How to be your own unique self - A style interview with Shelley

I dear women that have a truly unique and arty sense of fashion who are not afraid to stand out.

Shelley certainly fits that category with her unusual unique hairstyle taking middle stage and she has never felt better. Let's find out more about her!

Can you lot tell u.s.a. a fiddling bit more about yourself?

I was the just child of ii working parents, and learned to be independent, resourceful, and to entertain myself from a very early on age.

Spending a lot of time lonely fostered a honey of lone pursuits like drawing, reading, photography and watching quondam movies, and I still savour doing those things today. After moving from a small town to a larger city to nourish university, I spent several years of working in record stores (remember those?) and other retail and contract jobs.

I plant a "existent task", and work as a program assistant at a Academy in London, Ontario, which allows me to indulge in passions such as travelling and thrift shopping. I have no kids, but I have two smart and adorable pet rats. My current goals are to keep my wardrobe from taking over my too-pocket-size flat, and run across every bit many of my blogger friends equally possible.

As a point of reference which age grouping do you belong to or perhaps you lot are willing to share your age?

I'm 53 – a heart-aged tween, according to my pal Melanie of Bag and a Beret.

Tin can y'all tell us a chip more than virtually your blog Forest Metropolis Fashionista and why y'all created it?

I've always noticed other people who have unique personal style, and when I offset saw Scott Schuman's blog,The Sartorialist, I was inspired to do something similar for the city I live in.

My blog began as a style of documenting the modest population of creative and stylish people in London, Ontario. Eventually, I found I was shooting the same people over and over, and I was asked why I didn't photo my own outfits.

Over the last 5 years, my web log has evolved into a photographic diary of the outfits and adventures of a 50-something round peg living in a square pigsty.

How would y'all describe your own style?

I would utilise words similar playful, funky, and quirky to draw my fashion. I've loved secondhand shopping for most of my adult life and most of my current wardrobe is from thrift stores.

I practice very trivial retail shopping for clothing, only when I practise purchase something new it tends to be blackness with an interesting shape and and so I habiliment information technology with something vintage and brightly-colored. I'm non very girly, although I practise relish wearing full skirts with crinolines once in a while.

What would y'all consider the about important components of your style?

My hair is probably my most recognizable component of my style – shaved back and sides, with a long section on superlative that is coloured orange and pinkish at the moment. Pretty much anybody that reads my blog recognizes me from my hair.

My footwear is too important to me considering I walk a lot, and tin't wear heels because of human foot bug, so I almost always wear boots, Physician Martens, or Converse sneakers.

Where do y'all live and how does that influence your manner?

I have lived the last 35 years of my life in London, Ontario, a city of shut to 400,000 people, known for being the home of Western University, and a lot of insurance and law firms. I don't think that this urban center has influenced my style, rather, I tend to stand out in this city because of its bourgeois nature.

Do you experience you accept a signature style?

According to the people I work with, my signature manner tends to be "stuff that other women my historic period couldn't get away with". I guess my hair and footwear would be office of my signature style, and I am drawn to exaggerated proportions (big shoulders in jackets, wide-leg pants, etc.)

What inspires your outfit choices the most?

My mood, the weather, and what I'thou doing that day, not necessarily in that order

Do yous have things like colour profiling or body type into business relationship when you dress?

Non that I'k consciously aware of.

Has your style inverse at all later turning 40?

My style became more than professional person and a bit more conservative when I got a full-time office job in my late 30's and continued into my 40's. Now that I have been in my current job for 10 years, I've found I can vesture pretty much any I want to piece of work as long as it's make clean and not likewise short or depression cutting, so I've felt free to experiment more in the last few years with unlike colors and shapes in my wardrobe.

I did detect that I started wearing more color in the last x years, which could bespeak that I'1000 mellowing out a little. My body shape has changed over the last 5 or so years which has meant that some things I wore x years ago don't work on the body I have today.

Do y'all believe in dressing 'age appropriately' and what does it mean to you?

I've always worn what I liked, and what I felt good in at that particular time, so I've never given much thought to whether what I wore was "historic period-advisable".

When style magazines would practise those features on how to article of clothing a particular trend at 20, 30, 40, 50 etc. I would frequently detect the version suggested for the xx twelvemonth old appealed to me more than the boring one for the fifty year former. I have my own ideas of what I experience comfortable in, and what is appropriate for me, depending on my current trunk shape, and so that is the yardstick I utilise rather than any societal rules regarding age-ceremoniousness.

Would yous say that at this stage of your life yous are now more, or less interested in fashion, way and the way yous look?

I would say that I've ever been interested in way and manner, fifty-fifty as a child when I was mesmerized by the outfits worn past Cher and Carol Burnett on television.

I didn't really know what kind of look suited me best until I was into my 40's, and I judge at this stage of my life I am less interested in manner than I used to exist, but more interested in whether the fashion I present myself through my personal manner reflects who I am on the inside.

Why is the way you lot look of import to you?

How I wait (by that, I'm referring to hair style, clothing and accessories) is of import to me because my body is my sheet. I have always loved the arts – theatre, dance, moving-picture show, visual arts, etc., and wanted to be an artist when I was a child, just I learned that I am non peculiarly talented in any of those fields, (although I am a expert photographer), so what I choose to put on my torso every day is my means of creative expression. I want to nowadays my best possible self to the globe, just also, a self that reflects my involvement in colour, shape, texture, etc.

Which of the outfits on your blog are personal favorites and why?

I can't think of whatever in particular – if information technology'due south on the blog, information technology means I like something virtually the outfit and I feel good in information technology.

Practice you follow trends? And if yes, which trends excite y'all at the moment?

When I was younger I would buy fashion magazines every calendar month to come across the latest trends, and occasionally contain them into my wardrobe, but I stopped doing that virtually 10 years ago. I still buy the occasional Vogue to wait at the beautiful, unattainable fantasy clothes, just I no longer pay attention to what is "in" or "out" in a item season.

Exercise you take whatever way and style tips for women over 40?

I don't think I am in any position to give mode or style tips as my mode is very specific to me and my lifestyle. The but affair I would say is that existence over 40 doesn't mean you lot have to "tone it down" or get-go dressing to adapt someone else'due south idea of what women of a certain historic period are supposed to look similar.

I feel much more liberated in my mode choices now than I did when I was in my 30's because I really don't requite a f@*#m what anyone else thinks nearly what I'g wearing, and I feel much more comfortable in my own peel.

Life is too short to vesture boring clothes.

(I have no thought where this quote originated, but it has become my mantra).

What are your plans for your weblog and how practise yous see it develop over the coming years?

I've never had a particular plan for my blog – it has evolved over the years from its starting time as a street style blog, merely it has been a natural evolution, non one that was mapped out.

It gets more hard as the years go by (I will have been blogging as The Forest Urban center Fashionista for five years in April) to find the fourth dimension and ideas for web log posts, and I take reduced the frequency of my posts to once a calendar week. I'm open to seeing where the blog goes, and to keep it going as long every bit I enjoy it, and believe that I am providing something that is enjoyable for my readers.

Anything further you would like to add?

Blogging has been the goad for developing cherished friendships with like-minded women all over the world, which I had no idea would happen when I started Forest City Fashionista.

The other surprising do good is that I am much more accepting of myself. I used to hate looking at photos of myself because of my crooked teeth, glasses, etc. and I'm much less critical of myself since I started to regularly put myself out there into the world via my blog, where I'm open to the judgement and criticism of others.

I think blogging is a perfect way for women over 40 to connect with each other and the world at big, and show we accept intelligent and interesting things to say, are incessantly creative, inspired and inspiring, and have fabulously various style! Many thanks to Sylvia for the opportunity to add my ii cents to your interview serial.

Check out more than of her fabulous way at her weblog Woods Style Fashionista. Yous can also find her on Instagram.

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