I'm done trying to dress like someone else

Dressing the woman I am today, not who I used to be or how someone else tells me I should dress

Before I got married and COVID struck, I worked in a professional environment requiring business casual attire. So, when I got married, most of my closet was pencil skirts, blouses and dresses.

Now, as a mom of littles who works from home, I have very little to no use for most of those business casual items, so in 2023, I finally parted ways with most of that part of my wardrobe.

I've talked about postpartum body image here, but I feel like after every pregnancy and baby, my identity shifts yet again, so how do you dress when who you’re becoming shifts from who you've always been?

To be perfectly honest, I don’t even like most of my clothes anymore, even the items I used to love and was excited to wear when I’d no longer be pregnant. It's like they no longer feel like "me"?

Throwing out an entire good wardrobe and buying a new one seems like a wasteful and expensive thing to do, but being unhappy and uncomfortable in your clothes is also difficult.

The thing is, I don’t think the problem is necessarily with the clothes I own, but how I view myself and adjusting to a monumental shift in my identity.

In the last four years, I went from a single twenty something woman working in a professional office and attending a Slavic church where appearances / dressing up is a big deal, to married thirty something, a mom twice over, working from home and now living in a rural area and attending an American church where dressing up isn't the norm.

Add in an extra 40 pounds and it feels like I'm a different person, and I'm just not sure how to dress this "new" me.

I've loved fashion since I was young. I devoured fashion content as a teenager. I've seen every reality show and movie set in the fashion and editorial world; in high school, I started a style blog, hosted a fashion show as my senior project and dreamed of working in fashion; in college, I spent most of my budget on fashion magazines.

But, in time, legalism won over and I tampered down my love for beauty and fashion and tried to be the "good Christian girl" that my Slavic conservative culture told me I should be (especially if I wanted to marry a Godly man). My wardrobe shifted into darker colors, longer skirts and dresses, my hair pulled up, minimal makeup. Any efforts to make myself pretty externally felt like a sin.

Once I got married, became a mom, and moved away from all the influences and people I grew up with, I felt more comfortable unraveling and re-evaluating what I was told a good Christian girl should wear and appear like. For example, I began slowly updating my wardrobe to things that I previously wasn’t allowed to wear (e.g., jeans / pants).

But, also, being pregnant and postpartum overweight for most of my marriage means there were a lot of seasons of covering up and hiding a body I felt uncomfortable in + dressing for comfort more than beauty.

Suffice to say, there have been major shifts in my personal style and identity.

Now, at the age of 33, mostly because I feel like I've at last settled in who I am and the woman I want to become, I finally feel like I'm at a place where I can figure out what my own style is.

Not how fashion magazines or bloggers tell me I should dress.

Not what my parents or conservative religious teachers say modesty looks like.

Not buying what looks good on or is promoted by online influencers.

Not trying to fit in or chasing the latest trends.

Not hiding in the shadows or being afraid to be seen and noticed.

Not finding my identity in my physical appearance, but instead seeing clothing as an expression of who I am and a tool for the season I'm in.

Yes, it's wild to me that I'm coming to this point in my thirties, but if anyone's ever emerged out of a conservative, religious upbringing, you may understand how difficult it is to untangle what you were taught by others the Bible said about clothing, modesty and a woman's appearance vs. actually studying for yourself what the Bible says about these topics.

Add in becoming a mom and two pregnancies back to back (resulting in an extra 60 pounds postpartum with baby #2), and here we are.

I recently saw this reel and her parting question is scribbled on a notepad on my desk to think about:

"Who am I when I stop trying to be someone else?"

Honestly? When it comes to my “personal style,” I don’t know.

I've tried to be the fashion forward gal.

The modest, Christian girl.

The lawyer in a tailored suit.

The professional, put-together career girl.

The era of "only leggings and a tunic sweater third trimester pregnancy fit."

The flowy dress postpartum summers.

And the current postpartum jeans and t-shirt / sweater uniform.

In almost every one of those style "eras," I was trying to model someone else's style. Whether it was someone I knew in real life or someone I followed or saw online, I tried to make myself look like her, but it never stuck or worked for me, because, well, I'm not her.

What looks good on one woman and in one season, doesn't always translate to another woman and another season.

So, I'm finally calling it enough.

In 2025, I want to discover my own personal style. I want to step in fully into who I am now, instead of trying to keep fitting into who I used to be, because it's starting to feel like squeezing a square peg into a circle.

(tbh, part of me fears people thinking I've changed, as if I have to remain who I was in my twenties even though I have grown so much over the years and I'm now in a completely different season of life than I was in my twenties. So, yes, I sure do hope I've changed and why do I even care if people think I'm not who I used to be?!)

I've written a lot about not looking around at how others are doing things and tuning out the noise to keep your eyes on your own lane, but I've been a bit of a hypocrite on the personal style front since it's one area that I keep trying to mimic others in instead of figuring out what works for my body and the current season I'm in.

I don't have a grand plan or agenda, but I will say that most of this transformation needs to happen within first.

It's changes in my mindsets and letting go of all the voices that have piled up over the years telling me how I should dress. A shift in my views on modesty.

Getting physically healthy and strong. Not hating on the extra pounds and curves that two pregnancies have gifted me.

Embracing my current season and allowing myself to be different than who I was in my twenties or pre-motherhood.

Clothing is an outward expression of the inner work. For me, it's catching up on the outside to the shifts that happened within me over the last few years and the season I'm currently in.

Here’s what’s made it to my Pinterest board so far (includes some of the clothing items I already own and wear often since I want to use what I have vs. buy new things).

A Shea Mcgee + Sezane + French classic vibe is what my style inspiration is adding up to so far 🤎 I also really want to be the kind of person who can wear a felt brown hat like that and not feel weird about it.

Tips, advice & resources on this topic are very welcome!

P.S. I was listening to an IG live on personal style (in Russian) a few days after I scheduled this post and it felt like a “God wink” that caring for my appearance and wanting to look my best is not a sin (as I was often taught growing up). The women on the IG live talked about beauty, and this analogy stuck with me:

God created flowers, but when you plant a rose, you don’t just plant it and let it be. You water it. You prune. You take care of it to maximize it’s beauty and life.

Why don’t Christian women approach our appearance that way?

Yes, we accept how God created us and each one of us is beautiful because we are created in His image. But we must not neglect ourselves, but instead take care of what we’ve been given to keep ourselves healthy, flourishing, bearing fruit, and yes, beautiful.

I know this may seem like a “duh” observation to many, but as someone who is still untangling the legalism of modesty and beauty, this analogy brings me so much freedom.

When Jesus needed to feed the people who came to learn from him, he asked his disciples what they had and he used that to be enough to fulfill the people’s hunger, even if to our human eye those few fish and pieces of bread did not seem like enough.

The woman on this live compared that to how we approach beauty. When you experience a hunger to be beautiful and to thrive - when you look with envy at what another woman has and have that hunger pang for something similar - ask yourself: what do I have?

And then tend to what you have and ask God to multiply it to be enough for you.

I needed to hear that. As a postpartum mom with lots of weight to lose to be healthy and strong, it feels like at times that I don’t have what it takes to be beautiful right now. That only once I lose weight will I be able to dress better and feel beautiful.

But I need to flip the script in my mind and work with what I have today, even as I work towards my bigger health goals.

P.P.S. I'm trying to tackle this personal style journey by slowly culling and purging items in my wardrobe that no longer fit who I am today and the season I'm in vs. buying more stuff.

Because I've learned that I can buy all the new things, but it won't automatically make me into someone new. I'm trying to buy less this year and instead work with what I have to develop a personal "uniform" of favorite items and combinations. So, more of a process of elimination than a shopping spree for new things.