In the beginning...

In 2003, I exited University, degree in hand, ready to tackle my professional life.  I thought I'd be trading my college jeans & t-shirts for trousers and dresses.  My first job found me working in a tiny office for a guy who frequently wore khaki shorts and sneakers to work.  My second, third and fourth jobs could have been Groundhog Day to the first.  Third Boss often wore his basketball clothes to the office; and Fourth Office was shared with mud-tracking field workers.  I had settled into a profession of casual.  There was no need or incentive for me to step it up a notch.  A layoff from Fourth Job landed me on the couch with morning sickness while I searched and searched.  Everything happens for a reason, they say.  In 2007, I was lucky enough to come out of unemployment largely unscathed, and I started what I feel is my career. 


 

My career requires that I have a lot of public interface.  I have scheduled and unscheduled meetings.  Some lasting well into the night.  Many are before a public, formal audience.  I knew that this new role would require upping the ante a bit.  But I had no idea where to start.  Over the next several years, in between being pregnant, nursing, and parenting, my personal style had vanished.  I adopted "Business Sweats" (khakis and an organization polo) as the answer to a lot of my "what to wear" woes.

I have never thought of myself as particularly stylish.  I tend toward comfort and simplicity, for the most part (see Business Sweats, above).  This was especially true when I didn't know how to dress the body I had, and it has been a long work in progress since discovering that fashion is fun, and can be affordable!

In 2011, I embarked on a journey that would ultimately lead me essentially to a total body transformation.  I know that phrase sounds like a sales pitch, but I feel justified in using it to describe losing a quarter of my body weight.  Up until that point, I'd been unhappy with my body, and wasn't interested enough in fashion to explore ways to make it work for me.  As I started to lose weight, I certainly saw the need to replace clothes that were no longer fitting well.  I knew that poorly-fitting clothes are often one of the biggest disservices I could do to myself in terms of my appearance, and so I began to look for ways to replace what was being cast off.

I started shopping sales, the big-box stores, and the discount clothing stores.  I'd find a piece or two here or there, but nothing seemed to really come together.  I had pieces.  I didn't have a wardrobe.  In January of 2013, at my lowest weight and smallest size that I had been since high school, it dawned on me to try thrift-shopping.  If it was good enough for my kids, it should be good enough for me (I had been buying nearly 100% of their clothes at the second-hand kids' store since they were born).  I had gotten to the point where none of the intermediate clothes fit anymore, either.  I was cinching belts and wearing camis to seal the gaping openings in my shirts.

One day, I went to Goodwill.  The rest, as they say, is history.