Wear It Well: Reclaim Your Closet and Rediscover the Joy of Getting Dressed

How to Express your Authentic Self
This is a well-written fashion book about how to define your most authentic self by weeding out theclothing in your closet that Is no longer life-enhancing and is, in fact, wearing you down for onereason or another. From this editing comes insight and clarity about your personal style, the wayyou want to express it -and how it will ultimately bleed into other parts of your life and createan atmosphere of creative joyfulness that will make getting dressed everyday a true part of thisjoyfulness. There are exercises to help analyze your personal truth – it is worth reading.

Great for helping define your style
I really liked this book! If you care about fashion and style, but feel a bit lost about how to capture how you want to dress or make sense of the desperate style elements you currently have, you’ll like this book. I have a closet full of clothes from the last 15+ years that included graduate school, a new career path, and a very recent transition to motherhood, so I felt lost on how to connect to the clothes I have and how I want to present myself now. Bornstein’s Three Word system (finding 3 words that describe your style based on what you like to wear, what you aspire to, and how you want to feel) is clever and fresh and really helped me to identify my new personal style. I really appreciated her emphasis on drawing on what’s already in your closet, so it’s not all about shopping and buying more. She does cover her “9 essential pieces,” but you probably already have most of these. Each essential includes helpful tips for styling and thinking about how to make the different pieces fit your look better (ex: a thick, boxy white T reads sportier than a thin white T, which reads more vintage).While I definitely recommend this book, there are just a few critiques I had:1. The self-help tone can be a bit much in places. I get that addressing pent-up issues surrounding style & looks is important for refreshing your attitude towards self-presentation, but you’ll probably need more than a visualization exercise to rid yourself of self-criticism around weight or deserving to feel good, etc. It’s not unhelpful, but I would have personally liked more practical advise on styling, outfit ideas, etc.2. As some others have noted, the photographs in the book are a bit repetitive and uninspiring. The outfits shown all closely echo one another, so by the end it sort of feels like you’ve been in a long Gap ad from the 90’s. She describes some really interesting 3 word combinations, it would have been great to see some of these combinations represented to see how these looks manifest.3. Organization and layout of the book is overall great and flows well. However, some “chapters” are 1 paragraph and 2 pictures, so it was a little confusing in places feeling like there should have been more to the point/chapter.

Incredibly informative.
I read this book in one sitting because I found it so informative. The book is well written and engaging. I would recommend to any fashion lover who wants to hone in on their personal style.

Great advice & guidance
Great help to those of us not gifted with natural style. Would have been 5 stars if it had more photo examples tho. Love the “three words” concept. It helped me really improve my wardrobe and stop hanging on to or buying clothes that I was never going to feel good in.

I found Allison’s’ approach to style very easy, inclusive and doable! I had a couple aha moments with the book. What should have been obvious was not and suddenly I can shop my closet in new & exciting ways. Now I shop with an arsenal of info that applies to me and what a difference it’s made to both my bank account and the way I think about and style my clothes.

The book contains a lot of self-promotion and little useful information. The method of working with the wardrobe offered by the author could have been fit into three pages, if you skip the ‘light a candle and meditate’ stuff. The illustrations are cute, but have nothing to do with the subject.

Een hulpvolle boek. Weinig foto’s en geen vernoeming van merken, maar daar gaat uiteindelijk de inhoud niet over, dus kortom waarvoor het dient is het een goeie boek