A dress does not an outfit make - part two: selfie your way to success

One thing that really helped me see when my outfits were working and when they weren't was taking selfies. I’d never really been a selfie sort of person until I read an article on XOJane called ‘Dope or Nope? Why Photographing Your Outfit Every Day Will Make You Way More Stylish.’ It talked about how taking a picture of your outfits every day would give you a catalogue of what you’d worn and give you a chance to evaluate what works and what doesn’t (in your own opinion). You can scroll back through your own pictures and discover a long lost necklace, or find inspiration much like I do from the girls in my last post, except this is FROM YOURSELF!

The article ended with an invitation to join in and post a picture of every outfit for a month on Instagram using the hashtag #xostyletrial. I took a deep breath, and started posting. All of the pictures in this post are from the style trial.

I didn’t think it would make much of a difference, but it really did. It was around the time where I was just starting to buy more vintage clothes, so it was the perfect time to work out how to style. It encouraged me to pre-plan my outfits the night before and I found knowing I had to take a selfie before I went to work encouraged me to finish my outfit before I left (rather than grab a dress and a cardigan and run out the door). I learned to be bolder and braver, what worked and what didn’t. And because they knew what I was doing, I got lots of great comments from people who’d read the article.

I can’t remember now if I participated in the challenge for the entire month, but I did trawl the tag on my Instagram just now and could see the improvement in my outfits (and being that it was around the same time of year so the weather’s the same, I also saw a bunch of things that I’m going to dig out this week)! It didn’t matter that I likely dropped out halfway through, the experiment worked on my end.

I know from my stats there’s enough of you reading to participate in a challenge, but because most of you seem to be shy, I’m not sure if there’d be any interest if I started a hashtag month of outfits challenge! I’m keen to do something if you would like to join in, so perhaps add me on Instagram and let me know by a comment here or email to miss_mickey@outlook.com if you would participate if I organised. If you prefer to just silently creep observe from afar, then I’m working on my camera setup at home so that I can give you some #OOTD posts both here and on Instagram.