_What does style have to do with spirituality?

I believe that one of the main goals of any spiritual path should be getting to truly know ourselves, acknowledging and accepting every part of us, trying to transform in a positive way the ones we don' t like in order to be whole - as my wise teacher and friend Phyllis Curott says, "to be whole is to be holy".

Style is one of the many instruments we have to both explore and show our personality: for instance, I' m sure each one of you has definitely noticed how hard it can be to decide what to wear in a bad morning rather than when you wake up in a great mood. How and how much you buy for your style can also tell you a lot about yourself: lots of my customers spend way over their budget for beauty products because they tend to focus on the outside rather than on the inside, and lots of them tend to choose famous brands over the others, even if they don' t know much about the quality, just because they feel that choosing luxury for their bodies means they' re worth more as people.

Personally speaking, by observing my habits I realized that in the past I used to compulsively buy clothes, accessories and make up, always obsessed with the "I don' t have anything to wear" issue: looking back I see that there was just a lot of empty space within me that I didn' t know how to fill, so I tried to fill it with objects for a long time. Needless to say it didn' t work, and what happened is that after I filled that empty space in the right ways I found out I had too much stuff, so I started decluttering until I ended up with a reasonable amount of things, both for clothing and make up - I still own a ridicoulous amount of make up and beauty products, but since I work as a make up artist and I' m a beauty blogger that makes sense.

Finding your style without spending a huge amount of money an without desperately cluttering your home can be easy as pie: you just have to work with what you have, looking at your clothes with some effort to find the perfect match for every day and the way you feel that morning. It' s the same as whenever you feel stuck somewhere in your life and you really need to work with what you are to find a new perspective to get through your problems. I recently got inspired by the Uniform Project, by Project 333 and by this post: I have no intention whatsoever of wearing just one - or thirtythree - piece of clothing for a whole year, nor I could live for an entire year just wearing skirts because I suffer too much for the cold temperatures here in the north of Italy (scandinavian friends, I' m sure you' re laughing at me, but I come from a place when in winter we reach 8 degrees at the worst so the -15 we reach where I currently live is like death for me), but I decided to start my own project.

Starting tomorrow I will try to look for a different combination of clothes everyday in order to create a different outfit for each day of the year, just with the things I have. I hope to give more meaning to my style putting some more thoughts in my outfits everyday, getting dressed can easily become a simple activity to integrate the divine in your everyday life, for example if you are working with a specific goddess or element you can choose clothes that resonate with that energy, or you can pick the colors for the day thinking about the kind of energy that you need to get through it. Another goal of this project is to get inspired to play with clothes, make up and accessories to create always different looks without getting lazy and wearing always the same makeup or jewelry, I find that being creative with your style helps to keep focused on creativity at a deeper level and to feel generally more satisfied with yourself: this is a reason why it is always damn important to get dressed from top to shoes even if you' re spending the day at home, it makes you feel way better than wearing your pijamas all day long! I also wish with this project to lower my footprint on the planet and to save a lot of money not buying any clothing or accessory whatsoever for a whole year: I will allow myself to buy only a pair of warm boots for the winter because I really need them, and that should be all. New items will be allowed in my wardrobe only if they' re coming from swap parties or if they' re homemade.

I' m going to regularly write posts about the outfits, with pictures and a short explanation of why I picked them for the day and with information on where the clothes I chose come from. I chose the name of the project opposing a certain idea of fashion that forces you to buy and own some status symbol to belong to something: I would spend a lot of money on a dress made with love and attention that suits me very well, I would spend it on a special bag that' s a unique piece made with fantasy and that looks like an art work, but I' d never, ever spend a lot of money for - let' s say - a Louis Vuitton bag that' s made in series and that I see running around on their owners' arms in hundreds of identical copies everyday. Therefore, if this is fashion, this is not a fashion post and neither will be the following picturing the outfits.

What about you? Have you ever thought  bit more about your style and how to use it to let your personality shine or to help you live brighter days?