Second Chance: Confidence

Amidst the excitement and chaos during my 30 for 30 remix, I neglected to mention my two year bloggiversary, which passed toward the end of January! Hooray! Since my blog is a diary of sorts, I enjoy periodically reading through my archives to reminisce. Both my lifestyle and sartorial tastes have changed a lot since the early days of my blog, and I’ll admit that sometimes when I look at some of the outfits or old photos from my archives, I cringe a little. There are some outfits that I simply do not care for. There are others that I don’t think are all bad, but I see ways I could improve upon them by swapping out an unflattering garment or accessorizing differently, for example.

In the spirit of reflection and self-improvement, I thought it was a great time to debut a new recurring feature on my blog called Second Chance. I’m going to start sharing re-dos of certain outfits from my archives. Some might be small tweaks, while others might be larger changes (since the contents of my closet are constantly cycling, I may not even have some of the same pieces anymore). This feature isn’t going to be all about nitpicking my old outfits, but rather about highlighting how my style has evolved or improved over the past two plus years, and also how my outlook on blogging has changed over time.

For the start of my Second Chance series I’ve redone this outfit, which was one of the very first outfit photos I shared, over two years ago. Besides the obvious clothing swaps which you can see below (baggy work pants for skinnies and sneakers for wedges), I wanted to talk about the most significant improvement which has taken place in the two years between when these photos were taken – my confidence.

As a fledgeling style blogger, I think my feelings of awkwardness are written all over my face in the photo on the left. It’s only a slight exaggeration when I say that I lived in fear that someone I knew in real life would stumble across my blog. Taking pictures of my outfits and sharing them on the internet felt so…weird…vain even. I just didn’t think anyone I knew in real life would “get” it. This is something that I know many other style bloggers struggle with as well.

When I eventually told my family about my blog, it grew into a great channel for them to keep in touch with me, despite the geographic distance between us. Last year, I even branched out and started a second blog to get a little more personal about my family life and my day-to-day as a new mom. While I don’t actively promote my blogs to my real life friends and acquaintances via Facebook, I took the leap with adding the link to my profile just a few months ago (baby steps, people!). It has taken me a long time to shake the “embarrassed” feeling about my blogging hobby (though those feelings still surface from time to time), and to embrace it as an important way for me to express myself. As a life-long introvert, it is a big deal that I have come out of my shell this much and put myself out there in such a big way.

Also, I am considering turning this “Second Chance” feature into a weekly or monthly link up, so others can share their own re-dos of old  outfits. If you’d be interested in participating, let me know, and I’ll try to make it happen!

Cardigan – NYC boutique
Shirt – TJ Maxx
Pants – random mall store
Shoes – Payless
Flower Pin – Sunshine & Carousels via Etsy
Bracelet – flea market
Nails – Essie, Bikini So Teeny

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