Alison Lumbatis: Take the Guesswork out of Getting Dressed

Description: In this episode, Kelli interviews Author and Style expert Alison Lumbatis. Alison works to give women confidence in whatever they wear and gives some insider tips to help them feel their best. 

In this episode you’ll learn:

• 01:39 Alison’s new book titled The Ultimate Book of Outfit Formulas: A Stylish Solution to What Should I Wear?
• 05:27 How Not To Let Style Intimidate You
• 10:05 Recognizing Changing Patterns in Style
• 17:13 The Outfit Formula
• 22:55 “You Don’t Have To Feel It To Do It”
• 26:02 Teaching Self Care 
• 28:00 The Influence Of Your Choices

Alison’s new book titled The Ultimate Book of Outfit Formulas: A Stylish Solution to What Should I Wear?

Alison begins by telling the audience about her newest book titled “The Ultimate Book of Outfit Formulas: A Stylish Solution to What Should I Wear? Alison changed her career from contributing to corporate America to working from home and spending a lot of time with her children. She loved this lifestyle, but she noticed that working from home made her lose her motivation to dress up and put in the effort to her presentation. The comfy workout clothes threw her into a slump and she began feeling like she needed a pick me up. Her book is an inspiration to women to decide how to develop their own sense of style no matter what their work or personal lives look like. 

How Not To Let Style Intimidate You

Alison has a background in engineering and she used that to her advantage when designing her new lifestyle that was based on developing her own style. After realizing that she became easily frustrated and overwhelmed when she entered a store looking for new clothes, she knew she had to come up with something to simplify the process. She, like many women, doesn’t necessarily enjoy shopping as much as stereotypes portray. With an abundance of options, it can be little stressful choosing items that fit your style but are different from the pieces you already own. She came up with her own formula that helped her nail each shopping trip, mainly because she found out that shopping with a purpose or a specific list is the most organized way to keep yourself on track. 

Recognizing Changing Patterns in Style

During the pandemic, many women fell into the same pattern that Alison had experienced nearly 10 years ago while transitioning into her work-from-home lifestyle. Being forced to work from home and create a new wardrobe that worked for taking care of your family and household as well as being presentable for your professional meetings on Zoom really created some contradicting opinions for women around the world. While many women enjoyed being comfortable on the couch in yoga pants, they soon realized that they needed a little more than that to feel as successful and professional as they had to work in their offices or corporate settings. They wanted to start dressing more fashionably for themselves, but they found out quickly that retailers were adapting to the changing trends and only offering pieces that were centered around the athleisure lifestyle. Alison wanted to help women that were missing that structure and routine that went along with their outfit choices. 

The Outfit Formula

Making smart choices when it comes to an outfit can be intimidating if you don’t know where to start. Alison uses a simple formula that she created and it simplifies picking out each piece, a bottom, a top, a jacket if you need one, shoes, and an accessory. This is the simplest way to go through your closet and come out with a completed outfit that looks put together every time. Alison first wanted to change her mindset around dressing to impress when she decided one day in the middle of feeling like she was in a rut to dress up in a “regular” outfit and throw the yoga pants aside. She felt more motivated and productive and her daughter made a comment about how she looked so pretty today. The moment that she realized her daughter was watching everything she did, she wanted to change to be a better influence. 

“You Don’t Have To Feel It To Do It”

Alison wants to reassure everyone that follows this advice that you don’t need to choose this lifestyle every single day. If you want to wear those yoga pants, then wear them. She knows her own red flags, though, and wants to make everyone aware that they have their own as well. Noticing any type of negative patterns can be helpful to bring yourself back up to a motivated mindset. You don’t have to feel it to do it either, meaning sometimes you might not want to put in the effort, but it might be what you need at the time. 

Teaching Self Care

It’s important to realize that you’re doing this for yourself. You choose what you do and what you wear every single day for you, not anyone else. Self-care includes so many other things, too, and one day your self-care might look like yoga pants and a baggy tee-shirt with no makeup. Realizing what your body and mind need on a daily basis is so important to keeping yourself grounded and feeling confident. Listen to yourself. 

The Influence Of Your Choices

Everyone around you is aware of what choices you make to some degree and some people in your life are even affected by them. If your children notice you taking care of yourself less and less, they’re most likely going to model that behavior and not think that taking care of themselves is important either. At the same time, you don’t want to pressure your children or those who are influenced by your decisions into caring so deeply about what others think. It’s all about finding a balance to promote confidence and self-care. 

Resources from this episode:

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Check out Alison’s newest book here

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Thank you so much for listening to this episode! I’m honored and excited to be on this journey toward personal growth and greater confidence with you. If you enjoyed the podcast, I’d love to ask you to take 2 minutes to leave me a 5-star review on your podcast app, that way we can help even more women to join us as we #dropkickyourinnermenagirl together.

P.S. If you’re looking for ways to increase your confidence and silence your inner mean-girl, download my free workbook, 6 Ways to Dropkick Your Inner Mean Girl.

xo,

Kelli

 

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