What No One Tells You About Losing Your Style in Midlife
A week or so ago (what is time?) I shared a post about the style transition I’m currently working through. It’s a result, I think, of a few factors. One, I currently have a small fraction of my wardrobe available to me; the rest is on a boat and will be here so soon (and there just might be tears of joy). And two, I’ve recently gone from living my suburban Austin, Texas life, which I lived for a decade, to a more urban lifestyle in Berlin, Germany.
I talked about how these things have caused me to feel uncomfortable about my personal style and what I’m doing about it in my previous post, so you can read that for a little more background, if you’re curious.
But I believe this is a much bigger issue for many women in midlife—not exclusive to me, beginning the expat chapter of my life. And kind of like, say—pelvic organ prolapse when you birth a child—no one tells you about losing your style in midlife. (By the way, I think and hope POP is becoming more widely discussed these days, but it sure wasn’t when I gave birth to our child!) Before I hit midlife, no one around me ever mentioned losing their style—not my mom, not my four older sisters, not the women I worked with. It just wasn’t something anyone talked about.
Until I reached midlife myself, I didn’t realize that losing one’s style was often part of this season of life. And yet, it’s very much a thing, but no one expressly tells you about it.
I’ve always been interested in fashion, style, shopping—all of it—so style has always been part of my identity. Like so many other personal stylists, I’ve always been the one my family and friends come to for style advice. It’s just always been intuitive for me. But my eye for style didn’t protect me from losing my own style in midlife. And not to sound melodramatic, but I felt like part of my identity had gone missing.
My style hit a wall in my postpartum era, at age 35. Or, I suppose it was actually during my pregnancy. I was not the cute, glowing pregnant woman. I felt uncomfortable all the time and had no clue how to dress my wildly changing body. In hindsight, I’m surprised I wasn’t better equipped to dress my body during pregnancy because my weight fluctuated throughout my late teens, 20s and early 30s, but style wasn’t really a challenge. I digress. Pregnancy-related body changes are different from weight loss/gain.
What no one tells you about losing your sense of style in midlife, first and foremost, is that it happens! It’s not uncommon, and it’s been a challenge for the overwhelming majority of women I work with.
Now that we’ve established that it is in fact, a thing, specifically, here’s what no one tells you:
It’s different for everyone. You might get dressed one day and not recognize yourself when you look in the mirror, or it might be a gradual loss you recognize over time. Small things become evident. For example, you start to fixate on the flimsy fabric of all of the shirts in your closet and realize you no longer like how they look on your body, or how they feel against your skin.
Your priorities change. Often, this inevitably means you lose focus on your style. I’m not uncovering any midlife secret by telling you it’s a busy season of life—we all know this. Personally, my career drastically changed a few times in midlife, and as a family, we moved a few times. Suddenly, what I put on my body didn’t seem as important as figuring out where we were going to live or where our daughter was going to go to school. As women, we tend to put everyone else and everything else first.
Losing your style is actually a good thing, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Aging changes you in so many ways. At 40, for example, you aren’t the same person you were at 25. So why would you wear the same things? Why would you want to wear the same things? Losing your style—or as I like to think of it, shedding what no longer serves you—gives you opportunity. You get to decide what you want it to look like in this stage of life.
So if you’re standing in front of your closet wondering when getting dressed got so complicated—or worse, if style just isn’t your thing anymore—know that this is normal. You’re in a season of change, and style is part of it. Losing—or shedding—your style in midlife is actually an opportunity.
If you’re ready to learn what your next style chapter can look like, I’d love to help! Book a discovery call and let’s get started.
