Let's Talk Style! {Part 2} | My Honest Review of Get Your Pretty On

To read {part 1} of this post, click here.

When it comes to fashion, what I want is a guide, a plan. Someone to do the research for me and to tell me exactly what to buy and where to find it. And that's when I discovered Get Your Pretty On. Get Your Pretty On (GYPO) is headed up by Alison Lumbatis, a stay-at-home-mom-turned-work-at-home-mom/stylist who creates style challenges (see below) and offers beauty and fashion advice on her blog. Note: I had a hard time figuring out how to organize this post, but I finally settled on a pretend question-and-answer session between my alter-ego Yoga Pants McGee (YPMG)--see part 1 of this post--and myself. Here goes:

YPMG: What is a style challenge?

Me: A style challenge is a virtual styling guide created by a stylist with the intention of helping the purchaser create a capsule wardrobe (see below). A style challenge is accessed online through a login and consists of:

• 20+ days of outfit ideas that work for your daily life--from running errands, to lunch with girlfriends, and casual date nights. You can access all of the outfits online, and they are also sent to your email inbox in an "outfit of the day" format
• a capsule wardrobe (see below) shopping list including accessories with links to recommended items
• printable PDFs to take shopping with you and hang in your closet for daily outfit inspiration
• access to a Facebook group
• access to the style challenge's Pinterest board

There are several style challenges offered throughout the year. For example, I purchased the Winter 2016 GYPO Style Challenge. The Activewear Mini-Capsule designed by a different stylist was made available in January 2017 (I passed on this), and Alison just launched a SAHM (stay-at-home mom) Casual Wardrobe Basics Builder.

If you go the Style Challenges website, there are actually lots of stylists from whom you can choose. Alison is the first one featured, and I like her and her personal style, so I'm planning on sticking with her for the time being.

YPMG: What is a capsule wardrobe? 

Me: A capsule wardrobe a collection of a few essential items of clothing that don't go out of fashion, such as skirts, trousers, and coats, which can then be augmented with seasonal pieces.

YPMG: What did I like about the style challenge?

Me:

• The goal of the style challenge is perfectly in tune with the overall goal for my wardrobe: to create a mix-and-match minimalist wardrobe. The shopping list from my challenge included five tops, five bottoms, one jacket/sweater, four pairs of shoes, two necklaces, one pair of earrings, two scarves, and two bags. Since I wear my "momiform" of yoga pants and t-shirts most of the time, I don't need a ton of polished-looking outfits, but I would like to have several on hand without them taking up the majority of our closet.
• It makes putting together mix-and-match outfits easy and painless. Alison has done the work of rounding up classic pieces and the season's trends and provides with the links of where I can find them.
• The challenge, when completed with a healthy dose of self-control [hangs head in shame], can be affordable. The Winter 2016 Challenge was $39 (and I received the Winter 2015 Challenge as a bonus), and the SAHM Casual Wardrobe Basics Builder is only $29.
  • Alison always encourages her "pretties" (the name she calls her readers/followers) to shop their closets first. I found several items from the Winter 2016 challenge in my closet already. Woo-hoo! She reuses pieces from previous challenges, so the more style challenges you do, the fewer pieces you need to buy with each one.
  • I also like that the links she provides cover a variety of price points. For example, one of the items on the shopping list was a tassel necklace. Alison provides links to tassel necklaces at Macy's, Nordstrom, Target, and Amazon.
• The style challenge encouraged me to try new things. On my own, I don't think I would ever have thought to purchase a faux-fur vest. Now that I have one, it's one of my favorite pieces in my winter wardrobe.
• I am becoming more educated about style, putting together outfits, and beauty. In the past, when questioning my outfit choices, I have consulted a few go-to friends who happen to be gifted in all things style. (I jokingly refer to them as "Kristin's Council of Ladies" based off of  "Sheldon Cooper's Council of Ladies" from The Big Bang Theory. We actually don't watch this show anymore [conviction + the show lost its spark], but I digress.) If you don't already have your own council of ladies, I highly recommend getting one. :-)Although I can style an outfit on my own, I find the task is a lot easier when I have some inspiration to get me started. I've also learned some good tips about styling in general (top + bottom + outfit "completer" = looking put-together). From Alison's blog, I finally figured out how to curl my hair to get that modern beachy-wave look. (All I had to do was add a bit more product and not curl the ends. Ugh! Why did it take me so long to figure that out?!)

YPMG: What did I dislike about the style challenge?

Me:

• Some of the links to the suggested outfit pieces were bad. Sometimes the items were sold out (like the fur vest from Target), some had only a few obscure sizes available, and others had been removed from the store's site altogether. I have a feeling that this happened with the older pieces (the ones being reused from previous challenges), but it would have been nice if the links were checked and updated if necessary. I then had to try to find substitute pieces on my own, and the whole point of this was to spend less thought and time on building my wardrobe, not more!
• Sometimes, the colors chosen for mixing and matching are not your personal best colors. For example, I don't think I look all the great in pink, but "blush" is/was a big color for winter, so I ended up buying several pieces in blush. I'm not confident enough in styling to try to rework the color scheme, so I just went with it.
• I did not like the sense of urgency that kicked in once I started receiving my daily outfit emails, and the Facebook "pretties" started posting their daily outfit selfies. Up until that point, I had enjoyed perusing the shopping list and was planning on checking my closets (and sales) to find the pieces for my capsule wardrobe. I was also going to use the shopping list to pare down on unworn and dated items in my closet. When the daily outfit emails started, and I my Facebook feed was crammed with women posting selfies of their outfit-of-the-day (#ootd), I suddenly felt a sense of urgency that hadn't been there before... Ohmygosh, I'm supposed to be wearing this outfit today, and I am missing 75% of the pieces!
  • Friends, I feel the need to offer a bit of unsolicited advice right now. Do not--I repeat, DO NOT--make lots of purchases when you have a 2-month-baby who refuses to sleep in his crib, AND when you're in a postnatal funk, AND you know you have a tendency to turn to retail therapy when you're feeling a bit off. DO NOT DO IT! I quickly started purchasing the items I thought I was missing. My purchases were sporadic, and many of them were on sale, so I didn't think I was spending that much. When Dan (the keeper of all things budget-related in our home) told me how much I spent on my clothes in the month of December, I actually cried. And then I made a lot of returns.

YPMG: Would you purchase a style challenge again?

Me: I honestly wasn't sure for a good long while. Still shaken by how much I had spent in December, I passed on the January Activewear Mini-Capsule. I workout by running on the treadmill in our basement. An old maternity tank top and some shorts I picked up at a garage sale are completely acceptable for that, thankyouverymuch.

However, the SAHM Casual Wardrobe Basics Builder was calling my name, so I decided to give it one more try. This time, though, I will be implementing a few tweaks, so I can practice a lot more self-control. If I totally mess up this one, I promise you that I'm out for good!

YPMG: What would you do differently next time?

Me: {Tweak #1} I am not going to join the Facebook group, if one is offered (there doesn't appear to be a Facebook group for the SAHM capsule builder). I didn't feel the urgency to buy ALL THE THINGS until I started seeing all the women posting selfies in their #ootd. (And, no, I did not personally post any selfies.) Also, it was incredibly annoying to have my Facebook feed filled up with the selfies of lots of strangers dressed in similar outfits. [shudder]

{Tweak #2} I'm going to turn on the filter in my Gmail, so that I don't see the daily outfit emails. I can login to my style challenge online and view the combinations any time I wish. I don't need that email popping into my inbox each morning making me feel that sense of urgency.

{Tweak #3} I am going to be smarter about where I purchase the items on the shopping list. Even though Alison often provides links to relatively inexpensive stores like Target, I can save even more money if I check sites like thredUP first. True story about thredUP: I received the Winter 2015 style challenge for free when I purchased the 2016 one, so I was scoping out the items on the shopping list. Two of the pieces on the 2015 list included a black blazer and sparky tank top, both of which are timeless and I know I will wear. (Christmas and/or New Year's Even party, anyone?!) I found a beautiful black blazer (name brand and retailing for $90) and a sparkly tank top (name brand and retailing for $20) for a combined total of $27.37 shipped. By the way, if you haven't already, I highly recommend checking out thredUP. If you're interested, send me your email address or just leave it in the comments, and I’ll send you a friend share code that gives you an automatic $10 credit if you’re a first-time customer! I will also get a $10 credit, so it's a win-win! But I there I go on another tangent... 😉

Basically, friends, this "style challenge" experiment is still a work in progress. Overall, I've been having a lot of fun with this (you know, except for the whole not having self-control, annihilating our clothing budget, and crying thing), but I still wonder if the end result is my putting in more time and thought than I would like to about what I wear. I'm going to give it a bit more time before I form my final opinion.

Are you all "meh" about fashion right now, or have you ever tried something like Stitch Fix or a style challenge? Maybe you a natural at fashion. If so, applications are open to join Kristin's Council of Ladies, ha!