DAY 9: 30 Day NO-BUY Challenge

Outfit Prepping And Why Style Is Learnable

On day 9 of the 30 Day No-Buy Challenge, we build a simple system together so we can stop scrambling in the mornings and start actually wearing the clothes we already own, outfit prepping. Instead of trying to be creative when we are half awake and rushing out the door, we set aside intentional play time to put together outfits all at once.

We also rewrite a powerful belief, we are not divided into people who were born with style and people who were not. Style is a skill we can learn over time, just like any other craft, and when we embrace that, our closet becomes a place of possibility instead of pressure.

LINKS MENTIONED IN THE VOICE MEMO:

Metal Grids I hang my outfits on

Hooks I used to hang my Metal Grids

Steamer I Love

My Outfit Prep YouTube Video

ACTION STEPS:

Schedule playtime in your closet

Put a specific time on your calendar this week to go into your closet and play, no rushing, no pressure, just curiosity.
Set up an outfit prep zone

Use metal grids, a curtain rod, or a dedicated section of your closet where you can hang full outfits together so you can see everything at a glance.
Plan 2 to 7 outfits for the week

Start where you are. Maybe it is just 2 outfits, maybe it is 5 to 7. Pull full looks (top, bottom, layers, accessories, shoes) and hang them on your prep wall.
Check your schedule and the weather

Look at what you have going on each day and the forecast, then match your outfits to your real life, school volunteering, work from home, events, errands.
Steam everything in one batch

Make sure the pieces you chose are clean and ready, then plug in your steamer and do it all at once so you are not scrambling in the morning and you stop avoiding “needs ironing” clothes.
Snap photos for your what to wear album

Take quick pictures of each outfit on the grid and add them to your what to wear album so you can reuse your favorite looks and get inspired later.
Give yourself permission to experiment

If you see two pieces that might work together, hang them up, take a photo, and save the idea for your next play session, even if you have not tried it on yet.
Notice and rewrite your style story

Catch yourself any time you think, “I was not born with style.” Gently swap it for, “Style is learnable, and I am learning it,” and see how that shifts your energy in your closet.
Celebrate every stress free morning

Each time you grab a prepped outfit instead of the sweats on the floor, pause and notice how much calmer and more confident you feel. That is the system working.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Outfit Prepping And Why Style Is Learnable

Hello, I'm Casey, your fashion bestie, and we are on day 9 of the 30 Day Nobody Challenge. We made it, guys. We are on day nine. And together, we are sparking a fashion wellness revolution, using style confidence to build a healthier relationship with your closet and yourself. Thank you for taking a pause in your buying with me.

Let's dive into day nine.

Giving Yourself Time To Play In Your Closet

Yesterday, we talked about quieting the negative voices, so that come up when you're playing. But another huge part of being able to play in your closet is to give yourself time. And we talked about spending some time putting it on the calendar of when you can go in your closet and just play.

One of the things I do that really makes a huge difference in my life, especially because I'm a mom, is that I outfit prep. It is like meal prepping, only it is outfit prepping.

In my closet, I have these metal grids that I can hang outfits on, and prep about five outfits at a time for the week. So I use my time that I schedule to play in my closet to also outfit prep.

I will put a link in the description below of these wire grids that I'm talking about. You can also hang up a curtain rod in your closet and use it for outfit prepping. I use these metal grids, because then I'm able to stagger the clothes so I can see the whole outfit.

Why We Outfit Prep

So why do we outfit prep?

We talked about before, how we do not want to try to cram in our creativity in a rushed morning. There is only so much creativity you can get to, and outfit creating you can get to, when it is a hectic morning, and you are trying to get out the door and trying to get dressed.

That is when most of us try to be creative. Most of us do not set aside time in our day to outfit prep.

So we are doing this so we can have a rushed morning, we can get up and just grab whatever we have prepped and throw it on and feel good about ourselves.

This became a necessity for me when I became a mom. As a mom, I would usually wake up to my kids calling me, or a very minimal amount of time for me to get ready, and usually, before I started doing this, I hate to admit it, but I would roll out of bed, grab whatever is on the floor, a pair of sweats, some leggings, throw it on, and brush my teeth, and be on with my day.

I do not feel like I am alone in that when it comes to getting ready in the morning.

Or if you are not a mom, but maybe you work from home, and you have become kind of lazy in your getting ready, so you just kind of, like I do, just grab whatever is kind of right there. Or maybe you are just naturally a person that does not have a lot of time in the morning.

So this solves the whole problem.

We outfit prep for the whole week, and then we have the same amount of energy in the morning. We get up, we grab the thing we see next, which instead of is the sweats on the floor, we go to our outfit prep wall, grab an outfit, put it on, and away you go, right?

We are solving the major problem of, I do not have time in the morning.

This has changed my confidence, and my feeling good about myself exponentially. Now that I am not just showing up in grubby clothes because that is all I had time for.

Number one, I am showing up a little more elevated, which is making me feel good. And number two, I am using the clothes in my closet, which is making me feel even better, instead of just staring at all these beautiful clothes I have and going, Ugh, I am not gonna have time to wear these. One day, maybe.

What I Bring To My Outfit Prep Session

So, what do we bring to our outfit prep?

Well, I bring my schedule for the week, the weather, my inspiration boards, which I have on Pinterest and Instagram, and I bring my what to wear album, which we have been talking about.

I also bring wine, coffee, and music. I want to reach the highest level of creativity, so I really try to make it really fun.

The first thing I do is I bring up my schedule, and I look at what I have for the week. We want to make sure our outfits are coinciding with the event. I do not want to be dressed up as I would, possibly for a woman’s founder networking event, if on my schedule is volunteering at my kids' school, where I might get arts and crafts stuff all over me.

So you just want to look at your schedule. So look at your schedule, and we want to choose outfits that coincide with what you have going on for that day.

Then I pull up the weather and make sure what I am wearing is coinciding with the weather.

Then when I can know those two things, I go and get inspired. So I go to my Pinterest inspiration board, which I will talk about that in the next voice memo, of how we can build our inspiration board and get continuous, I mean continuous, inspiration from our inspiration board. That is a source of how I get creative, how, when I feel stuck, I get out of it.

So we will go into that next time, but I bring my creative board, or if you have done the work and you have an okay amount of stuff in your what to wear album, you could even just pick some of those outfits, put them up on your grid for your outfit prepping, and there you go. You have your clothes ready for the week.

Why We Physically Pull The Clothes

Why do we actually physically pull the clothes and put them on a rack instead of just imagining what we are going to wear for the week?

Well, one, you want to make sure your clothes are clean. You do not want to find out some are in the hamper or at the dry cleaner, or in the wash.

And then, two, I like to hang everything up because I like to run through and steam everything all at once. If you do not have a steamer, I will link it below.

Also, steaming is so much better than ironing, because I do not know about you, I never get out the iron. So then I never wear the clothes that need to be ironed, and then those clothes just go to waste.

If you get a steamer, it is so simple to just hang something up and steam your clothes really quick, and away you go.

However, if you are a rushed person in the morning, you might not have time to do that. And then you might find excuses to not wear those clothes again.

So outfit prepping helps you prep all your clothes so you get rid of all your excuses for why you are not wearing the clothes in your closet.

Step By Step: How I Outfit Prep

So here we go.

We pick out our clothes. We make sure they are clean, we make sure they are available. We hang them on our grid, or our curtain rod, or somewhere dedicated to our outfit prepping. We accessorize. We have the shoes, and then we plug in our steamer and steam everything.

And then, when you are outfit prepping, and you have things on this grid, you might come up with ideas, and if you even have just an idea of something that might go together, maybe you have not even tried it on, but you think it might look good, hang it on the grid, take a picture, and put it in your what to wear album, because then you can go back and be like, Oh, I wanted to try on that outfit. Let us try it on on my next play session.

So seeing things out in visual on your wire grid, of your outfit prep, creates more creativity. And that is what I am saying, is that all of a sudden, you will see things laid out, and you are like, Oh, maybe that will go with that. Maybe this will go with that. And just snap pictures of everything and put it in your what to wear album.

Give Yourself Time To Learn The System

It takes a little bit of time to get used to this, but no joke, if you practice this, you can get an outfit prep done in even 30 minutes sometimes.

Do not put pressure on yourself. If you cannot, do not feel bad if you are not there yet, even if it takes two hours, that is still fine.

You are saving yourself so much time in the morning, so much stress in the morning, so much stress overall, from looking at your closet saying, Ugh, I do not wear almost all of this stuff in here. I need a system to figure out how to wear it.

Here is your system.

And you are releasing the shame of the outfits you are not wearing because you are not ironing them. You are just releasing so much with this outfit prep.

It has been an absolute game changer in my life on how I show up and how I get ready. I cannot tell you how beautiful this has been for me.

I also have a YouTube video of this that visualizes everything. I will link it in the description below if you want to watch the YouTube. It is not the best quality, but it gets the point across, and it shows kind of my process on how I think and how I create outfits and how I outfit prep.

So I challenge you to do something like this.

Even if you do not feel capable of doing five outfits at a time, what if you prepped two outfits at a time, and you were able to have two more stress free mornings, and you just do two at a time, and that works for you.

For me, I like a good five to seven outfits for the whole week. If that seems like too much for you, do whatever feels right to you, even if it is prepping your outfit the night before, that is fine too.

For me to do it all in one batch, and for me to get in that creative mode and have it all done at once feels really good for me. But do what feels good for you.

The Mindset Shift: Style Is Learnable

As we go through this month, I am going to battle a lot of the negativity and the negative voices we have in our head. That is what keeps us feeling overwhelmed in our closet.

Today, what I want to talk about is when someone says, Oh, you were born with style and I was not.

I am going to squash that, and I am going to tell you style is learnable. Yes, some people can pick it up easier than not, but style is learnable.

When you say, Oh, you were born with style, and I was not, you are creating a limiting belief for yourself. And as we talked about in other voice memos, it is not creating an expansive mindset for you. It is creating a rigid mindset, which is limiting.

If you tell yourself, I was not born with style, you are not giving your mind and your body an option to learn style.

If we go with the energy and the thought into our closet and say, Style is learnable, and I am going to learn it, how much better does that feel? How much more expansive does that feel? How much more opportunities come with that thought process?

But if you say, I was not born with style, I do not know what to do in here, you are then squashing all of the ability you have, and telling your whole mind this is impossible. And if you tell your mind it is impossible, it will be impossible.

I am here to tell you, style is learnable, as in any other skill you want to learn in life.

Learning Style Like Any Other Skill

If you want to learn painting, you are not just going to be like, Oh, I am the greatest painter. Here is my painting for a museum, and that is it.

You are going to take the time to find the brushes you are supposed to use. Find the paint medium you want to use. Is it watercolor? Is it oils? Is it acrylics?

You might take a class in it because you are like, I do not know what I am doing. Someone teach me how to paint.

Just like any other skill in the world, style is learnable. All style is, is a skill you are trying to obtain, and we need to learn a little bit about it.

On stages, I often talk about how it is so weird how style is one of the only things that we put pressure on ourself to know without learning about it. Like, think about it. We put so much pressure on ourselves to know style, that we should just know it. But when have we ever really learned about it?

Taking the time to sit there and learn what works, learn what fabrics we like, learn how we like things to fit. Learn, maybe, if we belt something, or we put an accessory here, or we turn up the cuffs on a sweatshirt and push up our sleeves, maybe that is how we like something.

We are not giving ourselves the chance to learn before we get hard on ourselves, and I just want to release that for you, it is not your fault that you feel this way. It is in your upbringing, but I want to take all that away and take a clean slate and let you know that style is learnable, just like any other skill in the world.

So go with that today.

Your Day 9 Challenge

I hope you try outfit prepping. It really has changed my life, and next time, I will talk about where my inspiration comes from, whenever I feel stuck. This is where I go, and this is where I get more inspiration.

So that will be tomorrow, but today, day nine, is all about outfit prepping, and that style is learnable.

All right, this is Casey, your fashion bestie. I am here for you. I am your biggest cheerleader. Let us do this together. You have got this. I know you do. And I will be back tomorrow. Have a good day.