Scenario: You stay up too late doing something totally unnecessary and now it’s 15 minutes before you have to leave for photo shoot day for your very trendy sister’s fashion blog. Your main role is photographer, but you’d like just a couple cute snaps of yourself while you’re in perfect lighting with someone else to hold the camera and make you feel like a model, you know? You told yourself you’d wake up early to style your hair and lay out your outfits the night before, knowing that this is literally never the case. Now your hair is gonna look like… well, the way that it looks. You’re slapping make-up on while you drive. There are things in life you can fake, but there’s one question you can’t ignore: but what will you wear?!

I find myself in versions of this scenario on a constant basis. I never leave myself enough time! While I’ve learned to embrace my messy hair and draw on eyebrows at streetlights, outfit choices aren’t so easy.

This is why it is absolutely essential to have your own style panel!

By this, I mean that I will take the time to emulate certain people’s styles so that, when the time comes, I don’t have to plan ahead. Sometimes, these panelists are fictional. I went through a nice long Blair Waldorf stage. Most of the time though, they’re real people.

When I notice a friend with a really great signature style, I can’t help but think of that while I’m shopping. Would Brittany wear this dress? This makes throwing things together so much easier! Why? Because I can leave myself out of it! Because I can picture her look, I can ask myself, what shoes would Brittany wear with this? Or, even better, I can ask Brittany what she’d wear with it or stalk her insta!

Back to my original scenario, what was I to do for my outfit changes? I grabbed a sweater that I knew Brittany would wear (because it was hers and she wanted it back…), a dress that I know I can rely on, and a top that I bought from Francesca’s specifically because I had seen Heather, another style panelist around here, wearing something similar and I loooove her style! And because I was already picturing her boho, classic style, it was easy to picture what she might wear with it. I immediately had a flashback to the first time I met Heather, when my dad saw her wearing a cute crystal necklace… and thought she was a witch. I was thinking of that moment when I bought my crystal necklace from Charming Charlie.

Anyway, the “Heather Witch” aesthetic made me feel put together with almost no effort. Gotta love having cute friends to do the work for you and sisters to make your accidental red-light bronzer overload look like the glow of a queen!

 xx, Tab

PS- Tabitha submitted this post to me but I wanted to point out that she is awesome and you should check out her blog Tab in Transit, and her bookstagram @tabithatypes!

Okay bye! – Brittany