Redefining Style at Midlife
A look inside style coach Gillian Jakob Kieser's closet
October 27, 2024, 11:25, flood tide, waning gibbous, Early Fall
High 62ºF/ Low 38ºF, sunny, pressure 1028 mb, 4.09 feet
I returned to the office about a month ago, my first time since commuting from Brooklyn to Times Square in 2018.
Since then I’ve worked at warehouses managing solar technicians in Northern California, from my computer aboard my 36’ sailboat during the early pandemic days, and most recently from the back of a raft on the James River. This recent shift brought all sorts of new stylistic considerations to the fore.
I was lucky to watch my friend Gillian dive into her style redefinition from across the internet, and even luckier when she said yes to sharing more here. Thanks GJK!
From Gillian:
I used to love getting dressed.
In my 20s and early 30s, every day was a costume party with one invitee: me. A normal work day was an excuse to add some fun, whether parading about in an elaborate outfit, or just copying something new I saw on Pinterest.
But then a few years ago, something happened. A few things happened, actually. I moved from the city to the country where my then-fiancé (now husband) lived. We had a baby. And, there was a pandemic. All of a sudden, I was going nowhere that wasn’t a zoom meeting, I lived in a new environment where none of my old “urban” clothes seemingly made any sense, and on top of that, I was inhabiting a different, postpartum body.
The change happened gradually, but one day I realized that getting dressed wasn’t fun anymore. Rather, it was a daily exercise in frustration, disappointment, and just not feeling at home in myself.
But it wasn’t just that a task which used to be fun had become sort of humdrum; it was more than that. What started out for me as standard postpartum depression, evolved into a sort of general malaise and boredom with life. I know now that part of that just comes with falling into the new routine that comes with having a small child. I’d work for the weekend, and then when the weekend came I’d realize I’d spent the whole weekend parenting, and so I’d look forward to Monday for a reprieve, and the whole cycle would start anew. I did what I needed to do, but I’d lost my spark, and everything around me felt, well, flat and lackluster. Which brings me to my closet.
I kept buying clothes all through this time, doing my best to feel chic and put together as a newly country-dwelling, remote-working mom. Ingesting what I saw on Instagram, I did what a woman like me was supposed to: I invested in well-made clothes in a “timeless” neutral color palette - ecru, sable brown, heather gray. I won’t belabor it, but let’s just say I spent many hundreds of dollars on oversized natural-wool cardigans from Spain.
One day I had this thought: “I think of myself as a colorful person, but when I look in my closet, there is nothing in there that expresses that.”
Behind my closet doors were a neatly hung capsule of minimalist/rustic countryside-inspired basics. And yet I felt like I was failing spectacularly at “working” this look. I didn’t feel like the carefree, easy-breezy mom I was trying so hard to emulate through my clothing.
Thus began a journey to find myself again. And the vehicle of the journey would be my closet.
I approached this journey the way I approach everything – via an internet research deep dive. A lifelong student at heart, I figured, “surely, there must be some kind of class on how to develop your personal style? There must be frameworks for this. It can’t just be everyone out there winging it!”
And slowly but surely, some signposts emerged.
I devoured Daria Adronescu’s Wonder Wardrobe course – my first introduction to building my own color palettes and combining style archetypes. But I wanted more.
They say when the student is ready, the teacher appears, and through pure internet magic I found my own Fairy Style Godmother, a style coach named Alex Fownes. Studying under her, my style began to blossom, and then started to explode out of me. Through her reflections, I felt understood and seen. I saw myself through lenses that I hadn’t given a thought to since the “before times” - before kids, before pandemic, before being a zoom-dwelling working middle-aged lady. Through the mirror she held up to me, I was able to reclaim some of the most central, essential parts of myself. I honored my playful inner child who loved bold color combining, my inner teen who was obsessed with runway shows and Sex and the City, and my higher self who I envisioned in bangles, dressing gowns, and fashion turbans. Through personal style exploration, they all got a seat at the table (and all got to show up in my wardrobe).
Most importantly, I learned how to express those parts of myself in ways that made contextual sense with the place and circumstance of my real life, today. I now knew how to tap those inspirations and reframe them for meetings, school drop offs, and weekend hikes. At the same time, I got braver about showing up in ways that didn’t necessarily match how those around me were dressing. I don’t dress like the neighbors I pass on my morning walk anymore, and that’s ok.
I realized after doing this work, that I had let my circumstances define what I was wearing. Maybe out of fear, maybe just out of feeling lost in this new phase of my life, and looking for guidance outside of myself, in those around me. In a way I was trying to dress to camouflage; to reflect what I thought that a person like me should be wearing. I should be: earthy, soft, lithe, maternal, rustic, homespun, elegant...
But through excavating who I am (and always have been), I realize, well, despite those being trendy (and admirable) qualities, I’m actually not those things at all. And I never have been.
When I look back on photos of me trying to be that girl, I don’t see myself at all. I see a person struggling to be smaller and softer, more restrained, more subtle, less shiny, less tacky, more palatable, than the person who was really in there all along.
The real me is louder than gingham, looks sad and bland in ecru, and is anything but neutral. The real me is spangled Elton John sunglasses, pearls on a Wednesday, patent leather, and metallic velvet. I haven’t seen this in any Instagram capsule wardrobes, so I’m now making it my business to broaden the idea of what’s “appropriate” for a 40-something working mom to wear.
Through exploring my personal style over the last 4 years, I achieved more than just finding better clothes to wear. I reclaimed lost parts of myself that had been ignored for 10, 20, even 30 years. Redesigning my wardrobe was a way to make room for all of myself back into my life.
Today, I love showing up to a meeting in a ruffled floral blouse and vest, taking my kid to the library in giant daisy-print pants, or attending a work onsite in a pleated metallic skirt, even if it’s not the norm. I no longer look outside myself to find inspiration and permission, because I know it was never there to begin with – it was always inside me.
Gillian Jakob Kieser is a brand director, writer, and fierce advocate for the transformational power of personal style.
She now works 1-1 as a stylist with women and men who are ready to show up more brightly as themselves. Find her on IG having fun breaking “grownup” style rules as @beautiful_possibility.
The best! So inspired by both of you!