I remember standing in the aisle at John Lewis in Kingston, a short hop down the hill from the University where I was completing my graduate degree… and looking left and right, down the zig-zag aisles and end caps of women’s clothing. I was utterly lost.
You don’t really realize how helpful it is to recognize brands and know labels until you’re trying to find and buy something without any context.
Even worse, I was plopped dead in the centre of a contemporary bouquet of ‘tasteful city colour’ read: no colour at all: White, grey, navy, black, and denim. That was the full range.
For the wild and young at heart I spied a few navy and white stripe ensembles. Go crazy.
There wasn’t an asymmetrical hem-line or graphic tee in sight. It was all pencil silhouettes and cap sleeves and for the rebel, £200 Levis.
This wasn’t my first time trying to buy clothes since I’d moved to London 8 months prior, but it was by far the most depressing. I’d gained the traditional ‘Freshman 15’ (does that count when you’re doing a Masters, it does, right?) and I was continued to feel very fish out of water in every shop and every brand I’d come across so far (don’t get me started about the time I tried to buy something to wear to a summer wedding).
The confident, naively optimistic version of me who had lugged two over-stuffed suitcases onto a one-way, London-bound, Virgin Atlantic flight was in the best shape of her life. She lived near the beach in California, so she was always dressed in bright, sunny colours.
The fact that I owned an apparel company didn’t hurt, and living in a sunny climate meant that sunshine-friendly colourways were always available. But I know that what I wore was a reflection of how I felt about myself then: young, single, fit and free.
Fast-forward to now, wandering aimlessly around the second floor of this department store, I was deep in the messy middle part of my impulsive life choice: wading through the shape-shifting required to find and ‘be’ myself in this new reality.
I wasn’t just feeling lost in the clothing aisle, I was feeling lost in my body, my identity.
Luckily the man I’d moved countries for was great, he was amazing, no regrets there, but he had a full-time corporate job that kept him quite busy…
He’d been able to buy us our first place, a first floor flat on a gorgeous street in Twickenham, which we were renovating. It was messy, we had no toilet and my printer for my school assignments had to be plugged-in next to the dehumidifier (which ran 24/7 to help plaster dry), because we only had two working plugs and the other was for the tiny fridge that basically only fit milk for tea (because, Britain).
Don’t get me wrong, I was happy, overjoyed actually, that this was my life. I was probably still in proper ‘pinch me’ mode about it all. But, along with all the change and joy and fantasy was the creeping ache of not really knowing who I was anymore.
When I’d moved, I was a month into 30: I’d sold my shares in the apparel company I’d been building for 6 years, set down my camera for the first time since I was 15 (I wasn’t allowed to work in the UK on a student visa) and gone all-in on a Masters in Marketing.
I didn’t have any friends of my own yet, and out of all my husband’s many friends, there was only one who was an entrepreneur. My dogs, Olivia and Charlie (a harlequin Great Dane and cream French Bulldog) were the only tether I had to the life and self I had known.
At the time, I don’t think I really acknowledged the earth-shattering impact of all of that, alongside the culture shock I wasn’t prepared for. Not knowing how long 40 cm was, or how many dollars £49 worked out to be, or why on earth it was a requirement to know (and shout out) every Take That song.
I was adrift.
Just about everything that used to answer the question of who I was (the multiple-businesses, the photography, the travel for work, the entrepreneurship friend-circle) had stayed behind in a country 5,000 miles and an eight hour time difference away.
I’d catch my reflection in shop windows and I started not to recognize myself. Then at some point I think I decided it was too painful to see her, so I stopped looking.
The scond I moved to the UK my jeans jumped-up 2 sizes (a 14 in the US is an 18 in the UK. Brutal) and then I stopped being able to find jeans that fit at all (18 is the very top of most size ranges in most shops here). The clothes I started reaching for got a little baggier, and a little darker, and a little greyer. And before long, instead of California surfer girl vibes, I looked like the London Winter weather: dreary and dim.
This pattern went on for years
Interestingly, I only really see the depth of it now, standing back from it, and I only really recognize it because of the conversations I’ve had with women discovering colour harmony for the first time. Seeing their journey has helped me realize two really powerful things:
Just how profound of an impact colour had on me personally - not just through my work (more on this later)
That it’s not just me. When I looked back and realized how important and impactful colour was in helping me find myself again, I assumed it was because I’m a weirdo colour geek, but it’s not just me.
If you want to feel the edge of this for yourself, here’s an experiment to try first.
For one week, don’t wear black, grey, or navy on the top half of your body. That’s it. Notice what you reach for instead, and notice what happens. Do people compliment you? How do you feel throughout your day, and when you look in the mirror?
If you give it a go, I’d love to hear about!!
And, if you want to explore this conversation a bit more, we’ve got a wonderful colour conversation coming up that I’d love to invite you to join us for.
Come join us, I’ve saved you a spot.
love, xx Nic
