Seeking Inspirato with Billie
THE BASICS
Name Billie (@billiedenise)
Works as Graphic Designer
Age 32
Style belief: “I’ve always felt like clothing is the outward expression of who you are to other people.” 🥰
24 Hours or 24 Days?
Billie is the best friend from high school you’re glad you reconnected with. She leans in and listens intently when you’re talking. She’s attentive, thoughtful, and funny.
Billie has a calm energy that feels out of place given her schedule. She accomplishes three times as much in a day as I could in a week. She is a mom, a wife, and a full-time graphic designer at Marshalls. As if that weren’t enough, she also manages her design, branding and marketing studio, Thank You Design Co.
Knowing how hectic, yet exciting, her life is, it makes sense that Billie’s number one style priority is to appear “put together.”
“I want people to look at me and think that I’m put together. My life is chaotic. I’m that frazzled mom who doesn’t know what time it is or where I’m supposed to be, but when I’m dropping off [my daughter] Charlie at daycare, and someone says ‘you look so nice’ or ‘ you look really put together’ it makes me feel proud. Because even though I’m usually running late, or forget to do something, at least I took the time to get dressed and make myself feel good.”
“I’ve always been drawn to clothing. I loved playing with these Crayola fashion designer stencils when I was little.”
The design career she so gracefully rocks today wasn’t a complete surprise given her childhood.
“I was an artsy, creative child. I always loved picking what I wanted to wear.”
She Was Defiant
Billie has been Clothing-Confident (or stubborn) from a young age.
“I always felt like I was different. So I would purposely like things that everyone else didn’t, so I could own being different. If everyone liked the Pink Power Ranger, I’d like the Yellow one. I had to intentionally be difficult.”
Billie has been operating and owning her style instincts since the 90s. I applaud how her fashion choices have never strayed from her values.
“There was a time in 4th grade when everyone had Adidas Sambas, and I wasn’t athletic at all. I hated sports. But I would have moments where I wanted to fit in, so I told my mom, ‘I have to have these like everyone else on the playground!’ So we went to Payless and got the Payless version which is FORBIDDEN in little-kid-code. I remember thinking ‘Screw this, I don’t even want to wear these. This is stupid.’ I ended up getting a different pair all together.”
Odd One In
For a kid to be bold enough to reject the common “little-kid-code” is a major feat, particularly if your skin makes you feel out of place from the jump.
“My dad is black and my mom is white, so I am half-and-half. As a little kid I thought, ‘that means I am going to fit in with everybody,’ but in reality it means you fit in with nobody.”
What a poignant realization. Perhaps this explains Billie’s stand out nature. Without a clear peg to hang her hat, she learned to reject normalcy in favor of individuality from a young age.
Billie chose to be a loud, silly, eccentric kid who liked to draw, create plays, and invent different personalities with voices — the activities of a child star, or world-class graphic designer in the making.
She grew up to be the creative, inspiring force she is today.
I couldn’t wait to ask her how she figured out her personal style and how she’d define it. Imagine being able to bottle up and teach other women exactly what Billie has accomplished? Gold mine!
Dynamic Personal Style
“I was dreading the question of ‘how would you describe your personal style?’”
Well that didn’t go very far…
Jokes aside, I get it. Billie is a naturally creative person who sees clothing as another canvas. Putting together a look she loves comes second nature.
What Billie is also saying, though, is that her personal style isn’t static. It’s not something meant to be contained and strictly defined. A dynamic personal style evolves as you do, and for some, that can be day-to-day.
I’ve been researching personal style books recently and find that they repeatedly make readers pinpoint specific styles. They’ll ask readers to “Describe your style aesthetic in a few words” in hopes that the reader will feel inspired to respond with something like “Ralph Lauren beachy vibes.”
This may work for the moment, as in when you’re responding to that personal style book, but it won’t lead to a dynamic personal style. The very nature of personal style is that it’s meant to be dynamic. I could describe my style aesthetic with what I’m wearing right now—but what good does that do? Does it require that I buy that style of clothing moving forward?
Like Billie, I have come to find these exercises constricting and unimaginative because personal style shouldn’t be doctrinal.
This is why I preach the 4Cs approach (Cut, Color, Cloth, and Comfort). The 4C’s are based on your body and provide guidelines that are meant to be played with.
By defining your 4C’s, you aren’t constricted to any specific type of style.
So I’m sorry to say that for now, Billie’s style and confidence can’t be bottled up. Nothing great comes easily.
Ch-ch-ch-ch Changes!
Billie was living her beautiful, Clothing-Confident life when a big change required her to learn some new skills and expand her dynamic personal style.
Billie learned the best news of all: her family was growing. She was having a baby!
One (of the many) temporary and lasting effects from pregnancy is the way your body changes. While a joyful time, pregnancy impacts personal style and clothing choices. Once-loved pieces no longer fit in the temporary state of your body. Some clothing won’t fit ever again.
“I had to find new styles that fit... and basically rethink everything.”
I was nervous to ask Billie how her pregnancy impacted her relationship with clothing.
“It’s funny because this is actually what I wanted to talk about. In your interviews you didn’t talk with any new moms, so maybe I could give a perspective on that. Also, I’m pregnant!”
Best news ever! With one child and another on the way, the timing couldn't have been better to talk about her experience with Clothing-Confidence and pregnancy.
“I remember when I was pregnant with Charlie, I felt like I was in a really good place and was really happy with how I looked and how my style was evolving. Then I got pregnant and it was a “what the fuck moment” because the body you’ve known your entire life suddenly changes on you, and it’s not even just your waist. Your skin changes, your hair changes, your tastebuds change, how you react to certain things changes.”
This is when style, for some women, may fall to the bottom of the list because there are bigger fish to fry. Yet, you’re forced to find other pieces to wear since the ones you own no longer serve you quite like they once did.
“You’re suddenly housed in a body that’s not your own. You’ll go into your closet to reach for your favorite dress or sweater and those won’t fit you right now because you have a 6-month pregnant belly.”
A Runway Remedy
Enter Rent the Runway: Billie’s ingenious solution for temporarily owning stylish maternity clothing and returning the pieces for larger ones as her pregnancy progressed — all without owning a thing!
“[Back then] they didn’t necessarily have any maternity clothes, but you could filter by the trimester you’re in, and they’d show you more billowy things.”
This was Billie’s way of avoiding buying traditional “maternity clothing” and maintaining her Clothing-Confident mentality.
“I didn’t need to buy any maternity specific clothes. I used to do things like go to H&M and hit up the sale rack and just go a few sizes up.”
Rent the Runway Unlimited, while pricey, allowed Billie to expand her style play zone, her knowledge of designers, and ultimately, increase the dynamic nature of her personal style.
“It’s almost like the Marie Kondo of fashion. It’s a forced way of figuring out if you really love a piece or not. It’s also better for the environment. One piece gets 100+ wears before they get rid of it.”
A Kid in a Candy Store
Billie's determination is inspiring. It propelled her to owning her Clothing-Confidence and vulnerability from a young age and allowed her to maintain her Clothing-Confidence throughout her pregnancy.
She pushes through and figures it out.
But... there’s one area that hasn’t come quite as easily as the others, and you’ll soon empathize with why.
Wardrobe maintenance has been Billie’s constant thorn. The mentality of “own less, love more” is all fine and dandy except when you work at Marshalls corporate, and cute, fast-fashion at affordable prices (with employee discounts!) is available at your fingertips.
“My closet used to be all over the place. As a creative person, I had an appreciation for all styles. I love[d] 70s, preppy, boho, modern, edgy and I’d try on things, and if they fit, I’d buy them! And then my closet [became] a hodgepodge of everything, and then I wouldn’t know how to pair it with something else. When you buy one crazy item that you love, you don’t know what to do with it.”
How relatable is this scenario? Your closet has pieces you love individually, but outfits are difficult to put together.
Sometimes we fall in love with a piece and purchase it without a plan. When we buy pieces separately without an end goal, we have three options:
Reverse engineer. Make it work. Figure out a way to implement the piece into your closet.
Donate it.
(Shamefully) leave it hanging in your closet (tags and all).
All three options are mentally exhausting. Think back on the pieces you purchased without a plan. How many of them still have a tag on them? How many have you only worn once? Always have a plan when you go shopping or acquire something new. Try on the pieces with other items from the store that resemble items from your closet and you are likely to pair with the piece.
Billie identified her closet as an issue and attacked it head on, Marie Kondo style.
The Closet Renaissance
“A few years ago I got rid of all of the color in my wardrobe, and I loved how simple it was. I could put on anything, and it’d go together. But I missed color, so I slowly started adding it back in, and it was the stuff that I liked and complimented me — blue, yellow, red, some green. No orange, no purple, no brown — which is good because every time that I’d buy those things I’d never end up wearing them!”
This kind of behavior seems common among the Seeking Inspirato features (remember Chanel’s minimalist inspirational moment?). Trimming a closet back to the items you know are serving you is a quick way to cleanse the palette and refine what you like and dislike. Then you can put together more creative looks.
This process will open you up to learning your Cuts, Colors, Cloths, and Comfort (4Cs) more intimately, like Billie did. She recognized that certain colors didn’t work for her so that when she was ready to purchase new items again, she put them on the “no fly” list.
Billie’s working on buying the items she loves right when she sees them instead of trying to find other, less expensive pieces that compare to the ones she loves.
As she noted, the less expensive option ends up not fitting right, or being a weird color—criteria for the piece dying a slow death in the back of your closet.
Billie’s mentality:
“Get it
Take care of it
Wear it”
I couldn’t have stated it better myself. Thank you, Billie!
Billie’s Ideal Outfit
Thank You!
A huge thank you to Billie for being a part of the Seeking Inspirato series, and to Jessica Webb for taking the beautiful photos.