Style your life from the inside out

By Laurel Kinney

I started my personal styling business after a career in social work, which perfectly combined my love of connecting with people and my desire to live more creatively. The services I provide, and my methods for helping people discover the style that makes them feel most powerful/confident/fully aligned have more psychological and interpersonal components than your typical "fashion" ingredients.  I work with people of all sizes, shapes, and backgrounds - what connects us all is a desire to take what’s inside ourselves and outwardly communicate who we really are. I love to facilitate the discovery of the clothes that can do some of that work for us. 

Mindfulness for Personal and Professional Growth

I had no clue how to run a business when I started my styling career, and learning that side took the front seat for a while. I got sucked into the world of marketing, sales, and brand creation, and found myself burned out by how soul-sucking that felt to me. I had chronic back pain, felt exhausted from working all the time, and began to resent the fashion world in general.

I started to look inward and make some changes in my own life: eating differently, practicing yoga, creating a schedule that allowed for more down time, and I was able to see my whole business through a renewed lens. I realized that going deeper with my work by allowing for more self-reflection could have a super gratifying effect on me personally and help my clients on a whole other level.

Lessons I've Learned about Self Expression

I ask my clients to come up with a few "style keywords" that they can use as intentional touchstones for making any wardrobe or style-related decisions in general.  Before you set foot in a store or begin to sort your closet, you have some concept of what the ideal end result should be.  This makes letting go of pieces that don't align with your keywords much easier, and filling the gaps less overwhelming because you have a sense of what you're looking for.

To discover your style keywords, I like to attack from a verbal/intellectual place AND from a visual place.  Ask yourself what you want to feel like in your clothing, what values you hold most dear, and what you want people to notice most about you.  Write down a few words that resonate, search for images you're attracted to (you can even type in some of the words you came up with and "outfit" on pinterest), and see how they align with your words. When sorting your closet or shopping to fill wardrobe gaps, you can hold each item up and ask yourself "does this align with my keywords?"