Good Girls Don’t Have to Dress Bad Review {and GIVEAWAY}
Remember my little stack of reading for the year? Well, I’m making my way through it-although I’ve been a little derailed by all the materials from the 2:1 Conference lately! I did finish Shari Braendel’s Good Girls Don’t Have to Dress Bad back in February, though, and I’ve been rather excited to be using her advice the last couple months.
Her tone throughout the book is fun, upbeat, and conversational.
I love this book for numerous reasons, but there’s two main ones I’d like to talk about. First, she takes a biblical stand on modesty. Both the preface of the book before you even get to chapter one and the entire last chapter lay a foundation for seeing your personal style through the lens of God’s priorities and expectations. As she says “The way you dress shows what’s going on…on the inside of you.”
A whole chapter on how (and where!) to buy jeans!
The second reason I will be keeping this book around for a long, long time, is that it’s EASY and FUN. Fashion always seems so complicated to me. So…changeable. Shari’s book breaks everything down, gives you simple dos and don’ts and makes specific recommendations for cuts, colors, and lengths for your shape. The chapters are focused, well titled, and organized to that so it’s easy to skip around if you’d like to just read what pertains to your shape and coloring.
She makes determining your body shape, face shape, and color family really easy.
I discovered that I have a heart-shaped face–and got some great recommendations on what shape and style eyeglasses to buy.
I discovered that when all else fails, my neutral or fall-back plan for accessories is my hair color–which explains why I get so many compliments when I carry my golden brown handbag!
And I had to admit that she’s right–I shouldn’t wear black with my coloring. Oh, what a hard, hard truth to swallow! I had totally bought into that “black is slimming” advice. I haven’t completely eliminated black from my closet, but I have noticed the compliments I get when I wear the colors she does recommend for me. Seriously, why look slimmer when you can just look good?
All her recommendations are broken down by your shape and color.
There’s a whole chapter on buying a swimsuit and another whole chapter on jeans. Did you know you can measure the “rise” of jeans by measuring the length of the zipper? This chapter was a huge help for me to buy jeans online recently.
The accessories chapters gives specific tips on choosing things that are proportional to your size and shape and in your color family. It reinforced my current love of all things chunky and funky! {grin}
I’m still chewing over the end of chapter 3 about how to define your style–especially if you’re like me and don’t think you have one! Her main point is that if you don’t already have one that you can explain in a few words, pick one. That’s the point where everything comes together–or falls apart!
There's several pages of checklists in there, from basics to seasonal to special occasion needs.
But I’ve been trying out a lot of her tips and suggestions getting a lot of good feedback on it–from people who don’t know I’ve been trying to do anything differently. Most of her advice is about how to pull it all together, but she’s also got some very helpful shopping checklists in there.
I highly recommend this book if you think (or know!) you could use some style help. This book is all about fashion for the regular, everyday woman. It’s simple and easy to use and definitely makes me feel more “put together” when I follow her suggestions. I’ve gone back to it over and over again since February. And…
I’VE GOT A COPY TO GIVEAWAY!!
To enter:
- Leave a comment on this post telling me you define your style. (be sure to include your email with your comment!)
- Get a second entry by tweeting this giveaway and leaving a second comment here afterwards.
This book looks fabulous. I get overwhelmed by too many choices! I like simple and my style reflects that.
Yes, I love that this book is pretty much nothing about “trends.” It’s about basics and how to make basics work for you.
I would define my style as anything that kid smears, baby spits, and gardening leftovers don’t show up on.
haha! that’s how i got stuck in the yoga-pants-every-day routine! 🙂
hhmmmm, style? what is that exactly? I have turned into anything comfortable style. I think I could really benefit from this book, as would my teenage daughter… don’t tweet so this is it. Thanks Jamie for the opportunity!
She did identify two “styles” that aren’t styles–which were both sort of me. I love the fact that she said if you don’t think you have a style, just PICK ONE and go with it from here out. 🙂
My style is so several seasons ago and very casual. I need to be on an episode of what not to wear. I’m still wearing pants from 4 years ago, but hopefully they’re classics. Interesting what you said about trying different colors. Until a friend of mine took me shopping, I never would have thought about wearing brown, but I love it.
Well, I used to get compliments for wearing very vibrant colors and I was surprised that she recommended against that for me at first–but someone pointed out that as I’ve gotten older (and had children!) my skin coloring and especially my hair have changed a lot. I still don’t really think yellow works for me, but I’ve tried several other suggestions and liked how it turned out.
I would love to win a copy of this book! I’ve tried different styles at different times in my life. Currently I keep it super casual for everyday and slightly bohemian when I dress up!
Bohemian–that’s the perfect word for my sister! We were chatting and I couldn’t quite put my finger on her style, but that would be it! 🙂
I have a difficult time finding patterns that fit my awkward shape, so I often stick to single colors and simple lines – nothing too fancy! I have an idea of what I *think* I can wear, but I’m often too shy to try it…I’m normally fairly conservative in my clothing choices 🙂
I’d love to read this book! 🙂 Thanks for the chance to win it as a give-away!
I have definitely stepped out of my box a few times since reading it, but it also just helped me define the box that I’m comfortable in and make good choices inside my box. 🙂
I would define my style as cheap, comfy, and practical. {snarl}
Cheap was a big deal for me too. I’m a clearance rack/thrift store shopper! Some of her suggestions for where to shop were quite out of my regular price range! But I have found that I can focus on those brands while hitting my thrift stores and have had some success that way!
Tweeted!
I definitely need help with style as you could tell at the conference! LOL My style is comfy. I just like to be comfortable. 🙂
LOL! Me too! My husband opened the book and said “Where’s the chapter on picking out flannel pajama pants?” {grin}
Style? Hah. I guess my style is skirt/jeans with a shirt layered with a shrug. I do love ruffles and scarves……
Such a fun giveaway!!
Yes, scarves have become part of my style in the last year too. They’re just so pretty…!
My style… hmmm…. practical, yet feminine. I love long ruffly skirts. I think I could learn a lot from this book!
That “practical” part was how I ended up in jeans and tee-shirts all. the. time. Now I have a couple pairs of “work” jeans, and then two pairs of nice jeans. And I use aprons if I’m wearing nice clothes or a skirt. I find that long skirts are actually just as easy to work in around the house and yard as jeans anyway. Short skirts are a whole different matter though, so I don’t really have any. 🙂
I don’t really know how to define my style. I wear a lot of hand me downs from my sisters and stuff from like 10 years ago. I seriously need to update my wardrobe but shopping intimidates me. Maybe this book would help me feel more confident in my ability to pick the right clothes for me.
I have a bad habit of buying something because it’s cute and it’s a great price (I’m a clearance rack girl!)–but neither of those have anything to do with how it might look ON ME! But now I ask myself, is this something that will look GREAT on me? I actually have a little list of “pieces” that I’m looking for (like ivory cardigan) if I’m out and if it’s not on my list I don’t get it. It’s helped a lot!
My style would probably be defined as modern modest. But I do enjoy old-fashioned clothing alot. I strive to be modestly feminine and glorify God with my wardrobe choices. Thank you for having this giveaway! I am sure it will be a blessing to whomever wins! Blessings! ~Jordan
Thanks for coming by! I think there’s such a gray area with HOW important your clothing/style choices should be in your life. This book really helped me put some perspective on yes it DOES matter, but not TOO much, and definitely needs to be modest.
Right now, modestly frumpy.
Desiring to be modest really can complicate your choices these days. So much clothing is NOT.
My style is kinda non existant right now but I WISH my style was fun, girly and colorful!
Tweeted!
I just tweeted this fabulous post!
My style… I tend to color block a lot, but I’m not afraid to mix it up with some stripes, patterns or florals. Buying for outfits instead of pieces is a problem. My outfits also tend to fall apart at the shoes.
My style is sadly predictable — jeans, tank with a long-sleeved {or short-sleeved, depending on temp} shirt layered over and black tennies. B-O-R-I-N-G! =)