Hello from beautiful Italia! 🇮🇹 We had a relatively uneventful, but very long travel day. It was, however, the perfect example of crazy temperatures and little airport "peculiarities" so to speak 😅 First, Air France weighed my carry-on. It was 12 kg (26.5 lbs). The limit is 10 kg (22 lbs). The lady who checked us in was the nicest and didn't charge us anything extra, but I thought you should know. It doesn't really fit my lifestyle to travel lighter than that, and I have no intention to make...
5 days ago • 7 min read
Quick question before you scroll: If you packed 3 bottoms and 5 tops for a week away, how many outfits would you get? The answer depends on your tops. If each top only goes with one pair of pants, you get 5. If every top goes with all 3 bottoms, you get 15 outfits. Same 8 pieces in your suitcase. A very different experience getting dressed every morning. 🧮 Tops are where your outfits multiply. When each top goes with all your pants, you'll have so many options to wear every day. You seriously...
8 days ago • 2 min read
Last Thursday I asked you about the moment your closet lets you down. Here are a few things you told me: "I want to remove things but I don't know what to remove and why." "The outfit looks great on the hanger." "I am notorious for overpacking for trips!" Last week I also told you about the four years I went with almost no shopping. During those years, I had to get creative and learn how to style the things I already had in my closet. By the time we left to travel full time in 2021, I knew...
15 days ago • 4 min read
Last time we spent fall in Italy, we ran from the cold weather. (that's what we usually do 😅) 11 weeks, September to December. We started in the north, and headed south to Sicily. It was glorious! I barely needed any cold weather clothes. This time is different. There's no escape route. We leave in 9 days and we're staying north the whole time. ON PURPOSE. Since transitioning to making 'Ways of Style' our full time jobs, we noticed a huge gap in the content I share. There's not much fall...
19 days ago • 5 min read
"I have a full closet and nothing to wear." That's a line from one of your emails, and I've read it so many times now in so many versions that I could recite it in my sleep. I know that feeling. At one point I owned over 100 pairs of shoes. (Yes. One. Hundred.) A closet packed to the ceiling, and I'd still stand in front of it feeling like I had nothing to put on. How does a closet that full end up feeling that empty? Lately my inbox is full of you saying the same thing in different words. "I...
22 days ago • 4 min read
“Itchy just thinking about it” That’s what one of you wrote back after my fall packing list email a few weeks back. She wasn’t the only one. Every time I mention merino or cashmere, a few of you reply with some version of: love the list, can’t wear half of it. Meanwhile I’ve been over here recommending merino and cashmere like it’s my job. (It kind of is 😅) So today’s email is for you. Same goal as always: warm, cute, and light enough for a carry-on. Zero wool. Why those fabrics feel so...
29 days ago • 5 min read
There are two kinds of women reading this email right now. One of you has a packing list that was made months ago. Checked twice. Possibly color coded. Your suitcase comes out of the closet 2 months early “to give yourself time.” The other one? Your bag doesn’t come out until the night before. Maybe the morning of. You throw a few things in, zip it, and tell yourself what you always tell yourself: it always works out. Type A packer. Type B packer. You already know which one you are. (you’re...
2 months ago • 4 min read
Think about the last 12 months. How many pieces in your closet showed up in January AND July? For most pieces, the honest answer is: they didn’t. They work one season, maybe two, then they hibernate. Which means you paid full price for a part time wardrobe. I think about this every time I pack. I fit multiple climates into one 20 inch carry-on, and the pieces that always make the cut are the ones that never take a season off. Those are the pieces worth your money. One catch though: “all year”...
2 months ago • 5 min read
The most important outfit of your trip is the one you wear to actually GET there. Think about it... it's the longest you'll wear any outfit all trip. The 4am alarm. The freezing airport. The overheated train. The airplane that's somehow stuffy AND arctic at the same time. And in shoulder season, there's an extra twist: you're usually leaving one season and landing in a different one. So many of you told me exactly this. Leaving warm, landing cold. Leaving cold, landing warm. Long train days...
2 months ago • 5 min read