149. Confidence through clothes with Samantha Harman

The clothes you wear impact your confidence, self-expression, and even your success - fact! I wanted to get into this subject with someone who knows this subject inside out, so in this episode, I’m joined by Samantha Harman, The Style Editor to explore the powerful connection between style, body image, and self-worth. 

We talk about how the fashion industry reinforces unrealistic beauty standards, the struggles of plus-size shopping, and why so many women feel disconnected from their wardrobes.

Samantha shares how clothing can actually be a tool for empowerment rather than frustration, and why breaking free from rigid style rules can help you show up with confidence in every part of your life. 

If you’re anything like me you’ll understand the feeling of standing in front of your wardrobe, feeling lost, wondering why clothes shopping feels so difficult. If you have, this conversation is for you.

We’re talking about:

✔️ Why style is about more than just clothes - it’s about confidence and energy
✔️ How your star signs should determine what you wear and how you show up
 ✔️ How the fashion industry fails women, especially plus-size shoppers
 ✔️ Why traditional styling advice can be limiting rather than empowering
 ✔️ The role of body image in our clothing choices and how to shift our mindset
 ✔️ Practical steps to rebuild a wardrobe that truly serves you

You can find Samantha Harman, The Style Editor, at the links below:

🔗 You can find Samantha Harman (The Style Editor) here on LinkedIn
🔗 Find her Substack here
🔗 Find her website here

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode - please share it, tag me on social media, or leave me a 5⭐ review!

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Transcript

0:09

Welcome to the Intuitive Eating and Body Positivity podcast. I'm Terri and I'll be talking about all things intuitive eating, body positivity, and health at every size. And shaking off weight stigma, diet, culture, and food rules so that we can all have a better relationship with food and our bodies. Hello, how are you? Every now and again, I bring you a fabulous guest. I bring you somebody who can speak on things that I can't necessarily get too deep into myself, and this week is one of those weeks. This is such a great conversation. I know I say that all the time, but this really is a really, really good conversation. I. So my guest this week is Samantha Harman, the style editor, and she's a personal stylist and she's absolutely fabulous. I found her on LinkedIn and connected with her, followed her. I love what she's got to say. This is not any old voice in the world of styling, I promise you. So if you are on LinkedIn. Go and follow her. She's on Instagram as well. All the links are in the show notes, but go and follow her 'cause she is brilliant. She's just such a refreshing voice. She speaks up for women and their right to dress well and to feel good. Samantha helps women in business to scale using their wardrobes as a moneymaking tool. She was an award-winning newspaper editor as a woman from a working class background in leadership in a very elitist male-dominated industry. Sam really understood firsthand the disparity between home men and women are judged when it comes to dressing for work. She's also dealt with body image hangups herself. She once cried in a dressing room as shop assistants laughed at her and she was turned down for jobs at three fashion companies because she was plus size. So Samantha is on a mission now to rid the world of this toxic normalization of women being sole products based on the weaponization of their bodies against them. She has a book coming out later this year helping you understand why you have nothing to wear and what to do about it. And you can find her on LinkedIn, substack, Instagram, lots of different places. So all the details are in the show notes. Go and find her after you've had a listen. This is so good. I thought we were gonna just talk about how to choose clothes that suit your shape, but no, no, this went much, much deeper. You're gonna love it. Have a listen. Hi Sam, welcome to the podcast. Hello. Are you good? Are you well today? I am, I am. Good. Yeah. Although I was just saying to you that we are recording this on the, the big lunar full moon, and I'm proper in my witchy full moon energy. I love it today. I love it. So this is, um, this goes on YouTube and on the actual just audio podcast. So if anybody's just listening to this audio wise, I urge you to go check out the awesomeness that is the witchy vibe today on YouTube as well. Um, yeah, so start us off then. We are gonna be talking a bit about style and clothes and how that interacts with body positivity and how you feel about yourself, you know, self-confidence, that sort of stuff. So, do you wanna give us an overview of who you are and what you do and you know, where you come from, that sort of thing. Sure. Um, my name is Sam, obviously I'm Samantha. I go by the business name, the Style Editor, because long story short, I was a newspaper and magazine editor, and that is a very male elitist industry, and often I was the only woman in a room, so I would walk in, people would assume I was the secretary, especially because my name was Sam. They would assume that Sam was a man's name. I started to realize that I could use my wardrobe as a tool for not only my own confidence because I lacked a lot of confidence in myself for reasons that I'll get into, but also in terms of branding. And I realized no one was having this conversation specifically for women in business. Men have been using their clothes for centuries to get ahead at work, to be seen in a certain way. But for women, our relationship with our clothes is heavily emotional because that's how the patriarchy wins. If we feel terrible about ourselves, if our wardrobes are spaces of disempowerment, frustration, stress, that means that we don't go for the opportunities that we. It means that we never ask for the money that we should have. It means generally we're just not enjoying ourselves as much as we could be. And that means that patriarchy and the capitalist system that we live in really is winning by making us feel that way. So when I'm talking about wardrobe, it's not just you should wear these things, you are a this shape, you should wear that. It's actually how is your wardrobe intersecting with all of these other themes. To create a situation where you do not feel good enough when you open the doors of it in the morning and it's telling you you can't do whatever it is that is that you want to do in your life. Yeah, yeah. Oh gosh. We get into so much stuff already and we haven't even, we've already scratch the surface. It's deep. It's a lot of men. V women thing is mad, isn't it? You know the amount. I know it's not as simple as throw on jeans and a t-shirt for a guy. I am gonna be having a conversation with a guy who specializes in plus size clothing for men, but that's an another subject. But yes, you are right. Men have used it to have used clothes to, to generate this look of power or of warmth or trustworth or whatever it is they're going for. I think it's easier for a guy to do that than it is a woman to do that. For sure. Yeah, I think men have their own difficulties in terms of expressing themselves. Like I know men who are very flamboyant in what they wear, and other people can take that as like really weird. Or they're like, Hey, what is he wearing? That in itself is a problem for men, and it's really a shame that they maybe aren't allowed to express themselves in the way that women are. However. We know from the studies that women are judged much more harshly on their clothes, specifically in corporate and business environments than men. There was a study last year with news readers where male and female news readers wore the same outfits for a week. No one noticed when the men did it, but people noticed and the even complained when the female news readers did it. So people are judging us on what we wear, and the thing is, we can't opt out. A lot of people get very defensive when they don't know me. They maybe have come across one post of mine and they get very defensive about this idea of clothing mattering. And the thing is that you just, you can't opt out of it 'cause you have to wear clothes. You can't be naked, like it's literally illegal. Do not wear clothes in most situations. You cannot opt out. So how you relate to clothes also can say a lot about your ethics, your morals, who you are as a person. It's all very well saying, I don't care about what I wear. But then also calling yourself a feminist when your clothes are made in a fast fashion factory by women who aren't paid a living wage. That doesn't make any sense. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I've been following you on LinkedIn for a while now, and, and I, and I could see how that. That one post thing that you're talking about, if somebody saw one post of yours, it could be jarring or it could upset them, or they could be like, who's she talking about this? But actually as a whole picture, the stuff that you speak on is brilliant and is way more actually than just, like you say, it's way more than just wear this for your body shape. Um, you've got a really important voice in the world with regards to that. You have, don't look at me like that. You like, so, so like me being awkwardly British and being like, no, let's stop it. It's brilliant though, because you have the guts about you to, to challenge this stuff. Yeah. And not a lot of people do that. Especially what other um, other stylists and things that I follow, they don't, they don't do what you do. They don't speak out like you speak out. Yeah. I, I appreciate that. It frustrated me about styling, actually.'cause I, I wanted to do this because of all of my lived experience of being a woman and trying to have clothes that, you know, worked for my body.'cause I grew up in a world that told me my body is wrong. I could never find anything to wear. I'd be the person crying in the changing rooms. It was awful, and I knew that those experiences had stopped me from achieving what I wanted to achieve in life and in business, and I wanted to help other women to transcend those problems. Just because your wardrobe being a place of disempowerment has been normalized, doesn't actually mean it's normal. But when I did my qualifications in styling, because I do think it is important obviously to have that. Extra level of attention to detail and knowing what you're talking about. None of it was about this psychological stuff. None of it was about the coaching element. None of it went very deep at all in terms of, okay, but why are we telling these women to dress this way? When I asked those questions, I was seen as very challenging to other people in the industry and they're talking about, you know, X type of body shape should wear this. I would say, but why? But where does that come from? But who sets these rules? Why are we telling every individual woman who looks different, feels differently, have a completely different energetic blueprint to wear the same thing that that's not, that's not in my eyes, in empowering anyone that's just giving them more boxes to try and fit into, which is exhausting. Women already have enough boxes that they're supposed to fit into, and every single day they feel like they're failing. Because none of us fit perfectly into any one box. Oh, it's exhausting. So hard being me talking about these things. But someone have to do it. And that sometimes means I get backlash. I get backlash from people in the industry. I get backlash from people who see styling as all one thing. And I understand why they do because that historically is what styling has been. Right? Styling. I've met stylists who've looked at me like really like. That is just so ick. That's not what I do. So it takes a level of education or being around my content for quite a while for people to understand that's not what you get here. Yeah. Yeah. And I appreciate that you're doing that because it is exhausting, actually. It is exhausting when you're standing up for people who are. Feeling like they're in the minority who are, who did not have the privilege that some have with regards to their body type or money or whatever it is. It is exhausting. It's really bloody exhausting and to keep going is hard work. Yeah. It would be really easy for you to just blend in and become one of the other stylist voices and just do the. I say just, I don't wanna belittle what other stylists do, but you know the, well, this is what you should wear for your shape and for your size, and it would be really easy to do that, I'm sure. Yeah. I think it's because my business has so much purpose behind it. I just can't, so I just can't help myself. I'm just so passionate about this. I have a lot of passion for it because I think of my lived experience and I think with. Styling as with other industries, you know, coaching as an example. People think, oh, that seems really easy. That seems really fun, and I won't have to work that hard, and I'll just mess around with some clothes. It's really fun. It's not fun at all. Firstly, when you run a business, your work, particularly at the start, is 1% the thing, the styling, the coaching, the accounting, whatever, it's, you're doing 99%. Knowing how to build a business. They're not the same thing. And one of the biggest issues I see with stylists, and I'm actually mentoring some stylists on this, is that lack of business vision. It is just very much I like to play about with clothes. So that's what I'm, it's sort of what is the purpose and intention and the movement behind why we are doing this.'cause that's what's important. The thing that's important to me is the fact that a woman who's woken up today and cried. Because she feels so frustrated. She has nothing to wear. She's opened her wardrobe and none of it looks right. None of it fits properly. It speaks to a past version of her. She doesn't recognize who she is anymore. When she looks in the mirror, she has to go to work just to somehow find something to wear, to work that doesn't make her feel terrible. She picks out the one blouse that looks okay. She spills coffee all down it. Then what is she supposed to do? Her whole day is off. She sits in the meeting and she has really good ideas, but she gets talked over or she doesn't feel empowered to speak up because when she's standing there in front of her wardrobe in the morning, all of these specs of all of the people and media and society that have told her that she is wrong just for existing in the body that she has are there with her in the room. That's who we do it for. Yeah. It's like you've watched me get ready in the morning. The cameras in your house, it's, it is exactly that though, especially a lot of my clients have gone through this period of change, so they have gone from dieting and being in a smaller body to be trying to better their mental health and their physical health by being an intuitive eater and being more body confident. For a lot of women, that means putting weight on. And then like you say, you've got this set of clothes that doesn't really fit you very well, doesn't represent who you are now and your approach to life. It. You don't even know what suits you anymore because your body has changed and so what even looks good anyway. And then with all of this added body confidence stuff going on, like you say, you've gotta go to work, you've gotta stand in front of people, you've gotta. You gotta be respected and have a place, and a voice and yeah, it's, it's hard going, it's exhausting. And it takes up so much mental space as well, because when you are in the room, you're not just in the room, you're in your head thinking about how terrible you are as a person because you don't fit this ridiculous style, societal expectation of what you are, quote unquote, supposed to look like. I, I know that. On a visceral level, I know it because that was me. I had a wardrobe full of clothes that I bought because I was like, one day when I've lost weight, then I'll be able to wear these. I mean, I was under so much pressure for, since being literally the age of five years old from people around me, family, adults, society, media, all of that, that my body was wrong and that I needed to lose weight, and I, I understood. It was never said to me explicitly out loud, but the ex, the implicit message was, when you lose weight, all of your problems will be solved. You will be happy. The one thing that's keeping you away from happiness is losing weight. Well, then I lost weight and guess what happened? Not only will the problem still there, but then I had this extra additional problem of not knowing who the hell I was anymore and the way that people treated me was differently, and that used to really. Anger me as well. The fact that people who would have nothing to say to me before suddenly wanted to be friends with me or that friends that I used to have, I realized what only stood next to me at the the time because it made them feel better about themselves. It is just, it's exhausting and it takes up so much mental space, particularly for women. I mean, I met a woman who was in her eighties and she said to me, I'm in my eighties, but I'm still always thinking about. How I need to lose weight and how if I lost weight, then I'd be able to fit into these clothes. And the clothes are a tool that we use to beat ourselves up with. Mm. That's really sad. Yeah, it's, it's exhausting. And imagine what we could do. It's all very kind of driven by patriarchy too, because imagine what we could do as a collective if we didn't have this hanging over us all the time. Yeah, yeah. You take the boardroom as a good example of that, right? So if a man stands up in a boardroom to say something, to present something, to give his opinion on something, whatever it is, he's standing up probably, I'm assuming, not being a man myself. Um, he's standing up thinking, right, I've gotta get this right. Gotta get my point across. I've got to, um, inform them on this X, Y, Z. A woman stands up? Well, I can only speak from my own experience and that of what other women tell me, obviously stands up and goes, right, what do I look like? Um, just make myself look a bit smaller and a little bit taller, and is my hair in the right place? And did I put makeup on this morning? And, oh God, what if this presentation doesn't work? And, and it is much more than just stand up and give the information. It is such a confidence based thing. Actually, if we had the, if we had the close to feel good, if we were feeling great about how we looked, about how we stepped into that room, about how we look when we stand up to give that presentation, then the only thing that matters then is the presentation. And that would be incredible. If somebody had right at the beginning of their day, like you say, opens the wardrobe, pick something awesome, feels great about their day. And then walks into that room, the, the vibe is totally different. The vibe is totally different. You just hit the nail on the head with the, in terms of energetics as well. I'm really into big into this in wardrobes because most of styling is very much about the clothes as the physical objects, where actually everything is energy. Mm-hmm. So everything is formed through particles coming together, and we're breaking at. The same frequency. So the human body has a frequency of around like 250 hertz. It varies in their estimations, but if you put something on that feels of a higher frequency, you raise your overall frequency and that then helps you to get onto the frequency of the things that it is that you want. Whereas if you are having to put on things that lower your frequency, what do you think that does to everything that's attracted to you through your day? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. You know, if you feel terrible, you see terrible thi more rubbish stuff happens to you. Why is it when you're having a bad day, everything seems to continue to go wrong? It's 'cause you are, it's the frequency of the energy that you're putting out. And unfortunately with clothing, it's not always available to every woman because. It's not manufactured for them. No. And that is infuriating. No, it's um, it's a tough thing to do as, oh, now we're gonna get up on my soapbox now about high street shopping. It is a really tough thing to do as a plus-sized woman to go shopping for clothes. I do not go shopping in any shop in my local town because there is nothing there for me. I've got, I'm actually going on a girls trip at the end of the month. We're going to Cardiff. So, you know, plenty of shopping. And I've actually said in the group, can we please not spend the whole time shopping for clothes? Because that's not for me. I mean, I don't enjoy it, but I think a lot of that is because there is nothing there for me. So, you know, what do you do? What do you do when the whole world is, is saying, yeah, we're not really making clothes for you. So, you know. Yeah, it's infuriating and it's another thing that is annoying me at the moment is bodies being used as a marketing tool by fashion houses. So a few years ago it was this whole thing of, oh my God, they're putting plus size people on the catwalk, and now we've gone right back to extremely skinny, thin models. Then there's the argument of, oh, but that's because they're meant to be kind of clothes hangers for the clothes. But that informs everything in society right down to the trip, the ripple effect of how we actually treat people. And it seems to be somehow okay to stigmatize people based on the size label in their clothing. I mean, I have clients now where I actually wrote a post about this last year and I wrote to them and spoke to them, but there's a high street store where in store they do not go over a specific. The size. They don't go over a specific size in store. And I went into several stores and I asked them, where's anything over this size I can't fit into the size they have in their stores? And they were like, oh, it's because we don't have the room in store for it. And I said, well, that's absolutely rubbish. It's total rubbish. And the reason why all of the very small sizes are still left in the store is because actually that's not what women need. The reason that the. Bigger, quote unquote sizes in a stall go is because that average size of women is not what they're, they're, it's almost like they're forcing us to be smaller, to shrink, because then if you are shrunken, if all of your mind is taken up by thinking about how to make your body smaller, you can't think about the bigger things that actually really need changing. And a couple of years ago, someone put a, in a petition to the government about standardization of sizing because you can go in one store, you might fit in something, you go in another store, you can't fit in anything. It's a nightmare. Again, doesn't really happen to men because men's clothing sizes are more standardized. This, again, very convenient way of making us take up more of our time with stuff that we really should not be concerned with. And. The response to the per, the response to the petition was, this isn't a government problem, but I think it is a government problem. I think it's a society problem. If we have an entire gender of people, half the population are having to spend all of this time and effort just to find a decent pair of trousers. That's a problem. Imagine what else we could be doing with the time. Imagine the money we could be making if we weren't having to scoot all around the internet, go to a hundred different shops, buy all the clothes, send them back again, just because nothing serves us properly. Yeah. Ridiculous. The size is, that's a really good point. So when I, when I order clothes, because I have to order clothes. I order multiple sizes because none of it fits like it should fit because like you say, there's no standard clothes sizes for women. It's just, it's just, I'll pick a couple of sizes and it'll be a bonus if it fits me. And sometimes I'm in between those sizes, so that doesn't work either. It, it's just crazy. I know that there've been conversations I've had with people about, well, what if there were no clothes sizes? Well, how'd you, how'd you do that? Because you've still gotta be able to choose from a selection somehow. So I don't know. What's your opinion on clothes sizes? And it is. So I think that some sort of standardization would be good across the board because then it would help us with the waste, because waste in fashion's a huge problem. And the other problem is that there are certain places, like for example. Shein, right? Like that company is ultra fast fashion. So I likened it the other day too, in Jurassic World, where there's the T-Rex and then there's the Indo Indominus Rex, which is kind of like the ultra nightmare version of the T-Rex that is ultra fast fashion. That's, that's the Shein shein of fashion. And the problem with companies like that is when you do a hall and you think, oh, it's fine, I'll just send it back. There's no such thing as sending it back because they don't take it back. What they do is they ship it all off to places like Africa where there are huge rag piles on the coast. A hundred million garments go to waste in Ghana every single year alone, so it is not ever going back, and I think it's really rubbish that fashion retailers almost make it impossible for. Plus size people not to contribute to that climate disaster. It is not fair because everyone, regardless of your size, your shape, your age has morals and ethics, and if you are a plus size woman with ethics and, and morals and values, and you hate climate change, you are not being given a choice then to contribute to it. There is nothing that serves you, so you are having to buy five different sizes of this thing to see whatever fits it. It's as much we, we can't opt out of this industry, and that is a problem. No, I, I can't, I abide sheen. I, I won't order from there because it's just, I've read, I've read too much on. The conditions of the workers and pay and all that sort of stuff. And it's unreasonable to think that for the money, that they charge for their clothing, that people in situations and work conditions are gonna be anything anywhere near decent. But I'm also not blind to the fact that there's probably not an ideal kind of situation going on with the companies that I do use and I do buy things from. But, but this is the problem. I would love to go to the High Street. I would love to support local shops. I would love to support chains of shops. I would love to be able to go and do in-person shopping and try some clothes on and see what suits me and, and get that feelgood factor of going to the, to the till and paying for it and, you know, a shopping bag and, you know, all, everything that comes along with buying nice things for yourself. I'd love to do that. I don't, short of, uh, yeah, short of clothes, just appearing in bigger sizes in the shops. I don't know where the answer to that is because. I dunno, I don't know where the answer is. Yeah, making your own, making your own clothes. But then again, you know, when people say that, fine. But life has changed for us in the last 50 years or so. You know, my nan is always saying, oh, I used to make my own clothes and blah, blah. Yeah, but you didn't have a six figure job or a business or all of this stuff that women, now we are told. We can do it all, but then no one was ever told about the cost that would come as a result of that, doing it all. And unfortunately for most of us, making our own clothes just isn't a viable option. And yes, there is obviously tailoring, and I do think in general. People are going to have to expect to pay a bit more for good quality stuff because at the fast fashion level, the quality is is not there because they are competing with the likes of sheen on quality. But then they are pricing in such a way that it's trying to make you feel like this isn't fast fashion and it is. Mm-hmm. I mean, the pretty little thing rebrand that happened recently I think is something that we will see. More fast fashion retailers doing, they're using words like elevated and heritage and legacy. When actually, if you look at the legacy of a company like that, it's really very bad. But it's almost like they're trying to trick us as customers into buying the stuff and the quality just isn't there. It's just double the price than it used to be. Mm-hmm. And the workers aren't getting it. The workers aren't getting the money. No. And also with making your own clothes. That comes with a degree of ability. Right? So I did textiles at school and I knocked up some awesome curtains and, and duvet covers and stuff. I also knocked up some very bad clothes because I can't do it. It's, I can't do it. I dunno how to do it. I dunno how to visualize it. I dunno how to tailor it. To me, that's not my skillset. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But then, you know, you should be able to. In a world where you as a woman aren't told you can do anything, you can have the career, you can have this, you can have that. You should be able to then get clothes that fit you well, that support you in doing all of those things. Mm-hmm. And the problem is that you can't because fashion is not catering to women properly. No. Okay. Here's a question that's come to mind then through talking about clothes and sizes and money and stuff. What's your opinion on paying more for bigger clothes sizes? I think it's wrong. I think it's really wrong. Um, especially because you could argue, oh, well it uses more material, but the workers still aren't getting paid. I would happily pay more for my clothing. And I actually think there has been some recent research on this. About how consumers have said they would happily pay more for their closing if they knew that there was an ethical reason for it, if the workers were getting paid properly, if the quality of materials was better, but it's not it. So all you're paying for is a punishment for the way that your body naturally is. How is that fair? You know, in. Physiology. We look at physiology in terms of style because style always looks best, I think, when it is mimicking what is going on for you naturally. So if you are someone who has a lot of curve wearing curvy drapey fabrics, curvy drapey patterns looks incredible on you. If you are someone who would describe yourself as having a lot of texture, like you've got very thick, wavy, curly hair textured stuff looks incredible on you because it's mimicking what's happening for you naturally. So if you are someone who is very petite in angular, structured, crisp lines and patterns will look great on you. So it, it is always kind of, it should mimic what is going on naturally for you. And I don't think that it's fair that just because your body doesn't fit this certain aesthetic that we are currently being told is the correct one that you are supposed to pay more. For your clothing. That's just discrimination. That ain't right. And that's even if they can get them to make them in that size in the first place. Because there's also the line isn't there of um, well, we don't make close to that size because they're not designed for people of bigger bodies, you know, open the. It wouldn't, it couldn't possibly suit you 'cause you are a bigger person. Yeah. Because you can, all you can have is a batwing sleeve or a drape or some sort of oo like, oh my god, a cold shoulder and a butterfly. A butterfly. But yeah, a butterfly. Yeah. I just, we were, the boy recorded this, we were talking previously and we were saying how much we hate the butterfly.'cause actually, weirdly, in fashion now is kind of going back to. 2005, 2006. So butterfly motifs are everywhere. That's horrible. I have PTSD from the down butterfly. You will not catch me in anything with a butterfly on it because of my lived experience, the trauma of being like, oh, there's nothing for you, but here's a sack with a butterfly on it. Because even though you are, you know, young. No. Like you have to wear this. Yeah, but Sam, it's, it's in a foil print and everything. Well, it's like gold and silver. Oh my God. I can't, it is like, I'm not my Auntie Tracy in Benor for her 70th birthday. Okay. I am a young, happening, intelligent woman. I deserve clothes that make me feel that way. I mean, we laugh about it, but it's true. It's funny 'cause it's true funny because it's true, it's true. And it's infuriating. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think once you get past a certain size, you lack all style, all integrity, all self-care. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. You can't be successful. You are also, you can't be intelligent. If you're open, you know, you, you, you, you can't possibly be a CEO. And over a certain size, no, that's not possible. So we don't make clothes for that.'cause that person doesn't exist. No, no, no. That person does exist though. You are just refusing to cater for that person. Yeah. Do you know what I struggle with along those lines is trousers, because I've got typically wide, round, middle, and my legs are not. I, I got bigger around the middle. My legs tend, did not really grow in the same kind of proportions. So finding a good pair of tailored trousers or, you know, tailored off the rack, tailored, do you know what I mean? Um, that fit well, that don't look like I've got massive excess fabric where my belly kind of joins my legs. It's a nightmare. It is like all thought goes out the window for people when. Yeah, when they make the bigger sizes, it's because they, unless it is a specific range, which some stores they do have, so they have made it with different bodies in mind. They just use a fit model. So they use, uh, whatever size fit model, and then they go, oh, we just add on a few inches for the next size up. But every single woman's body that I've ever seen. Is completely individual and different. No, no two bodies look the same. So mass manufactured clothing is never going to fit us all properly. Mm-hmm. But when you have different shapes and you have different weight distribution, it's not gonna be the same. And the other thing is that it's a misnomer that when you are plus size, you have the same shape as everyone else who is plus size. Your shape is your shape regardless of however much you weigh or whatever size you are. Your shape is your shape because it's your physiology, it's how your body works. And there's this thing of, oh, well, if someone's plus size, it means that they have this size arms and this size waist and the these length legs. But that's not true because different people with different shapes though this just isn't working. This isn't working and there are, there are very few, but there are some companies that do a good job of understanding that different people have different shapes. It's not about the size, it's about your shape, the different things. Yeah. I think I shared something literally not so long about them. That was one of those pictures of all these women are a size 16 or an 18 or whatever they were the size irrelevant. But all these women are basically the same size. And they were all vastly different. The shape and the different ways that their features are accentuated compared to others. And I don't think unless you were educated in that area, that you would look at that picture and go, oh, those women, they're all the same size, but you shape is different. And that's that you are, yeah, an individual. You are unique and you can't tell anything from looking at someone's body really. Like you can't, there it is just. Such a lie to make us feel that you can, and then you take on that lie and you make that your identity. I mean, I did this myself not that long ago. I wanted to start going to lift weights at the gym.'cause I thought, I'm not getting any younger. I wanna make sure that as I'm getting older, I'm retaining my muscle and my strength. And I had a session with the PT and she was talking to me about how I currently felt in. Myself and what my ability was. And I heard myself saying to her, oh my God, I've got the muscle mass. I'm an old lady. I can't lift anything. I'm so weak, blah, blah, blah. And then she did the, she put me on this machine that tests your muscle mass and she was like, you've got excellent muscle mass though. But it was a story I told myself, I don't, as a result of growing up in a world where it was like being plus size is the worst thing that you could ever be. You know, you could be a terrible person and skinny. We've all met the mean girls at school. You could be an awful person and what society has told you that you're supposed to look like you've won the quote unquote appearance lottery. And that's fine, but you can be a lovely, intelligent person. Oh, but you've got a bit of a belly though, so you're actually the devil incarnate. Like that's how I was made to feel. And then, and then that, that becomes your belief system and that then stops you from going after. The things that you absolutely deserve.'cause you're like, who am I to to do that? I can't do that. And it just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy over and over and over again. The whole way through your life. Yeah. And then those body parts that you've always been seeing as bad or something to hide, then surely then that affects your clothes choices because you then try to hide these things or minimize these things instead of. Thinking, well actually this could be an awesome thing that I could accentuate and make the most of. I, I've done it the same as many, many women. I, there's certain parts of my body that I dress to cover up a bit, and it's only me that doesn't like that. Mm-hmm. There's a really interesting relationship, I think, between those parts of your body and then what happens in your. Business. So one thing that I find with clients is that if they were stomach, Tommy's are a huge one. I mean, it was always the thing for me, like I got called Jelly Belly all the time when I was younger, like the night advert, if you remember it came out when I was in school and that was a nightmare for someone like me, an absolute nightmare. So I, I hated my, it was like I had this. Part of my body that was totally disconnected from the rest of my body. It was like I, I would not acknowledge that it was there. And that means that you are not embodied. So then you are disconnected in energetic ways, which means that you are limiting your ability to receive, like receive money, receive love, receive power, joy, whatever it is that you want to manifest is a lot harder to do when you are so disconnected. From your body. And so sometimes when I'm working with a client who has that, I will get them to do stuff like somatic movement because that makes you get in touch with your body so that you don't have to love it. But if you can feel neutrality, that's much better than disconnection. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I would much rather encourage somebody to go for body neutrality and body respect over body, you know, over loving the body. Because the typical message is, oh, you have to love yourself. You have to love your body, okay? You can't just flick a switch and then, oh, I love myself today. It's not that easy. And even the people who do love themselves quite a lot on certain day on, you know, the majority of days will also have days where they don't love themselves. So. I'm all about neutrality and, and that kind of respect for yourself. Yeah. I just don't, I also don't think it's helpful to be like, no girl, just love yourself. You know? I hear, if you imagine you're working with a stylist and you're talking about your body and they're like, no, everyone's beautiful. And like, that doesn't help me though, that doesn't acknowledge why someone feels that way about themselves and help them to move through it. You can't just bat it away with like, no love yourself, because that's just, doesn't acknowledge any of the reasons why they feel that way. No, it's the whole fake it till you make it vibe, isn't it? You can't. You can, you can walk around pretending that you love yourself, but like you say, that doesn't get to the underlying root of why that isn't and how you work through it to actually start to like yourself. You're just masking it. You're just covering it up. Yeah. It's just fake. Yeah. Energy. So where do we start? So this, this woman who wants to just put on some nice clothes that make her feel good and powerful and ready to take on the day, that's a quite a big leap for some people to imagine getting to. How do we start where, what are the stepping stones? The first one is. Not actually about the clothes, it's more about you and your relationship to the clothes. So this part of the work can be quite vulnerable and quite hard, but a lot of it is about addressing the underlying beliefs as to why your wardrobe is currently the way that it is. And I make a lot of my, my kids cry, which doesn't sound very good, but it's important. Because we bury all of this stuff. There's no point me saying to someone, oh, you wanna feel good in your clothes? Here's a wardrobe of X number of items. You should wear this color palette. Off you go. I've had clients before, plus size clients who have worked with a stylist who perhaps didn't get it, not, I don't think they're trying to do any harm. They're genuinely. Trying to do the best that they can with the skills that they have. And they'll say, oh, well, you need a capsule collection of this number of items. So they go out and they buy whatever items, and then a year has passed and the clothes are still in the person's wardrobe with the tags on, because we haven't done any of the underlying deeper work. So the most important first step is understanding where the stories and beliefs come from about the fact that you aren't allowed to. Be stylish or enjoy your clothes, and some of that is what's your first memory of clothes? What is your first memory of being told that you aren't good enough? What is your first memory of something that made you feel really good? Almost getting back to what makes you feel alive, because when you're a little kid, you will play dress up. You're trying all these different identities. You feel so much very powered in your clothes. And then at some point. Somewhere along the line, usually from, it's either the ages of Naugh to seven, could be up to the age of 14. Something happens to you that makes you believe that whatever you now believe about yourself, and then all of the experiences you have after that, a firm, that belief. So you get to whatever age you're at now and you're telling yourself, I can't wear X because. Why, and the deep underlying root cause is, I'm not good enough usually. Um, so essentially it's most of the first bit of it is that coaching element of finding out where that stuff comes from and then working through that and then being able to create a wardrobe that actually speaks to you. So some of that is about learning the practicals of style, what really suits your physiology. What, um, goes with your business strategy as well? There's a lot of that involved in it, and a part of it is your energetics. So the reason that a capsule wardrobe, as an example, doesn't necessarily work for you is because you have a very expressive personality. If you are someone who has a lot of earth energy, if you are, let's say, a Taurus with a Capricorn. You will love a capsule wardrobe of timeless, classic, neutral pieces. If you are a Sagittarius with Leo Rising, that is never gonna work for you because it's not your energetic makeup. So it's all about a journey of self-discovery and understanding you and not what's out there because we look at style as what's being served to us. But what if it was more about who we are? Yeah. Is it a suck it and see kind of a, an approach, you know, if somebody was gonna go and try and change their style up without, without the aid of a wonderful stylist such as yourself, um, you know, how do, is it just a go try some stuff and see how it feels? Because when you go back to the stuff that you were talking about, about things happening when you're younger, so for example. For me, I don't think that was a pretty traumatic thing. I think I was just always told to not really make a show of myself. Um, I remember do I remember years ago there used to be a phase of the big, kind of 50 style skirts and you'd spin around and these skirts had rise up and it was brilliant'cause I was all of about. Nine or 10 at this point. And I really, really wanted one. And my cousin had one and it was the best. It just came right up. And then I was told that it really wasn't appropriate. So I got one that wasn't really as floaty outie, you know? Um, and it was the messages like that for me, it was just, don't make a show yourself. Don't be inappropriate. You know, all that sort of stuff. So then if that's the way you live your life and that's the way you've always lived your life, I mean, I'm in my. Mid forties now, so that's a lifetime of wearing the same sort of clothes. How do you dip your toe in the water? Mm-hmm. I would experiment. Yes. Find out what who you are and what you are here for. So in the energetics of style, again, getting into the woo of it all, I love it. You have a north node and a south node. So your south node is all of the things that you are naturally quite good at because you have. Astrology, kind of traverse them, overcome them in previous lifetimes. Your north node is the place that you are supposed to be going towards in this lifetime. It's the lessons that you're here to learn, the things that you're here to overcome. Perhaps it's the stuff that feels harder to you. Where is your north node? What is your rising sign? Because we look at our sun sign, which is a sign under which we were born, but our rising sign, whichever sign was rising in the east at the time of our birth. That is what we need to, what we should be leaning into in order to get the most magnetic style for us. So if you can get your birth chart and have a look at those things, and then you might start to realize that what you are currently wearing is just other people's expectations. So I have a client this week, as an example, I always find this with Leos. People have Leos in their chart. They can tend to shy away from it because Leo energy is extremely powerful. Mm-hmm. And what you may find, if you have Leo in your chart, is that you somehow magnetize people towards you, but it's unwanted. Like you wanna kind of hide away from it. You might find yourself disappearing into black or oversized clothes or whatever else to avoid that quote unquote public attention. But actually. That's how you get your most magnetic style, which then brings in the most magnetic things that you could possibly want in your life. So dressing to your energetics. I think really when I uncovered my energetics was a point that profoundly shifted my life and my business. And I have photos of me before and after of I just I that you can feel the difference in it. Because before I was wearing clothes that just weren't for me. And uncovering again, what I loved before the world told me what I was supposed to be and how I was supposed to dress and how I was supposed to conform, really did shift things in my life for my business. And the other thing is that I know it feels really hard to overcome this stuff and wear bold things. I mean, I always make a point of I go on the tube a lot, I always make a point of wearing something. That is a little bit ridiculous because no one else is, everyone else is kind of very homogenized style, walking around in gray and black and everything. But I think it's really sad 'cause they're only doing that because everyone else is doing it. And actually you get to be the lighthouse. You get to be the person who demonstrates to other people that they don't have to be that way they can shine their light. You just never know who's going to be impacted by seeing you do what feels amazing. I was on the tube the other day. Obviously, I, I looked great, of course, but I was so, obviously, obviously I was the opposite of these three girls. They got on the train and they were dressed incredibly, and they were just, they were just full of so much life. It was infectious. It actually made my day just being in their presence, just watching them. You get to do that for the world. That is, yeah. Come on. No, I was just gonna say that's, you know, that's powerful. It's powerful energy. Yeah, it is. I, it, it's that thing where when somebody walks into a room, you can feel it. You can, you know, if somebody's low. You also know if somebody's got great energy for the day. And what I always say to people that I talk to about this stuff, about the intuitive eating and the competence work. That you have to kind of be, you have to be an advocate for people. You just have to be a voice because then if you say something, you never know who's gonna be hearing it, and you never know who you're going to impact through just one little comment. Um, that kind of tells them that it's okay to be who they are. I've never thought about it in clothes and visible. Appearance kind of terms before, but Yeah, I know what you mean. I would, I would be smiling and loving that those girls had, were just all kind of dressed up and shining their light, like you say. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But automatically something in my head goes, yeah, but you know, who are you to to get all dolled up and go sit on a tube? Period. Not to who are you? Not to, how dare you not, that's the, it's like the, I often come back to the Marianne Williamson poem, which is, who are you not to do those? Who are you not to be? Incredible. I love that. Yeah. Oh, that's a much better way of looking at it, isn't it? Yeah. I, I think so much of what we do. No, I know that so much of what we do. Is curbed by other people's potential judgements. Mm-hmm. That's gotta play into the way you dress and the way you style yourself. Surely. Yeah. It's huge. But the thing is, everyone's only, if anyone is judging you, they're not judging you. They're judging themselves. Mm-hmm. You are mirroring to them something that they feel defensive about or that is something they need to work on. That's all that is. It's not actually about you. Usually if people are looking at you, they're thinking, wow, I wish that I had the confidence to X, Y, Z, and most of the time they're not thinking about you at all because all of the way that you think about yourself, everyone else is thinking about that, about themselves. Like we are not, this really upsets me. I'm an Aries. Okay? We are not the main character in other people's stories. What really, I know, I know we are not the main character in other people's stories. They are thinking those things about themselves. They really do not care that much about you. Agreed. So let's stop putting so much attention on what, what will they think? Will they judge me about blah? No. That they, they genuinely, they just don't care. They don't care. People have got enough of their own shit going on. Right. They don't really care. Exactly. I don't care. I, people say to me, they'll come up to me at an event and say, oh, I, I wore this today 'cause I knew you were gonna be here. And I say to them, I don't care what you wearing today. I care when you wore yesterday, when you were on your own. I care what you're gonna wear tomorrow when you're on your own again.'cause how you feel about you is the most important thing. It's nothing to do with me. Yeah. What is your opinion then, on getting dressed up just for the hell of it? For sitting at your desk? In your home office working. I think I know the answer, but I wanna hear it outta your mouth anyway. Yeah, you should do it. You should do it because it's psychologically very helpful. So there is something called enclothed cognition, which is the psychological impact of what we wear on how we feel. And so if you are wearing something that feels really good and says to you, boss energy, whatever you will behave. As that you will take on those traits of that person. So it is a, it is a, it is a business tool that you can use. Oh, I've got so much that we could talk about, but it's like we're nearly at the hour mark already. It's ridiculous, isn't it? Um, okay. Is there one overriding kind of message? I know I haven't like preempted this for you, but. Is there an overriding message? You know, if you could say one thing to every woman to help them feel better about their clothes choices, or one tip or a bit of advice, or where would you go? What would you say? I would say go into your wardrobe and take out one thing that you don't like and you don't wear. Get rid of it. Get rid of anything. Now's a perfect time. Energetically, this a huge energetic year. This a huge month of energy. Get rid of it because all it is is bad energy telling you what you can't do, and you need to fill your life with things that affirm that you can. So get rid of it. Okay. And then adding on from that, because these things never stop at one thing, do they, um, adding on from that, then what do you say to the woman that says, but I don't have the money to replace them? Um, I would say, are you wearing it though? And if the answer is yes, you're still wearing stuff that doesn't make you feel very good. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more you wear stuff that you hate, the worse it is for your money making ability to make the money to replace the clothes.'cause you're just putting on negative energy. And if you're not wearing it, it doesn't even matter. When I suggest it to people, they always say, oh, they don't have nothing to wear. Well, then there's. This is our problem, isn't it? This is the problem that we need to solve. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You can't have it all, and No, not you can't have it all. You can't have the change without making the change. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Can't make an omelet about breaking some eggs. That is correct. I told my husband that just yesterday, and then he said. My egg is like on the floor so far away, over there, smashed. And I'm like, no, you don't get the point. That's not a point. Oh God, I feel like we could talk about this for hours and hours. Mm-hmm. And hours. Um, but we cannot. So tell people please where they can find you and connect with you and, um, look at what you have to offer as services and things. You can find me on LinkedIn. I spend a lot of my time. Mostly on LinkedIn. I'm a bit of a LinkedIn nerd. You can find me on there, have a newsletter on there, have a sub stack, which you can also find through my LinkedIn. All, all of my information, everything is on there. Fabulous website link on there and everything. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Cool. I'll put it all in the show notes. Anyway, thank you. Obviously. Thank you. I've had such a great conversation. It's so funny, isn't it?'cause this is not where I thought we were going with this conversation and that's just naturally where it's took us and that is the best conversation. Thank you. Thank you. I.