Signature Style Systems ~ Certified Personal Stylist, Image & Color Consultant, True Colour Expert

Common body shape sorting names a woman an hourglass, pear, apple, or rectangle. Art composition gives a different set of options, and this week we look at the trapezoid that sits just below your waist.
Knowing your body shape is the most effective way to choose the right pants or skirt shape and where your top or jacket should end.
Garment names vary with fabric and cut. With my body shape, a barrel-leg jean looks like a tapered pant, and on someone else it carries a lot more volume. The line your shape makes is what stays reliable.
You will leave with a simple test (leggings and a mirror, or a straight edge alongside your hip) and two clear answers to take into your closet.
I also built something new: a free quiz to find your season, based on your energy.
Let's connect!
If you've already discovered parts of your Style DNA and you're not sure what's still missing, the free 30-minute Style System Synthesis call is where we look at what you already know about yourself and figure out what you still need.
To suggest a podcast topic, send email to hello@signaturestylesystems.com.
Want to learn more about how to discover your Style DNA? Get started with The Congruence Code.
 

A woman I know loves her black top and said she'll probably buy it in every color.
I suggested she get another black one.
Most people think generational theory is about generations clashing, but it can also help us dress to be understood in our cultural context.
This one looks at how each generation gets read, from Boomers to Zoomers, and what style can do about it. Then it follows a wardrobe from experiment to the pieces you keep.
If you've looked for yourself in one style system after another, you may find a new angle here.
Let's connect!
If you've already discovered parts of your Style DNA and you're not sure what's still missing, the free 30-minute Style System Synthesis call is where we look at what you already know about yourself and figure out what you still need.
To suggest a podcast topic, send email to hello@signaturestylesystems.com.
Want to learn more about how to discover your Style DNA? Get started with The Congruence Code.

In the late 1970s, a teenager's camouflage pants read as practical to him and as rebellion to his mother.
Same pants, two readings. Each reading came from the years the viewer grew up in.
Most people think the history of fashion is about trends, but it's each generation defining itself against the last. Now dressing nicely feels rebellious.
This one follows that thread from 1960s army surplus to a hoodie on a Wall Street roadshow, and on to what you may be noticing in the room around you today.
If you've ever felt a small tug of pressure over what you put on in the morning, you may recognize something here.
Let's connect!
Get the free Guide to Seasonal Energy & Personality Colors.
If you've already discovered part of your Style DNA and you're not sure what's still missing, the free 30-minute Style System Synthesis call is where we look at what you already know about yourself and figure out what you still need.
To suggest a podcast topic, send email to hello@signaturestylesystems.com.
Want to learn more about how to discover your Style DNA? Get started with The Congruence Code.
The Aesthetic Mirror & Palette Party is an online group experience where each participant brings an image she loves, such as a photo, a piece of art, or a design, but nothing of herself. The group says what they see in it, and I guide everyone in connecting the themes into a clearer sense of her personal style. It includes a Seasonal Energy Palette, and it's $97 per person. Email hello@signaturestylesystems.com to book.

What do you wonder about before you walk out the door?
That wondering could belong to your Eternal Child, the third function in your Myers-Briggs type. It sits on the axis of relating to others and looks to other people for validation, and everyone feels uncertain there.
Knowing who you are is the most effective way to learn how to dress when your Eternal Child cognitive function wants approval.
A garbage-eating goat sculpture in downtown Spokane is part of how I got there.
One way the wondering can sound for each third function:
Se (ENTJ, ENFJ): Will this make an impact?Si (INFP, INTP): Is this too far outside normal?Ne (ESTJ, ESFJ): Am I dressed for every possibility?Ni (ISFP, ISTP): What are they making of me?Fe (ENTP, ESTP): Will this fit the group vibe?Fi (INTJ, ISTJ): Will this look like a costume?Te (ENFP, ESFP): Does this read as in charge?Ti (INFJ, ISFJ): Will this show I know what I'm doing?
Each line is one possibility, since no single statement covers the whole range. 
Bring your own wondering to a free Style System Synthesis call.

In the fall, I'm okay dressing like a tree.
Color theory says swatches that harmonize on a wheel will harmonize in an outfit. What feels right on you shifts with the season, the light, and your own energy on any given day, and that opens up a more spacious way to build your fall outfit colors.
This episode explores the five basic color harmonies, evocative harmony (the kind that can read as a costume), and what a connection worldview has to do with getting dressed.
Making peace with uncertainty is the most effective way to overcome overthinking and have fun with your outfit colors this fall.
 
Let's connect!
Get the free Guide to Seasonal Energy & Personality Colors.
If you've already discovered part of your Style DNA and you're not sure what's still missing, the free 30-minute Style System Synthesis call is where we look at what you already know about yourself and figure out what you still need.
To suggest a podcast topic, send email to hello@signaturestylesystems.com.
Want to learn more about how to discover your Style DNA? Get started with The Congruence Code.

Most people think if they just learn their colors, that solves it.
 
I'm pale enough that people called me Casper growing up.
 
That did not stop me from once picking my shoe color to match my eyes instead of my skin. It went about how you'd expect.
 
Really nice people could not keep their eyes from drifting to my feet first!
 
Most people think style is a talent, but actually it's an artistic medium like piano or architecture, and value contrast is a primary tool. In other words, you can learn it!
 
This week's episode breaks down the one rule most color advice skips: where the eye actually lands first, and how to direct it using nothing but light and dark.
 
Let's connect!
If you've discovered part of your Style DNA and you're not sure what's still missing, the free 30-minute Style System Synthesis call is where we look at what you already know about yourself and figure out the rest.
To suggest a podcast topic, send email to hello@signaturestylesystems.com.
Want to learn more about how to discover your Style DNA? Get started with The Congruence Code.

In 1937, a researcher named Agnes Young spent years analyzing more than a century of women's fashion and found something the industry has mostly ignored ever since: silhouette doesn't change randomly.
 
It rotates through the same three shapes in sequence, decade after decade. Bell. Column. Bustle. Predictable enough that once you know where you are in the cycle, you stop chasing trends and start navigating them.
 
This episode maps the cycle, places us in it right now, and shows you how your body's design determines which phases work naturally for you and which ones you can strategically minimize.
 
Understanding the silhouette cycle gives you the map of the fashion trend territory; your body's design gives you the "you are here" dot.
 
Let's connect!
If you've already discovered part of your Style DNA and you're not sure what's still missing, the free 30-minute Style System Synthesis call is where we look at what you already know about yourself and figure out what you still need.
To suggest a podcast topic, send email to hello@signaturestylesystems.com.
Want to learn more about how to discover your Style DNA? Get started with The Congruence Code.

Every fall, trend reports start circulating. What to buy. What to throw out.
This episode covers the fall 2026 trends that actually matter for your shopping, and how to tell which ones are worth buying for keeps.
The shift away from black everything, in three directions: brown, cream and ecru edging out black in neutral-and-color combinations, and the return of color: blues, burgundies, purple, even chartreuse.
Waist emphasis through peplum, belts, and fitted or cropped outerwear, with notes on which silhouettes each one serves.
Trends in denim, shoes, and jewelry.
Then the part that outlasts the list. How much you notice trends is largely a function of how much attention you pay to visual things and how much you're around what everyone else is wearing. How can you adopt a strategy that works for you specifically?
Knowing which fall 2026 fashion trends are actually yours is the fastest way to stop shopping every season and start buying for keeps.
If you've discovered part of your Style DNA and you're not sure what's still missing, the free 30-minute Style System Synthesis call is where we look at what you already know about yourself and figure out the rest.
Let's connect!
To suggest a podcast topic, send email to hello@signaturestylesystems.com.
Want to learn more about how to discover your Style DNA? Get started with The Congruence Code.

Color analysis has been compressed into one procedure: fabric under your chin and then a verdict, a season.
Women get draped more than once, by different analysts, and come away with different seasons. That isn't because draping is invalid or these professionals don't know what they're doing. It's what happens when one test has to carry the whole answer.
A palette that works is a harmony between two things: the color already in your hair, skin, and eyes, and the colors that represent who you are on the inside. Draping reads the first one. 
This week I'm giving you three techniques you can run for next to nothing, starting with the one that’s right at your fingertips.
Building your personal color palette from your own coloring and the images you love is the most reliable way to wear color without second-guessing it.
Let's connect!
Have you found yourself in other style systems, but shopping and getting dressed still isn’t easy? Schedule a Style System Synthesis call!
To suggest a podcast topic, send email to hello@signaturestylesystems.com.
Want to learn more about how to discover your Style DNA? Get started with The Congruence Code.

Here's a pattern you might recognize: you see a problem clearly, you know you can help, you have something to contribute. You offer it and it doesn't land.
Did they even hear you?
Your personality type has been shaping your style instincts your whole life. But those same instincts are pointing at something bigger than your closet.
There's a Japanese concept called ikigai: the reason you get up in the morning. Its four questions are what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. The hardest question to answer from the inside is "what does the world need?" It feels too vast, too external to grab onto.
Your personality type answers it. What you notice as broken in the world is not random. It's filtered through your type. Your fixation is the wound you keep seeing. Your superpower is the response to it.
Knowing how to dress for congruent visibility is the most direct path to being found by the people whose problems you were made to solve.
This episode connects your type, your closet, and that intersection. Because the world's problems need everyone who was made to help solve them to be visible and findable.
Let's connect!
Have you found yourself in other style systems, but shopping and getting dressed still isn’t easy? Schedule a Style System Synthesis call!
To suggest a podcast topic, send email to hello@signaturestylesystems.com.
Want to learn more about how to discover your Style DNA? Get started with The Congruence Code.