A platform about personal style and embrace our own uniqueness. Fashion and style, every day of your life, without overspending. Financial tips to be a conscious consumer and adopt mindfulness on our shopping habits and our lifestyle.
Every situation, every event, everything in Life, in the Universe, has a positive side and a negative one.
This pandemic came to disrupt many things, including weddings. One of my best friends had a big wedding planned in Portugal, big guest list, food and entertainment, the works.
A virus showed up and everything we took for granted, was taken from us.
The wedding was postponed.
Then location was changed from Portugal to the UK.
Guest list revised.
Ceremony postponed again.
Finaly after many changes and delays, they were able to celebrate their love and life together and they were able to consumate their ceremony.
After the legal ceremony and during the small gathering and celebration (following social distancing rules in place at the time), many people expressed that actually they enjoyed themselves very much. That it was a more personal experience, closer, genuine and much more relaxed.
The grooms also expressed the same in their toasts, that even after so many changes and delays they really appreciated the party and their guests.
So one of the positive things that came out of this pandemic was the downgrade of massive wedding events.
A wedding originally is the celebration of a couples love and a gathering of family and friends. Why were we so far away from this, with hen parties abroad, dress changes, fireworks, white horses, etc, etc? Where did we care more about the colour of the cake, the flowers, the lettering on the invites, than actually making sure everyone is having fun?
I think the pandemic forced us to come back to the basics in many situations and weddings were definitely one of these situations.
Following the “back to basics” line of thought, I googled alternative wedding “dresses”. Simple, polished, relaxed pieces of clothing that females can consider, instead of falling for the long white expensive dress trap. Here are some suggestions.
Today I wanted to share with you a jewelry designer from my home country, Portugal. Her name is Carolina Curado and she does amazing pieces, as you can see on her website https://www.carolinacurado.com/.
I got introduced to her work through my sister, that ask me to chose a piece from Carolina as birthday present, a couple of years ago. But since then, I have purchased some pieces myself. I took some photos of the pieces I own, I hope you enjoy.
Much love, my name is Franca and this is personal!
Perfection can be detrimental for us. For years I didn’t do things, I didn’t adventure myself into new projects because I knew I wouldn’t be able to produce something perfect the 1st time around. This was so, so stupid of me.
Anything in life, we only reach perfection with pratice, pratice and more practie. The 1st time trying anything is not going to be good, but may be the starting point for something great. I just needed to allow myself time and allow myself the errors I would be making. Errors are just learning experiences.
Why was I like this? There are several factors to take in consideration, being a big one that I was not raised in an environment where it was Ok to fail. But I also spent many of my adult years putting myself down and I have to take responsibility for my poor decisions.
I am working hard to accept my errors, it will always be a work in progress. Yet one of the things always refused was any social platform that tried to “sell me” perfection. The perfect blogger posts, I roll my eyes. The influencers “selling their perfect relationships, houses, babies, dogs”, I say NO Thank You!
I don’t seek perfection, I seek honesty, in me and in others. I want authenticity, I want to see real people, real experiences. Even in a Picasso paiting, I know some strokes weren’t supposed to have that angle and that was Ok for Pablo.
We need to be gentle with ourselves, allow ourselves time and care, allow errors and I am sure if we do all this, we will definitely be more adventurous with our lives and with our styles.
Tell me the truth, when you browse through the internet and you’re looking for style inspo, aspirational lifestyle etc, how many times do you actually think “I could wear that”?
This rarely happens to me, that is why I follow only a few blogs about style & fashion. Majority of things online are so OTT for me. I tend to follow very specific people, I feel that they are authentic and real about their styles and lifestyle.
Majority of fashion influencers seem to have an OTT style, because they believe this is the only way they have to catch attention throughout this ocean of influencers, that they need to stand out, always and constantly.
Many of us simply can’t wear those clothes because we have a “serious” job and our boss would freak out if we showed up with rainbow hair for that huge presentation.
Or we have a job that requires direct contact with customers and so we have to reflect the brand/business brand, before our own style.
Yet we waste hours of our life watching these influencers, many times buying the things they advertise and then we don’t use it. We don’t wear it because we are scared of calling attention to ourselves, because we are waiting for a special occasion, because we want to lose some weight before putting it on. And so, we carry on lying to ourselves.
I don’t believe we have to be OTT 100% of the time. I think sometimes in life it is good to stand out and show your “true colours”, but many others it is good just to relax, stay back.
If you are looking for your own style, first of all you need to know yourself, otherwise you’ll end up being a bad copy of someone else.
Secondly, you don’t have to be OTT, you need to be you! I don’t believe in extreme changes. Example, if you feel you wear a lot of baggy clothes and you would like to wear something more fitting, don’t go and buy a bodycon dress. No! If you wear it and you’re not used to it, you’ll feel so uncomfortable and self-aware, you won’t wear it a 2nd time and that is money wasted.
You need to ease into more shaping clothes slowly, initially buy a smaller top. Try different colours and then with time you can buy something smaller and smaller and one day without you even noticing you’re wearing the type of clothing you always wanted.
I believe we have to be honest and realistic with ourselves “Can I wear that piece of clothing? Will it suit my body? Is it appropriate for work or can I only wear it on weekends? Will that colour work with my skin colour?”
Wearing stuff because it is a trend on Tiktok, that then makes us super self-aware and self conscious, it will take away the joy from us and the experience we’re having. All we’ll think is that we want to go home and change clothes asap.
Everyone is brave in their own way, you just need to find out how far you can go (at a time) and still feel good with yourself. I share with you my truth.
As I browse social media as I browse real life, I continuously ask myself, where are these people?
Where are the people that spend 2 hours doing make-up, that then compress it in a 7 min tutorial?
Where are the people with colourful and vast wardrobes? Because all I see around me is monochromatic clothes?
Where are the people with great shoe collections? All I see is people in tennis shoes or flats, white or black.
As I immerse myself more and more into the web, like Alice in Worderland down the rabbit hole, I come to the conclusion that the majority of people online are living a double life.
Online they are cheerful and happy, with Barbie face make-up, with amazing shoes & bags, all shapes and sizes. With a rainbow wardrobe.
IRL things are way more bleak, with people wanting to blend in and not stand out at all, full of fear of other people’s judgement.
I wonder what is the real version of those people, the one we see online, or the one we see IRL? Are people actually “living” online hiding their personal styles from friends and family? Are they living their best life in the hallway where they record their tiktoks? Are they spending $$$$ on expensive dresses, to wear it in their living rooms for 10 mins and then spend their days in tracksuit bottoms?
From my point of view, my real self is the one I live IRL interacting with friends, work colleagues, etc. I spend a small amount of time on social media and what I show is what you see if you were to meet me. If you see a photo or a reel, I do actually wear those clothes. I actually wear the crazy shoes and bags!
Ater years of self-improvement work I’ve decided I am not dimming my light anymore and I refuse to hide my personality, creativity and style. I am real IRL and what you’ll see in my social media feed is an authentic version of myself. I am the real me!
I hope one day everyone feels secure, safe and loved so they can express their authentic self too.
June is the month of Gay Pride, a month dedictated to celebrate queer people, accept and embrace them and above all celebrate diversity.
Unfortunately this year most Pride celebrations have either been cancelled or postponed due to Covid-19. Hopefully next year, we will return to our celebrations. In the meantime I would like to ask everyone to support the queer community. This means, to provide the same equal access opportunities to jobs, education, medical treatments.
But I especially would like to ask for the support from the white gay men. If anyone thinks of queer people, media will portray a couple of white gay men hugging or kissing. Yet, the queer community is so diverse and has so many facets, that cannot be fully represented by this standard picture.
Since this prototype couple is more and more accepted in society I would like to ask for their support to the rest of the queer community. To open their arms to lesbians, trans people, to people of colour, etc. To stop using comments on dating profiles like “no asians” as this is not an preference, this is racism. To stop giving the evil eye to (cis) women on gay bars.
I myself, have been in queer “safe spaces” and was made feel uncomfortable because I was not a man, or not visibly “gay enough”.
I myself, have heard from gay and hetero friends “what’s up with all these names people are coming up with pan-sexuals, cis people, trans, fluid, isn’t there enough designations already? Why can’t they just pick one ?”.
Well, the simple answer for this is that humans have many different shapes and sizes, have different hormonal systems, have different lifes experiences, feel differently, are attracted to different kinds of people. For some their sexuality is something stagnant, for many is an ever evolving process. Just because you feel that you’ve arrived to your place, where you feel good and comfortable, it doesn’t mean that everyone has the exact same life experience like you. The fact that some people have to explore more than you, that need to get to know themselves better, doesn’t affect you in any way.
Never forget, the queer liberation movement started with trans women of colour. So no, not all gay queer people are white gay men.
White gay men, just because you’re accepted in society, don’t close the gate to the ones behind you.
Everyone, support the queer community, not just by putting a rainbow sticker on your desk at work. Put your support into action, buy from queer owned businesses. Instead of having another coffee at Starbucks, donate £1 to queer charities and if you financially can, don’t do it just once. Do it accross the year, don’t you think that £1 donation per month is feasible ? I can assure you it will mean a lot to the queer community that needs so much support.
Hope you are doing good, thank you for coming back.
I am very lucky to work in a company that acknowledges my skills, knowledge and efforts, and compensates me fairly. I have worked really hard all my life and I tried to navigate my career so that I could find a place where I liked going to work in the morning. After all, it’s the place we spend 8h per day, or even more.
I want people to understand that a good work place doesn’t simply show up in your life. You have to look for it, attempt various places, work with different people so you know what you like, what you don’t like. What business dynamic you thrive and feel good, and the ones that deflate and demotivate you.
And once you find a great company, you have to invest a lot of energy doing your work, keeping good relationships with your colleagues, superiors, etc. All relationships work both ways, if you want to be treated well, you will need to treat others well too.
I went into the interview for this job with the mindset of “I am the best person for this position and this is why. I am going to excel on these tasks. I will persevere to learn new things, so I can succeed in all other areas” and since then, every day I show up for work, I live by my own words.
Reciprocally the business has acknowledged my efforts and has promoted me, has raised my wages and has provided me with annual bonuses. This year was no exception.
My pay rise was above 10% and I see it as an opportunity to increase my savings. The most important thing when someone gets a pay rise , it is to maintain their expenditure and allocate the “extra money” to savings.
What happens is that many times people are so excited for getting a pay rise, that they automatically go find a way of spending this pay rise money. This is negative because once you have new expenses (you have a new gadget, or you start buying new services like for example doing your nails) it is very hard to revert back.
If you keep your expenses the same, you can allocate your pay rise/extra money to savings, make plans, etc. The only exception I would do in regards to your pay rise money is:
Increase your pension contributions
Buy medical insurance
Invest in education.
In regards to the bonus, as per usual I allocated majority to savings. Please see below how I allocated the lump sum:
82% – Savings, either long term savings, or short term savings.
18% – I spent on gifts for myself.
I decided I deserved some sort of gratification for all my hard work in these past 2 years in the company and I’ve decided to buy something I had wanted to buy for so many years now, which were some Gucci shoes. I also decided I wanted to invest in better fashion jewelry to replace old, cheap pieces I had.
The Gucci shoes I wanted were the famous Marmont Gucci loafers. I adventured in a new selling platform and found 2 pairs my size. As many of you know, these loafers the most simple model cost around £500/£600 a pair. I used a 2nd hand platform called Vestiaire Collective to buy the shoes. I bought 2 pairs and in total I spent £493. Both shoes came in original packaging and refurbished, they both come with brand new anti-slip soles. I am super happy with my purchase, 2 pairs for less that the price of one single new pair. Great!
The jewelry I decided to invest was from Calvin Klein. My sister gave me a silver ring as a birthday gift, I have this ring for more than 10 years. I still wear it a lot. I find that CK does very nice neutral, polished, sofisticated jewelry that endures very well the test of time. I found they were on sale on TK Maxx, so I ended up buying rings, bracelets, earrings, etc. Items that usualy cost £100, I found them for £12. The most expensive piece was the bangle that cost me £16.
The last item I purchased was a Missoni scarf, that I also found in TK Maxx for £40. They usually retail for £260, so I also thought it was a great find.
Fashion is great and it can boost your mood and self-esteem, but it shouldn’ come at the expense of your financial independence and future. Be smart with your money.
Hope you are enjoying these warmer days of Spring.
I wanted to share my thoughts with you about period underwear. I want to tell you that I like it as a supplement to other methods. I’ll explain.
Roughly about 2 years ago, I decide to start using a menstrual cup and since I was on an experimental vibe, I decided to also try period underwear.
I have trialled them separately and together, and I found that what works best for me best is, wearing them both.
Menstural cup was life changing for me, for the following reasons:
You save a lot of time with your personal higyiene, since you can wear it up to 12 hours.
You save a lot of money in other menstrual products.
It is super easy to clean and maintain.
You save the environment, since you will stop sending thousands of used menstrual products to landfills.
I have also tried menstrual underwear by itself, I found that I felt a bit discomfortable. Since my 2nd period that I always used tampons, and even though the underwear does absorb your menstrual blood, after a while I felt the underwear getting wet. I didn’t like that feeling.
Why the combination of the two, is the best option for me?
As some of you may know, I do WT Taekwondo for the last 11/12 years. It is a high impact sport where I use my legs a lot, there is a lot of leg elevation for kicks and body rotation. When I am doing Taekwondo I need to wear good quality, nicely fit underwear so I can perform well. With all the rotation, sudden movements, etc, it would be normal to have a bit of leakage when you are on your period.
In rare occasions I have experienced leakage using the menstrual cup, since my body is moving and so it will the cup inside of me. Since I had already purchased period underwear and they were nice and tight, I use them as complement to the menstrual cup. So even if there is leakage, I know for sure the period underwear will absorb it and not let it spill over my white martial arts suit.
Why I chose to talk about period underwear and menstrual cups in a style blog?
Because personal style is feeling good in your body, feeling comfortable, feeling clean, fresh, active. Anyone who menstruates knows how hard it is sometimes to feel good, during your cycle. Lets’ destroy the taboo and embrace our natural bodies cycles. We can be on our periods and wear white pants!
On the recent series of sharing with you people that inspire me, I decided to share a blog with you, named The Sartorialist. The name of the creator of this blog is Scott Schuman.
I have written about this before, but since lockdown is slowly coming to an end and people are slowly going back to their offices, I’ve decide to share my thoughts again about having a work uniform.
When I refer to a work uniform, I am not referring to a mandatory work uniform as if you work in retail or in a warehouse. I am referring to people who choose to wear the same type of clothes to work everyday, for your reference think Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs.
The main reason why people do this is mainly to save previous brain energy to make more important decisions throughout the day. You have a certain amount of “brain energy” to make decisions, you need to be smart on how you spend it.
On todays post I want to show that, if you “wear a uniform”:
you don’t have to be boring and only wear black/dark colours.
you can wear different types of flat shoes, not just tennis.
you can wear denim to work.
you can save money, since you know exaclty the pieces you need to rotate throughout the week.
When I left University and was looking for a job, I was petrified that that meant I had to stop being me, and conform to the blob of “grey people working in offices” type of person. With time, with help of my sister and new friends I’ve made, I quickly catched up and discovered that I could still look professional and mature but keep my identity.
For this blog post I wore:
2 blazers, both bought on sale.
3 pairs of trousers. The violet jeans and the floral pants, bought on sale. The black pair, I can’ remember when/where I bought them, I have them for many years now.
3 pair of different shoes. Tennis shoes, bought 2nd hand on Ebay. The black heels were bought on sale, and the Melissas shoes I have them for more than 10 years. I’ve asked my friend to buy some pairs in Brazil, when he went to visit family.
Another objective about uniforms is to be super confortable, hence me wearing jeans or wearing different type of flat shoes.
People of the world, hear me out! You dont’ have to wear all black, you don’t have to wear black boring ballerinas or tennis shoes, every day of your lives either.
If your job allows you to wear denim, go for it. Personally, I draw the line with ripped jeans. Keep ripped jeans for your personal life and social events. For work if you have casual fridays for example, you can go for denim.
For confortable shoes, increase your scope. You can wear confortable shoes, without having to be black brogues or tennis shoes. Your shoes will have a huge impact on your look, you can elevate a look if you wear heels. As you can see on my photos I chose block heels as they give me more support.
If you wear the same clothes, but you wear tennis shoes, it will make you look younger (which for women sometimes it is not beneficial in the work place). The cool option in between is some nice ballerina flats or even kitten heels. Still low heel shoes, but elevates the look.
I would suggest you start with a simple base, ideally with no print or pattern. Easier option is white/beige, but you can try any other colours. I want to suggest people to keep it light at the top, as it will bring attention to your face, it will make you look younger, it will make you look modern and refreshed.
For trousers, and if you feel confortable, try different colours or even different patterns. If you find a model you like, I would suggest you buy 3 pairs all in different colours or patterns, so you can rotate them.
If you also keep your trouses game quiet, then you can risk it on the blazers. Again, avoid black. Think what colours you like or that match your skin colour. I have replaced my blazers last year and I bought 3 in one go. I have a red one, a navy blue and a beige. These are colours I like and since the blazers have no pattern they won’t overpower the looks. If you are more sassy, adventure yourself in choosing blazers with patterns. Currently I only have a fourth one, a leopard print blazer that was a hand-me-down I got 7 years ago.
And eventually when you start feeling more confident, you can add more creativity or glam to your look, by adding a nice scarf, a necklace, some earrings.
There are 2 additions I would suggest which are:
buy a couple of jumpers for winter,
buy a nice pair of neutral boots, that won’t clash with any of the looks so you can wear them everyday, for rainy days.
If you have this amount of pieces of clothing in your closet:
2/3 blazers,
2/3 shirts,
2/3 pairs of trousers,
2/3 jumpers,
1 pair of boots,
1 pair of heels,
1 pair of ballerinas
and 1 pair of tennis shoes,
You will save money, since you know exactly the piecs of clothing uyou have and need for work.
You will save time in the morning getting ready. After a few days, getting dressed will be an automated task you will be able to accomplish in minutes.
You will look professional with no effort.
You will be confortable throughout your day.
I hope you like my suggestions. My name is Franca and this is personal!
Franca Personal Style Consultancy 