The Styling Session That Added Serious *Range* To My Wardrobe
Angie Uh's advice on adding more outfits, without adding more clothing
January is SHOP YOUR WARDROBE month over on ‘The Wardrobe Edit’, a four-week-long content calendar that perfectly aligns with a January ‘no-buy’ or if you want to take a moment to press pause, reconnect with your wardrobe and fall back in love with what you already have. To gain full access to all the posts, you can upgrade to a paid subscription (THANK YOU!) with a limited-time 25% off! Along with all the content I post this month, you’ll unlock over 400+ posts, stacked with styling ideas, tips and formulas…
For the penultimate instalment of my styling sessions series, here’s everything I managed to squeeze into a video call with Substack darling and Personal Stylist, Angie Uh of The Found Journal. You can find the previous posts here:
‘The Seven Styling Tweaks You’ll Want To Commit To Memory’ with Kelly Klein.
‘The Styling Session That Altered My Brain Chemistry’ with Reva Luft.
‘A Stylist’s Guide to Playing With Colour in a Neutral Wardrobe’ with Anna Baldwin.
We LOVE Angie here on Substack! You’ve read her viral ‘How To Dress Like The Row (Without Buying From The Row)’ post, right? She regularly shares her styling nuggets with such depth that it would take me days to write. The level of detail! Unmatched! When she types, we read, and there’s softness and refinement to her style that when you see an Angie photo, you just know it’s an Angie outfit. She does layering so well, and is always encouraging us to add breath to our wardrobes, so I was intrigued to see how that would apply in my own. She usually works with longer-term clients (if you feel like starting from scratch, then she’s your girl!), but does limited 1-hour slots for people who just want to drop into styling work (I booked the ‘Office Hours’ package, $300 for 1 hour).
Guys, the OPTIONS I have now. Angie came to the table with ideas and a ton of them. We chatted so much in our session, mainly about our shared love for Substack (Julia was Angie’s first subscriber, we both ADORE Allison and I showed Angie my new socks* that I picked up on Fanny’s recommendation!). But also just about how fun these sessions are. They aren’t just reserved for when you’re necessarily in dire straits with your wardrobe; maybe you just want to play and have a helping hand whilst you do it? You’re always looking at your wardrobe, so it’s nice to have a fresh set of eyes. It’s the equivalent of a very stylish friend giving you very helpful advice for an hour. No sigma, no shame, just good vibes.
The aim of our session was simple. To find outfits for those in-between moments that could easily be leveraged in either direction of the undone→polished spectrum, and to tackle some problem pieces whilst we were at it. Angie mentioned that having my Indyx Open Closet to look at beforehand was helpful (once again, another digital wardrobe pro), and, as always with these calls, it’s handy to have an idea of what you want out of it and any specific questions at hand. Problem pieces are a good place to start, so that’s where Angie began…
First, we worked with these vintage Levi’s 501’s that I picked up from Pin Denim. The colour is weird and wonderful, a muted, purpley brown, and despite the fit being pretty good, I just knew Angie would have ideas beyond the black crewneck that I’ve worn them with most. Here’s what she came up with:
With a black sheer shirt - a good option for summer and she suggested a necklace would add personality here.
With a white tee and brown suede jacket - a little tonal and suede always plays well with denim.
With a grey V-neck jumper - as we’ve discovered through these sessions, if in doubt, a grey jumper always works. Layer a black coat over it to ‘ground’ the look.
With a grey jumper and grey coat - a slightly different take on the ‘grey goes with anything’ idea.
With a white tee and grey jacket - the grey works in a tonal way, and the white T-shirt gives some crispness to the look.
Another problem piece that I haven’t reached for all that much are these DONNI Flannel Simple Pants*. Remember these? I stupidly sold them, then stupidly had to repurchase them because I missed them so much. And now I stupidly haven’t worn them (I AM A FOOL!), but they are comfy and cosy and have WFH written all over. Angie’s main piece of advice here was to treat them like jeans:
With a white T-shirt and my favourite jacket - a problem piece is almost always solved just by wearing them with pieces you wear all the time.
With something statement - not only is this jacket a statement, but it’s also pretty tonal. Angie noted that the black flats here added balance.
With a longline jacket - wearing this style of jacket over anything dials up the polish.
With a blazer and a white T-shirt - it’s not my usual go-to, but Angie utilises a blazer often to balance out more chill pieces.
I wouldn’t say this COOR Flannel Shirt* is a problem piece per se, but it’s still a relatively new item to me, so I’m always down for crowdscouring ideas. Angie’s advice here was to not overthink it, wear it with my favourite jeans and layer it over a white T-shirt, which is a very toasty option for right now:
With a longline coat - sandwiching it between a white tee and this blazer coat adds texture and interest to a pretty basic outfit.
With a white tee and my favourite jeans - keeping it simple, but tucking it in, gives the shirt a more refined feel.
With a longline coat - but notice how buttoning up the shirt completely changes the vibe.
With a trench - Angie added a black belt to balance the lighter, brighter spring tones of this look.
So you’ve seen the outfits, but wait - there’s more. Angie’s after-session package is HEFTY. Not only did she share photos of all the outfits we created in our session, along with additional comments on each pic, giving me SO MANY MORE OPTIONS! She also sent a debrief email with a recap of our session and the common themes she identified. See her attention to detail!? Unmatched…
And here’s what she emailed me through after:
Tonal moments - It seemed you really liked some of the softer tonal looks, so I’d play around with this a bit more! It looks like you most often do this with black, so try with shades of cream/white/oatmeals, shades of grey, or browns. I think of it as a winter palette cleanser :)
Soft pants - For pants like the Donni flannel, just treat it like a jean! Easy combos like a tee and sweater with a great piece of outerwear will keep you cozy yet feel put together. If it feels like you want some structure around the waist, you can tie a sweater or shirt to offer that. (I also will sometimes add a belt even if it doesn’t have belt loops but that might be too fussy for you bc it does shift around a bit throughout the day)
Winter Whites - If white and black feel too sharp of a contrast, try brown. It still adds richness and depth with whites, but feels softer and then you can still ground the look with black shoes or accessories. This also looks great with hints of grey mixed in.
Grey as a neutralizer - For harder to style colors like the purple-y brown Levi’s and the cords, grey can be an easy neutralizer to pair with. You can always break it up with hints of white or black depending on your mood.
Cuffed jeans - If the jean hits too long depending on the shoe you want to wear, just do a baby cuff (I like 1-2 small turns) so the top of your foot shows a bit which I find helps balance out a look, especially in the winter.
Bags -I tend to choose bags based on practicality/activity level, but I also think bags are a great last lever for your outfit:
with tonal outfits which can feel soft and a bit of flatter, you can add a bag with texture/pattern/pop of color
with oversized looks, you can balance with a smaller structured bag (like your loewe)
with more simple outfits, your leopard bag can add quick impact and do the heavy lifting for you (similar to how your leopard coat does the heavy lifting!)
Next time I say I don’t have options, give me a cold, hard slap and direct me back to this post because it turns out there are options by the BUCKETLOAD. All thanks to Angie.
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Omg, I had so much fun in this session Anna!! A total fangirl moment for me and you are just the kindest and easiest person to talk to. I could have gone on all day! Loved how open you were and impressed with how clean your room was after we were done 😂 thanks for sharing and it’s amazing how you are able to capture all the info from these sessions in such a digestible way ❤️
Always and forever an Angie fan!! She is so talented at creating 8 trillion options from a tight edit!!