The Closet Coach

This month in the Site Spotlight is Alison Gary of Wardrobe Oxygen, the first Spotlight member I’ve ever met in person! We both attended the DC FABB meet-up at Carbon in July. I like Wardrobe Oxygen for its straightforward approach to real-world dressing for working women and moms.

About Alison Gary

I am a 36-year old full-time working mother living and working in the Washington, DC area. My day job is as a web communications manager; after hours I am a freelance writer and blogger focusing on fashion.

When I am not working or writing, I love spending time with my family – we love to spend time outdoors, travel, and go to concerts together. I also enjoy music, yoga, cooking, and reading.

About Wardrobe Oxygen

Wardrobe Oxygen is a site where women can find realistic fashion advice and tips on how to achieve personal style, regardless of age, figure, budget, or lifestyle. After many years as a personal shopper and wardrobe consultant, I learned that there are some wardrobe staples that every woman should have in her wardrobe. By having these staples, a woman is prepared for most any event life can throw her way and also gains the perspective to find her personal style and build her perfect wardrobe.

I started Wardrobe Oxygen in 2005 as a place to organize my thoughts about personal style and fashion, not trying to be famous or acquire readers. However, over the years it has gotten quite an audience and through it I have had many opportunities to write for other sites such as AOL Patch, BlogHer, Savings.com, and The Savvy Life. My blog has been featured on sites such as Sugar Media, Forbes, MSNBC, and Get Rich Slowly.

What She Writes About

I think I am a pretty average woman – I am neither rich nor thin, I am busy and have many responsibilities on my plate. I feel this helps me provide realistic, real-life fashion advice for fellow busy women. I showcase my personal fashion with daily photographs and details of what I am wearing, but I also write articles about how to find one’s personal style, stay on top of trends without becoming a fashion victim, and how best to build and maintain a carefully curated wardrobe.

I love hearing from my readers and often use their emails and questions as blog post topics – if one woman is asking that question, it’s very possible that others have the same query!

Her Favorite Posts

• Staples for Every Woman’s Wardrobe
• Being Cool
• Age is But a Number

[Site Spotlight is an occasional feature that brings you a new or noteworthy style and fashion blog or site.]

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Thanks to Alison for participating in this month’s Site Spotlight, and thank you for reading. Did you like this post? Please leave a comment or share it with someone else; just use the handy sharing widget below.

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Last week, I wrote about my attempt to emulate the second of the four outfits Erin styled for me as part of the style blogger S.W.A.P. This week, it’s time to wrap it up with a bit of cheating.

You see, I had some of the elements for look #3 (Client Meeting) and some for look #4 (Date Night), so I combined them. Call it 3.5?

Erin picked out a neutral colored dress as the base for both of these outfits; although it’s not the same silhouette, I thought my Calvin Klein dress (which you’ve seen before) would fit the bill.

I loved the blue ASOS obi belt, so I ordered it. It adds a nice pop of color to the expanse of tan dress and accentuates the narrow part of my torso. (I also discovered that the blue dye rubbed off after I’d worn it, so I’ll have to figure out how to get that off!)

I don’t have white heels or sky-high Louboutins, but I did just order these cute Indigo by Clarks heels so I thought they might work.

I thought about adding pearls, but it seemed like it was too much overall between the oversized belt and the shoes with cut-out embellishments. In the end, I kept it simple.

• What do you think?
• Did the combination of 2 looks work?
• Pearls or no pearls? (Or some other accessory entirely?)

Dress: Calvin Klein fit + flare seamed dress ($129.50)
Belt: Leather obi, ASOS ($34.48)
Shoes: Indigo by Clarks Indigo Plush Silk pumps at Endless ($90)
Outfit Level: Somewhere between 4 and 5.

[Disclosure: Some links are affiliate links.]

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This week for Fashion Beauty Friend Friday, we’re talking about locational influences–does where you live affect the way you dress? To put it another way, do you wear where you live?

(And can you tell where someone’s from by the way they dress?)

1. What part of the world do you blog from?

I am in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. You know when people talk about “inside the Beltway” and “outside the Beltway”? I’m outside it, but sometimes at night, I can hear it from my house. :) When our post-war neighborhood was built in 1948, the Beltway didn’t exist, and now it’s just a quarter of a mile away.

To be very precise, I am usually blogging from my couch in my front room with my MacBook.

2. If you had to describe the overall mode of dress for where you live what would you say?

It has famously been said that Washington is Hollywood for ugly people. And New York regularly looks down its nose at DC as being a bastion of fashion-free, conservative dressing.

Like all stereotypes, that’s a little unfair. And like all stereotypes, it also contains a grain of truth.

Yes, the DC dress code is fairly traditional and conservative. Ride the Metro any rush hour and you will see a lot of khaki and suits and dresses from Ann Taylor.

But you know what? Most workplaces are pretty traditional and conservative. So is New York itself, outside the fashion world. The average Manhattan office worker is not striding around in Armani and Manolos.

And yet, even though DC is not populated with enclaves of black-clad fashionistas, there is a thriving style and fashion community. Just ask the ladies from last week’s DC Fashion & Beauty Bloggers meet-up–held at Carbon, a boutique that primarily stocks DC-based designers. Or check out the DC street style blog Curator of DC Style.

3. Do you fit in with the status quo around you or do you break the mold?

It depends on the day. I have my share of Ann Taylor and LOFT wear. The likes of McQueen don’t grace my closet.

But I mix it up when I can, incorporating trends or color or accessories, or donning the mostly black fashionista’s uniform. You may not mistake me for a New Yorker, but you probably won’t mistake me for a government lawyer, either!

4. If you have lived or traveled to another part of the country/world did your clothing choices evolve?

I spent my Junior Year Abroad in Birmingham, England and I quickly learned how to blend in with the locals, especially on the Tube in London. For the most part, my clothes were already non-touristy (this is where my life-long penchant for black helped out).

My biggest change was my shoes and accessories. Black leather lace-up shoes, yes; white chunky sneakers, no. Nothing says “American tourist” louder than wearing a pair of “trainers” more suited for running a marathon than walking ordinary city streets. (Well, except for actually being loud.)

And under no circumstances should you wear a fanny pack around your waist. In fact, don’t even use the word “fanny” in England. (Google it.)

5. If you had to describe your style by naming a specific city, what would you be?

Now that’s a tricky question. I’m not conservative enough to be “typical DC.” I’m not cutting edge enough to be identified with New York. What’s a city that’s somewhere in between–San Francisco, perhaps?

• Help me out, readers: Based on my style, where would you guess that I live?

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Thanks for reading. Did you like this post? Please leave a comment or share it with someone else; just use the handy sharing widget below.

(Want to get more shopping tips and fun insider stuff? Join The Style List. It’s like a secret club in your email inbox! And when you join, you’ll get my free email series, 7 Days to Better Shopping. It’s my gift to you!)

[Photo credit: Flickr user Horia Varlan]

I spent some time over the weekend cleaning through tubs of storage in my basement. I’m a bit of a pack rat, so I had way too much stuff saved over the years, most of it tchotchkes, scrapbooks and other mementos–including photos from my ’80s youth.

The photos above are from 1987 and 1988, around the time of my senior year in high school. Pretty stylin’, huh? :)

Looking at these old photos made me think about the ways my personal style has changed over time. And the ways it’s stayed somewhat consistent.

What’s consistent: My color preferences. That’s a lot of black and white up there. My attempts to integrate more colors to the contrary, my current closet’s range of hues isn’t a whole lot different.

What’s changed: My clothing silhouette. Back in high school I was really thin. Like, shopping at the 5-7-9 store thin. For reasons that make no sense to me now, I was self-conscious about this and wore baggy clothing to conceal my body. (I know, I know! Yet another reason you should love the body you’re in; if not now, when?)

Today I don’t have the problem of feeling too thin! Yet I’m much more comfortable wearing more body-conscious pieces that fit and flatter the shape I’m in now. I’ve learned that baggy never works to make big look smaller or smaller look big; it just makes everyone shapeless.

As much as I feel I have developed a strong sense of personal style over these years, I also know–and hope–that my evolution hasn’t ended. I wonder what I’ll notice when I look back on today’s personal style in 20 or 25 years?

• How has your style evolved over time?
• What has stayed the same and what has changed?
• Do you think style should change over time or do you think it should stay consistent?