Connecting Through Fashion | November 14, 2014

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made: your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”  Psalm 139:14

I’m a bit of a girly girl, I love clothes and shopping for them. My friends are laughing now at the “bit” part. Okay, so I’m really girly. (Please, don’t stop reading if you are not. I promise I will not tell you that all females should wear pink, ruffled dresses.) One of my favorite parts of getting ready to sing or speak is picking out what I am going to wear.

My daughter, Kaitlyn, has watched this process for years.  Just recently, she has really started to have an interest in clothes.  This makes me so happy!  Up until this year, she hated to shop.  For this very reason, if I did not have such a vivid memory of her birth, I would not have believed she was my child.

A couple of weeks ago, as I stood in front of the mirror one last time before I left to sing, I could see Kaitlyn out of the corner of my eye checking my outfit.  In her hands was my favorite fashion book that she had read this summer. I was secretly doing cartwheels in my head and fighting back tears of joy, as she looked back and forth between my clothes and the book. She was checking every piece to see if it fell within the recommendations. Thankfully, I passed, and we were off to the concert.

A while back, I came across a picture from a concert when Kaitlyn would have been a toddler. (There’s an example of the “mom timeline” if I ever saw one!) The outfit I was wearing most definitely would NOT have passed!  It’s not that the outfit was bad really, but it was that I looked so washed out.  I have fair skin, so that had been the story of my life until I found the book Kaitlyn was holding.

I ran across the book about 4 years ago, and it reshaped everything I had learned in school about fashion.  The book has since been revised and is called Help Me Jesus, I Have Nothing to Wear by Shari Braendel.  It opened my eyes to see unique beauty in how God created human bodies that I had never noticed before.   Each person is given a combination of hair, eye and skin coloring that works in perfect harmony together.  In her book, Shari Braendel defines the 6 dominant color categories: Light, Deep, Soft, Clear, Warm or Cool.

It was amazing to realize that God created these hair/eye/skin combinations to work so well together with each one being beautiful in its own way. I couldn’t believe I had failed to see that for years. Instead of setting my standard of beautiful by God, I had set my standard by the media.  When I was growing up, Hollywood and fashion magazines mostly showed blond hair and tan skin, of which I have neither.

I compared myself to the model in the magazines, and in turn, I never really liked my dark hair and light skin. I felt I wasn’t pretty, since I didn’t have “the look” the media was selling.  For years, I tried to get what they called a beautiful, “sun-kissed glow”, but mostly, I came away with a sunburn!  I used peroxide-based products to lighten my hair in college.  And later, when my gray hair was out of control, I got blonde highlights to cover it.

After reading Shari Braendel’s book, I learned that I had been working against what God had given me.  In trying to change what I didn’t like, I messed with what worked. Not only did I mess up how my hair/eye/skin colors worked together, but I wasn’t always choosing the right colors to wear either.  Each color category has suggested colors to wear that are complementary to that category’s features. This is where I went so wrong in that old concert photo. The color of the jacket was all wrong for me. Instead of making my skin look radiant, it drained my color and made me look washed out. Not only that, but when I look at the picture, all I see at first is the jacket. It was a cool jacket, but that’s not what I want people to notice first.

The idea behind wearing the right colors is to draw attention to the face first, especially the eyes, not the clothes.  When I discovered my coloring (I’m a Clear), I decided to try all of the recommendations as an experiment of my own to see if anyone noticed. Oh my, I could not believe the compliments I got as a result!  (Turns out God really did know what He was doing when He gave me my “high-contrast” coloring!)

I started with asking Elise, my hairstylist, to color my hair back to my natural color, and I adjusted my eye make-up too.  From there, I went through my closet and took out the things that weren’t a good color for me and gave them to my friends who could wear them well. It’s funny, as I made the pile to give away, I noticed a lot of them fell into the Soft and Warm categories. (Shari Braendel has color swatches with recommended colors for each category.)  Some things were hard to part with, but in the end, they looked so much better on my friends!

It’s been so fun to see how Kaitlyn uses these tools when she picks her outfits now too.  She is doing such a good job flattering her God-given beauty.  I wish I would have known that at her age. It would have saved me a lot of struggle in loving myself back then.  I spent way too long comparing myself to the beauty of others, instead of seeing the beauty that God had given me.

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made: your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”  Psalm 139:14

As the years go by, I grow more and more comfortable in my own skin.  Now, I see how wonderful His works are, not only in others, but in me too.  It’s amazing how something as small as discovering my personal coloring could give me a new perspective and insight into how wonderful God is.  I’m thrilled that my daughter is discovering that at her young age.

The media of our world today is even more brutal in scrutinizing the female body, always selling the next “in” thing and often suggesting much more dangerous and permanent fixes than peroxide.  It’s sad and makes me mad, because what they are really selling is insecurity.  I know, because I bought into it for way too long.  That’s why I am passionate about helping women and girls open their eyes to see the beauty in what God gave them.  His works are “wonderful” and every woman and girl should know that “full well”!

God made you beautiful, Girlfriend!  Don’t let the world tell you otherwise.  Seek Him, His standard of beautiful and the unique beauty He has given you. (Discover Your Coloring)  

There is so much more to dressing to flatter all the beauty God has given, so look for that in future Fashion blog posts.  For now, if you would like to know more, see my Fashion page or leave a comment.  You can also check out my Pinterest account to see examples of how to dress for your coloring and body style.

 

Taunya