Fashion is my truth fairy

Bad day, bad fight, bad boss? Shopping is a girl's best happy pill. Be it for pampering, self-assuring, self-love or revenge, a new outfit combats our dull, damned or dreary. Shoes do powerful magic for me.

But there's more than calming our nerves or uplifting our mood.

When we play dress up we pull enlightenment into the dressing room.

Not your typical shopping spree because you're not visiting your fav boutique where Linda knows exactly what you like. You enter a new world perhaps of a shopping mall with dozens of styles or even better, a store like Crossroads Trading with a thousand looks. You go on an adventure, hand in hand with your soul.

You don't hunt for your style, you let it go.

That's the first challenge for the princess on her path to find the girl in the mirror, or is it the girl behind the girl in the mirror?  Letting go of preconceived notions of what makes us look good and our often huge list of can'ts and won'ts is like a refreshing shower.

There's no age-appropriate style other than not dressing little girls like sex kittens. Everything else is how we feel about it, not what society says. The ground on which we strut our confidence is self love and that comes with a healthy dose of self respect, a sensitivity to what we really want to express.

Breakthroughs to our essence happen outside of our comfort zone.

Clothing is our second skin and it should look like us; our feelings, viewpoints, strength, character, deepest desires and most beautiful visions.

What is the true you?

Outfits can help us to find more of our self.

I was rarely a romantic type, always more the warrior than the goddess. I hated pink for decades. To my wow!!!! my dressing room was packed with long feminine dresses, sassy feminine looks and playful girly stuff after I followed my bliss and chose what spoke to me, tickled, challenged or lured me. I stepped into the first dress with a sarcastic grin, but already in the third I smiled surprised. This was - cute. I experienced my longing for romance, my love for experimental theater, my magic as much as my courage. I time traveled and recovered what I had lost after college; the joy of colors, the rebel risks, the creativity of eccentric combinations...

I found my giggle.

I found my art.

Actors step into wardrobe which describes the character of their role. We feel unknown levels of ourselves by trying out the characters attached to outfits. They are packed with emotions from love to spiteful judgments. They reveal our stories and beliefs in our reactions. 

When you try a daring and revealing dress and immediately judge "slut", stop, breathe and listen. What does that really mean to you? Who's talking here? Is that what feel or are you repeating voices from the past?  Feeling your judgments as a part of yourself opens heart and compassion.

Likewise you can feel the punk, the lady, the girly girl or the rock star in you and understand and appreciate yourself on a new level. You might even revive an old dream.

When we step into the shoes of another person and see the world though their eyes, it can profoundly change our attitude and expand our world view. We step into a new perception of life.

When we slip into a unusual outfit it unlocks our likes and dislikes, memories and visions. Fashion is a truth tool, maybe even a truth bomb.

Fashion over 50. Style with your soul.

What's the cool things about rebels? They say NO to what limits them.

I'm not a fan of getting older especially when looking at the increased maintenance. I'd love a little balance; there must be something amazing about this process? On the prowl to finding aging's perks freedom from styling regulations is one of my favorite empowering discoveries.

Forget midlife style.

Lots of what's offered for the older gals is fashion made for hiding our bodies, denying us our giggle as much as our sensuality. It's either beige, baggy and boring or straightforward business type elegance and "ladylike"; born from the mindset of the mature woman on her way out.

News flash: we are ageless women on our way IN.

The women from Advanced Style rebelle in a big, bold, wild and crazy way; an antidote to going down with a whimper. It is the bold who create balance as they wake us up to new perspectives like true art does.

We give ourselves permission to experiment and experience other shades of being, theatrical or not.

We are art, each of us hidden in a chunk of perceptional cement of our family, peers and society. When we chisel our true form out of our limitations we follow Michelangelo's suggestion; the art is already inherent in the granite waiting to be liberates from its constraints.

We reinvent ourselves and this time around we've got the best stylist ever; our soul.

My motto: If you want to be forever young, you have to do young things.

That means: re-learn to play. Secrets of our soul are hidden in our inner child and she only listens when we play, when we are on her play ground not the critical parents asking her to sit still on the dining table.

"Don't put your feet on my table."

"I put my feet wherever I want them."

Exercise:

In your sacred space, which you created to be just yours and where you can be undisturbed and most importantly doubt-free, do a ritual to let go of your day, of the chatter of normal. It can be meditation, dance, writing; whatever frees you from limiting messages.

Time travel to a happy time in your teenage years. Where are you? What are you doing? What do you feel, think, yearn for? Do you wear what's fun for you and if not what's the amazing style you crave?

Feel the feeling of your expression. Your dreams, your rebel, your ambitions.

Visit a store with many styles, a store in which you can surprise yourself. I love Crossroads Trading as here I feel like an adventurer digging for styling treasures like Indiana Jones digs for skulls.

Let go of your style and ask your inner self to guide you. Pick outfits like a Tarot Card, divine-style yourself.

Let the feelings you have in these outfits tell you stories about yourself.

Buy what empowers you in a new way and wear it with confidence. For yourself. For your soul and purpose. Walk this other you with a giggle.

The results can be amazing and for sure a lot of fun; one of my soul sisters visited a posh bridal store and tried on the fluffiest designer dresses, with 60, and acknowledged a disappointment that had hurt her for decades. She healed the sadness of her marriage gone wrong that day and recouped the spark that love and romance is possible at any age.

Fashion is power when our style expresses our truth.

I had a lot of fashion fun in my 20's, trendsetting long vintage skirts and dresses, up-cycling thrifty finds in a women group's sewing parties and giving Boho a good spin. In my 30's I followed what was en vogue, delighting in my trips to Paris coming home with eccentric outfits that confused the neighborhood. Then I listened to the advice of others; for decades I dressed like the successful entrepreneur, the wife, the mother...

Everything changed when I finally looked into the mirror, not at my skin but into my eyes. I love you, I said. My soul smiled back I love you too.

It took a lot of digging but she had arrived. I was finally here.

I have never been so happy with my fashion game than when I hit 60.

Let's wear what we feel.