Bostonista
Style

Fashion Anxiety

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(T-Shirt from Skreened)

If you know me offline, you probably know that I’m an anxious person.
Although as I’ve gotten older, I’m better at controlling and hiding it.
Still, I can’t sit in a restaurant for too long, meet someone new, take a long road trip or have too much “excitement” without a panic attack.

It’s okay. Seriously.
But it really shouldn’t come as a surprise that all this bottled up anxiety also frequently manifests itself in my fashion and style choices.

So when one of my friends suggested I start talking about my “fashion anxiety” on Bostonista, I knew it was a good idea. I mean, other than the fact that sharing my style insecurities with the world makes me a little anxious, it’s totally an excellent idea.

Today, my fashion anxiety is about a lack of clothing.
Okay, obviously, I have a lot of clothing. It’s just that I never seem to have the clothes I need to create the outfit in my head or it doesn’t fit the right way or it just doesn’t look the way I think it will.
So then I have to start all over.

The crazy thing, is that I’m really great at dressing other people and styling for shoots. (Of course, it’s easy to style when you can pull literally anything and put it on a size 2 model.) It’s just that when it comes to styling my own closet  I over think things and end up choosing something boring.

For example, last summer Kate Middleton (I know, I know but just stick with me here) wore a red blazer to the London Olympics. What could possibly be so difficult about a boring old red blazer?

Looking at this outfit now, I have no idea why I latched onto it because it’s not that great. It’s as conventional as you can get. But whatever…I was on the hunt for a red blazer.
Kate’s was from Zara but it was sold out by the time I hunted it down so I guess I wasn’t the only girl who loved it. Anyway, after a relentless search I settled on one from Nasty Gal.
It did not look like this one me. It certainly didn’t look Middleton-y. So I brought it to be tailored and now…well, it looks better but not great. I think it’s the fabric that gets to me.
 I wore it to a panel I sat on at Bentley a few weeks back and grew increasingly uncomfortable. All I could think was “These college girls are probably looking at me and thinking, “SHE’S the Bostonista?! How disappointing. I’m not taking style advice from HER!”
I was so preoccupied with what I SHOULD have worn that I sounded like a complete idiot when answering questions.
I’m hoping that if I start writing a little bit more about my own outfits and maybe eventually posting some personal style shots that I’ll start to get a bit more confident in my own fashion choices. Has fashion blogging (either as a blogger or a reader) made you more daring when it comes to your style?

https://w.atcontent.com/-/5q4792sPTHB/TheBostonista/62OJSAAbNPv.text/Panel/Autocheck

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5 Comments

  1. Elissa

    I totally feel you girl! Sometimes before an event where I know I'll be meeting a lot of people I feel my anxiety start to rise.

  2. The Boston Fashionista

    I'd love to see more of your outfits! And everyone gets nervous from time to time, or overthinks. We just have to remember that NO ONE is judging us the way we are judging us – in fact – they are probably too busy judging themselves to judge us! Ack.

  3. Georgina

    Kara it was really brave of you to open up about your personal and fashion anxiety. It's definitely something many of us struggle with so we appreciate your sharing as a way to connect more with you. I would definitely love to see more style posts and I have vowed to myself that I would attempt more also 🙂

  4. teastrumpets

    Love this post! Its so funny how we see ourselves vs how others see us. We are almost always harder on ourselves.

    I hate when I have a big even coming up and I've planned my outfit excitedly. .. and the day of comes and the outfit is suddenly frump central but I don't have time to figure out a change.

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