Rethinking Style in a Changing Body
Most people get dressed for the occasion. For the last two years, I've been getting dressed for damage control, quietly managing bloating, sweat and hot flushes, just trying to get through the day without my body embarrassing me in public. If you're sitting somewhere between your mid forties and fifties, one or all of these symptoms might sound familiar. For me, all of it arrived at once. Of course, it was the day perimenopause decided to join the chat.
Unfortunately for me, it also resurfaced ongoing struggles with hyperhidrosis and gut issues, so my body has felt like it's been quietly at war with itself ever since. What did this mean for my style? Somewhere along the way, clothes stopped being something I simply put on, or got excited about, and became something I had to negotiate with instead.
If your body has started to change and your wardrobe no longer feels like it works for you, I want you to know you're in exactly the right place. I hear you, and I feel you, and I'm here to share both my personal journey and the ten years of styling experience that has helped me find my way through this. Because amongst the lows, there's also been real growth, a genuine evolution in my style, and an unexpected reassurance in finally letting go of the pressure to constantly curate and perform when it comes to dressing. I even find myself joyfully embracing no effort days now, allowing myself full comfort without the societal guilt.
Style, Disrupted
As someone who built a business around personal style and conscious wardrobes, I found myself in territory I never expected to be in. The clothes I'd always loved simply stopped working for my body. Silhouettes, fabrics and structures that once felt expressive slowly started to feel restrictive, impractical, even unwearable, and little by little, my wardrobe shifted around me. Denim jeans gave way to skirts. Structured pieces softened into draping. Elastic waistbands went from an afterthought to an absolute essential, and breathability stopped being a nice to have and became non negotiable. Black became something close to a uniform, not because I loved it, but because it was simply the most forgiving, comfortable option, and I found myself relying on one pair of shoes so consistently that every outfit ended up being built around them.
Somewhere in all of that, creativity took a back seat. I wasn't curating outfits anymore so much as I was engineering a wardrobe that would keep me functional, day after day.
The Gap in the Style Conversation
What became clear to me through all of this is that the fashion and styling industry rarely accounts for bodies in flux. We tend to talk about style in aspirational terms, self expression, identity, aesthetic, and far less often do we talk about functionality, or about the very real, very human intersection of health and clothing.
And yet so many of us are living this reality in one form or another. Whether it's perimenopause, hyperhidrosis, gut issues or any number of other health conditions, our bodies change, sometimes gradually and sometimes seemingly overnight, and when they do, our wardrobes often quietly fail us right alongside them.
The medical system hasn't made this any easier. When I first raised my symptoms, as young as thirty, I was told to have a third shower a day, or to try a stronger deodorant. No one mentioned hormones. No one mentioned my gut. No one ever suggested I look at my toxin load, or think about swapping polyester for cotton and simply seeing what happened. Looking back now, I can see how much shame that left me carrying, and I sometimes wonder if that's part of why my nervous system feels so frayed today. For a while, a high strength antiperspirant helped balance the underarm sweat through my forties, and I genuinely felt like I'd reclaimed my style. Then perimenopause joined the chat, and everything shifted again.
As an industry, we can also be quick to make women feel inadequate for not dressing a certain way. There's rarely much sympathy for the style rut, the confused style, the purely practical dressing, and it often gets read instead as some kind of giving up on life. At a time when we're already feeling vulnerable, that judgement lands like another small blow to our self esteem and confidence, one we really don't need.
From Personal Style to Functional Style
At first, I genuinely grieved my style. I loved my high waisted jeans and my floaty blouses, they'd been my signature for years, but on bloated days my jeans would shrink right around me, and on other days even a waistband resting gently on my skin could bring on waves of nausea. I'd find myself sitting at work soaked through with sweat, and slowly, piece by piece, I had to move out of the clothes I loved and into ones that felt like they belonged to someone else entirely. That transition was genuinely hard. But what emerged on the other side of it wasn't a loss so much as a redefinition.
I began to foscus style more on not just visual, but as something functional, responsive and adaptive too. Dressing became less about how something looked and more about how it supported me, its breathability, its flexibility, the room it gave me to fluctuate through the day. And maybe that wasn't giving up on style at all. Maybe it was simply redefining it on my own terms.
Because true personal style was never meant to be static. It evolves with our lives, our values and, just as importantly, our bodies. While the fashion world started to feel like an exclusive club I no longer had access to, I was quietly discovering something else entirely, slow fashion brands working with natural fibres, the gentle power of a smaller capsule wardrobe, and far less temptation to buy things I didn't actually need. And I won't pretend otherwise, learning what it really feels like to be comfortable in your clothes, rather than fighting fabric and buttons all day long, has been a genuine game changer.
Sustainability in Practice, Not Perfection
Throughout all of this, I held onto my commitment to sustainability, not perfectly, but consciously. I didn't overhaul my wardrobe or start from scratch. I adapted. I reworked what I already had, and I made thoughtful additions only where they were truly needed, prioritising natural fibres, versatility and longevity along the way.
Here's a nuance that often gets missed in conversations about sustainable fashion: sustainability has to meet us where we actually are. When your body is in distress, perfection isn't the goal, support is, and we shouldn't feel guilty for needing new pieces to help us get there. I allowed myself to buy new when I needed to, but only when a piece ticked enough boxes, and versatility was everything.
Reclaiming Style, On New Terms
There were moments during this period, and if I'm honest there still are, where I felt like a bit of a fraud in my own business. How could I talk about style with any authority while I was rotating the same handful of outfits, choosing comfort over creativity again and again? But reflection has taught me something important along the way, this experience didn't diminish my work, it deepened it. It’s also gifted me an experience I can share much empathy on. Not all stylists have that.
Style was never really about having endless options or perfectly curated outfits. It's about feeling supported, seen and like yourself in what you wear, especially when your body feels unfamiliar to you. Getting dressed isn't just a creative act, it's a daily, quiet negotiation between who we are, how we feel and what we need in that moment. Some days I simply throw pieces on because the mental effort of anything more feels like too much, and other days I find real joy in putting together an outfit that supports everything from my health to my sense of style.
It's also shown me how much we need to change the story we tell about style altogether, and the enormous weight we place on women to dress perfectly, even while they're juggling everything else in their lives. Why do we let women feel low self worth for not wearing the right clothes, or suggest their clothing choices somehow explain their lack of success? I think we're more than ready to move past that conversation.
My Top Tips, If You're in This Flux Right Now
Focus on your basics. Update your basics and you'll be surprised how much the rest of your wardrobe still works around them, things like a simple slip dress, a denim skirt, jeans that genuinely fit you comfortably or a classic pair of pants with a kind waistband. Less really is more here, and there's something quietly empowering in realising you don't need very much at all.
Choose clothes that grow with you. Weight fluctuation is real, and I've been negotiating with mine since I was eighteen, but perimenopause has taken it to a whole new level. One day my denim skirt fits perfectly, the next I can't move the zip a millimetre, so I've learned to look for pieces that skim and drape the body, with enough movement built in for the days I bloat.
Prioritise natural fibres. They really are a gamechanger. They breathe with you, and once you feel the difference, it's very hard to go back. Sustainably, they're also that much gentler on the earth. So many of today's clothes are made with plastic or petroleum derived fibres like polyester and nylon, and there's growing research to back up why that matters for more than comfort. A 2024 University of Birmingham study found that sweat can actually cause the microplastics in synthetic fabric to release chemicals, including flame retardants, which are then absorbed straight through the skin. Separately, phthalates and BPA, chemicals found in many plastics and some synthetic textiles, have been linked in research to disrupted oestrogen levels. Clothing is only one small piece of our overall chemical exposure, but during perimenopause, when our hormones are already working overtime, it feels like a piece worth paying attention to. Can you imagine sitting in synthetic fabric all day, while you sweat, wondering what else it's asking your body to manage?
Consider ventilation. If you're prone to hot flushes or sweating, airflow matters far more than you'd think. Skirts and dresses became my go to, and I noticed a real difference in how much cooler I felt through the day, without the discomfort of fabric sitting damp against my skin.
Embrace the elastic waist. Honestly, you'll wonder why you resisted for so long. It gives so much more freedom and kindness to your stomach, and takes away that daily negotiation with a button and zip. Your pants will also drape better every single time with a soft, giving waistband, rather than one straining to stay done up. They say we get wiser with age, and I remember genuinely fearing the day I'd reach for an elastic waist. Turns out there was nothing to fear at all, just a whole lot of wisdom waiting for me.
Find a brand that still feels like you. When I first went looking for new pieces, I found myself pushed toward a completely different aesthetic. The natural fibre, drapey brands I could find seemed to lean heavily into oversized shapes and prints that weren't me at all, and that was probably my lowest point of feeling like I'd lost my style entirely. Then I realised I could simply adapt one of my favourite existing brands instead, and it felt like a genuine reclamation. Not every piece from them works for me, but their cotton tees and cotton dresses have been the key to complementing my basics with more of my unique style. They also have a great resale value, so the pieces that. no longer worked I was able to sell on and find preloved items of pieces that would.
An Invitation
If your body has changed and your wardrobe no longer feels like it fits your life, please know you're not alone, and you're not doing style wrong. You're navigating something the industry hasn't fully acknowledged yet, and that's exactly the work I'm now deeply committed to, supporting people to build wardrobes that honour both their values and their reality, from the pieces we choose to the way our clothes actually support us, in a way that doesn't break the bank or feel like we're losing our sense of identity along the way.
Because you deserve to feel like yourself in your clothes, even when your body is asking for something different.
Keen to learn more? Book in for a Style Strategy Session or just contact me for a chat.