably worn some things that should’ve remained between me, God, and whatever mirror was fortunately or unfortunately around. ;)

…but that’s life.

I’ve also reached a place where I know myself better, knowing yourself changes your style. You stop wearing things because they look good on somebody else. You stop forcing yourself into versions of femininity that don’t belong to you. You stop confusing attention with beauty.

You stop believing that getting older means slowly disappearing into beige. Unless beige is your thing.

Then, Sis, wear the beige. That’s the point.

Style Is Permission

That’s what style feels like to me now, full permission.

Permission to change my mind, to be simple today and dramatic tomorrow. Permission to own ten versions of something because I’ve decided that’s my thing. Permission to be comfortable without looking careless or to dress all the way up for somewhere that absolutely did not require all that. Especially that!!

Because there is something wonderful about realizing: I am the occasion.

Not in an arrogant way, in a grateful way. I’m here, I am alive. I have a body that has carried me through every single day of my life. I have eyes that have seen beautiful things and some things I wish they hadn’t. I have hands that have held people I love and feet that have carried me away from things I needed to leave and toward things I needed to find. This body of mine has changed and so have I. After everything we’ve been through together, I’m not interested in spending the rest of our time at war with her.

I want to adorn and care for her. Move her, dress her in things that make her feel like herself, and let her live.

There Is Something Sacred About Becoming Yourself

The older I get, the more I see God in individuality. Look at creation. God could’ve made one flower and repeated it endlessly. He didn’t. Roses and sunflowers and orchids and wildflowers growing wherever they please.

Different colors, shapes, and seasons.

Some bloom early, others take their sweet time. Some need careful tending while others come straight through cracks in concrete like they have something to prove. Somehow, all of it belongs.

We spend so much of our lives being handed instructions for how womanhood is supposed to look.

Be softer, smaller, younger.

Be quieter.

Be desirable, but don’t look like you’re trying to be desirable.

Be confident, but not too confident.

Age gracefully, which sometimes

sounds suspiciously like please get older without making anybody uncomfortable about it.

No.

I think I’ll age like myself. There is reverence in that.

Because if I believe I was created intentionally, then constantly wishing to be somebody else becomes a strange way of receiving the gift. There are things about myself I can improve. Of course. Growth is holy too. IAnd. But growth and rejection are not the same thing. I can become without despising who I am. I can evolve without erasing myself.

I can look in the mirror and say:

Creator, I see what You made, I’m going to stop trying to redesign her for everybody else’s comfort. That feels like worship to me. Quiet powerful worship. Gratitude with my lipstick and hoops on.

The Vibe Was Me All Along

That’s probably the biggest thing I’ve learned about style. The outfit was never really the magic. I was then, I am now.

The clothes just joined the conversation. That’s why one woman can put on something incredibly simple and somehow own the entire room. It’s not the fabric. It’s presence, ease, the absence of apology and that little something you can’t buy, borrow, copy from somebody’s social media page, or add to your cart. It’s knowing who you are.

I still like the beautiful things. Understand that I like putting something on and knowing immediately that it works.

I love feeling good when I walk past a mirror and those rare, glorious moments when the hair, clothes, skin, accessories and attitude all decide to cooperate on the same day.

A BLESSING!!!

But I don’t confuse those things with my worth anymore, that’s the difference. A beautiful outfit can complement me, it cannot create me. A trend can inspire me, it cannot define meAnd another woman’s beauty doesn’t threaten mine. There is enough divine imagination in this world for all of us to be magnificent differently.

Wear Yourself Well

So these days, when I think about personal style, I think less about what I’m wearing and more about how I’m showing up.

Am I comfortable in myself?

Am I choosing from joy or insecurity?

Am I expressing myself or performing for approval?

Do I recognize the woman looking back at me?

That’s style.

My laughter, softness, and confidence is part of my style.

My spirituality and my boundaries are part of my style. My peace is definitely part of my style.

And yes, even the things about me that took years to understand have found their place in it. Maybe that’s what happens when a woman finally stops treating herself like a rough draft. She realizes she was never waiting to become worthy of being seen. She was becoming more herself. That is where I am. I don’t want to look like everybody else. I don’t even want to look like previous versions of me. I want the freedom to keep becoming, to change as needed, to simplify and to experiment. To wake up one morning and decide something I’ve loved for ten years doesn’t feel like me anymore, that’s allowed and sometimes required.

Your style should move when you move, life does, I intend to keep moving with it. So no, my best style isn’t a particular aesthetic. It isn’t a designer, a trend or a size.

It most certainly isn’t an age.

It’s me.

Comfortable enough to be seen.

Grateful enough to honor what God created, free enough to change and wise enough to know I don’t need everybody to understand me. And confident enough to enjoy the woman I’ve become while still leaving room for the woman I’m becoming. That’s my vibe, that’s my style. After all these years of trying things on, taking things off, growing, shedding, becoming and beginning again, I have finally found the one thing that looks good with absolutely everything.

Me.