Youniform: Simplify Your Wardrobe, Reclaim Your Confidence - Stacey Herndon : 188

What if your closet could give you back time, confidence, and mental energy?

International style expert, colour analyst, and Youniform author Stacey Herndon explores why getting dressed shouldn't be one of the hardest decisions of your day.

Stacey is the founder of Radiantly Dressed and creator of the Youniform Framework, a practical style system that helps women get dressed in under two minutes without sacrificing beauty, confidence, or personal expression. Through her ColorEssence Style System, courses, and coaching, she is helping women worldwide. As a mother of seven, Stacey understands firsthand that life is too busy to spend precious time wondering what to wear every morning.

We discuss the hidden cost of decision fatigue, why so many women lose their sense of style while caring for everyone else, and how creating a personal "Youniform" can simplify your mornings while allowing your personality to shine.

You'll also hear practical advice on building repeatable outfit formulas, choosing colours that make you feel radiant, avoiding impulse shopping, dressing for changing bodies and health conditions, and creating a wardrobe that reflects who you are today, not who you were years ago.

• Why decision fatigue often begins in your closet.
• How a personal Youniform can simplify your mornings.
• The power of colour psychology and colour analysis.
• Why shopping more isn't the answer.
• How to build a wardrobe that supports your real life and boosts your confidence.

Whether you're overwhelmed by a closet full of clothes, entering a new season of life, or simply looking for a simpler, more intentional approach to personal style, this conversation is full of practical wisdom, inspiration, and actionable ideas.

Stacey Herndon 

https://radiantlydressed.com/

Transcript

Style, Identity, And Expectations

DanielaSm 0:00

Hi, I'm Daniela. What if getting dressed every morning wasn't another decision to make, but one last thing to worry about? What if your closet wasn't just full of clothes, but full of all expectations? Outdated identities. And the pressure to be someone you have outgrown.

Stacey Herndon 0:19

You have to get really comfortable and uncomfortable with who you truly are. Communicate our approach to life. Someone dressed in sweatpants going out to dinner at a restaurant perceived very differently than somebody who is wearing nice clothing at a restaurant. Style as a practice, as an experience, is something that we do. It is a circular process.

Meet Stacy Herodon And Her Mission

DanielaSm 0:38

My guest is Stacy Herodon, international style expert, color analyst, founder of Radiantly Dressed, and author of The U Uniform, a practical system that helps women get dressed in under two minutes. So let's enjoy her story. Welcome, Stacy, to the show. I'm so happy to have you here.

Stacey Herndon 1:00

I'm excited to be here and talk with you and have a great time just sharing today.

DanielaSm 1:05

Yes, yes. I invited you because I saw your profile. Oh my god, this is so incredible what she does. I know that you also like to share your story. So why do you want to share your story?

Stacey Herndon 1:15

Well, for me, it's all about actually just empowering women, right? Empowering women to our our motto really as a brand is to empower women to experience freedom and who they were created to be. And that's much bigger, obviously, than the style piece that we do and that we're gonna talk about today. But really, I just want to reach as many women and let them know that life can be joyful and it can be beautiful and it can feel freeing and you can be a light in the world and not be so caught up in how you look while you're doing it.

DanielaSm 1:45

Yes. You're an artist somehow because you do so many things. When did your story start?

Stacey Herndon 1:50

I guess for me, I was thinking about this question hard. I guess for me it starts, probably most people's stories start back when they're young, right? Our stories kind of follow us along. That the whole story starts with feeling like for most of my life, I didn't actually have a purpose. I spent so much of my life chasing purpose. I never could nail down a college degree. Um, I finally finished college when I was 28 because I spent so much time just taking all these detours. I changed jobs a million times. I didn't have a purpose and I was chasing it. Um and I feel like it's one of those things where I grew up as a mostly only child. Um, I have a stepbrother and a half-brother, and I wasn't close to any of them. So it was kind of that whole only child thing where everything is all about you. And as I grew up, it seemed to be like I just didn't know where I was meant to be. I didn't know where I landed in life. And it wasn't until I became a mom that the the concept of purpose really began to crystallize for me. I think as with most people, when you become a mom, even though you may feel a greater sense of purpose, you also completely lose yourself in the

Purpose, Motherhood, And Losing Yourself

Stacey Herndon 2:45

process. And all the things that you thought were true about you, you don't know what things really exist anymore and what you want to carry into the future and who you're going to be. And even as your kids grow older, like what is that evolving purpose look like in your life? And with all of that comes into play like who you are and how you're expressing yourself, um, how you're showing up each day for the people around you, for the relationships that you have, um, and what you're communicating to them based on how you take care of yourself and how you want to communicate with the world at large.

DanielaSm 3:14

So, Stacy, you said that it was all about you when you kind of live in a being a sick only child, but so all about you because everybody was focusing on you, or because you just have to think of about you?

Stacey Herndon 3:26

No, I think it's because everybody kind of focuses on you, right? When you because I didn't live with either of my brothers growing up, we were in separate households, and so it was very much a thing where I mean, you know, like I was very spoiled, I was given lots of things, I was naturally kind of talented at many things that I tried. The things that I wasn't gifted at, I just quit because everybody kind of let me quit. Even, even I can remember the story when I was like 12 years old. I had chicken pox. I got chicken pox at 12 and I had this scab on my face. You know how when it's healing and you've got the scab and you can go out in public because you're not contagious. But we were going out to dinner with my parents' friends. I was looking in the mirror and I was so embarrassed that I had this big scab on my face. And so I picked it off. In that moment, I realized I had made this horrific mistake, right? Because, like, in my pursuit of vanity and what people thought about me and being the center of attention all the time, I like created a permanent scar on my face. It's still there to this day. But what's even more retelling about that dinner is that we went out to dinner. I overheard my parents' friend lean over to my mom, and I was 12, right? And she's like, she's so pretty. You're gonna have to lock the door in a few years. And it was that first kind of moment of realizing that people are always paying attention to you, even if you don't really realize it, and maybe not in the way you want them to pay attention to you. I'm sure that adults commenting on 12-year-olds is again like a little bit awkward and odd, but it's just that realization that we're always presenting something and people are always commenting and noticing on it, and that even if you know we are very spoiled in that form of center of attention, like there is always a focus on us in some way.

DanielaSm 4:54

Well, I'm only child too. I always have to leave with that thing that oh, you must be so spoiled. And it really kind of bugged me because my dad was ill and he was a center of attention, and everything what my mom made was like, Oh, this is for your dad, and this is for your dad, and your dad here, and your dad there, and so we took care of him, and so he was the the person, you know, the main person. So when people say that, that oh, you must be spoiled, I really like no.

Stacey Herndon 5:22

No, I yeah, I think there's a dynamic. Like, some there's always there are always people in every family who get like more energy, right? Um but yeah, for for me, I definitely got a lot. For my grandparents especially, I got a lot of energy and attention.

DanielaSm 5:34

I see, I see. You have your kids, so you you didn't have your purpose, but then when you got the kids, obviously you see that your purpose is to be a mom. I feel like if you focus on that purpose, you know, raising children is it's one it's an unfair job. You're gonna get fire for sure. It's gonna be heartbroken. So how you of course you don't know that at the time, but the I mean, I don't know how your kids are still small and you have lots of kids.

Stacey Herndon 5:58

My kids are still really young, right? I have seven kids, and my oldest is 12 and my youngest is two, so they're very little.

DanielaSm 6:04

So you do have a lot of purpose having kids. But when they will leave, you you said that you already found a purpose. Do you realize that things would be different?

Stacey Herndon 6:14

I try not to think about it too much just because I can't really conceive of the future too far away because I feel like I'm living in the now. But I think living in the now is important, right? Like we need to live in the right now and experience the moment we have right now because we're not guaranteed tomorrow for sure. It is interesting because I being a mom, like becoming a mom was truly like this eye-opening experience. It was this gateway into a life that I had never like expected in that way. Um, and it truly fulfilled me a hundred percent, and it still does. And for the first most years of motherhood, like at least the first half of it, um, I was definitely just a stay-at-home mom. I had some different business hobby ventures I'd tried. Like I I did photography for a little while. Now I look back and I'm not really sure why I was into entrepreneurship so much, except maybe it's part of my story actually. Um, my dad's family is entrepreneurial, and so I have a business that I love now, and so I've been, you know, a working stay-at-home homeschooling mom for the last six years now since starting the business. And it's just a different perspective though, because even still, like the reason the reason that I run the business is for my family. Um, it's for my kids because I want to create a legacy for my children. Um, I want to create something so big that it can hand off to them. Because I honestly feel like our future, especially at least in America, I feel like the future is somewhat uncertain. It's just very chaotic. And so I want to create stability for them through the business. I'm building legacy now with what I'm doing for them later so that they are taken care of.

DanielaSm 7:40

You had the kids and you found that that was a purpose, and then that's how you came out with your business idea?

Stacey Herndon 7:45

No, my business idea was actually just just kind of a luck thing. It was part of the losing the self, right? The piece about I had my purpose and I felt great having my kids, but I had lost this part of myself. I think as all moms do, right? Especially when your kids are really, really little, because you're so involved in the process of mothering them that you kind of forget basic things like self-care and how you look and health and fitness and diet, like all of those things where you were taking care of yourself when it's just you taking care of yourself. Now, when you have to keep another human alive, you have lost that focus because you're keeping another human alive and it's exhausting. It took me a good, I think it was my fifth baby. It was my fifth baby when I started the business because I had fully lost sight of myself. That that pretty girl from 12 years old went on to be, you know, a teenager who loved clothes and a young adult who loved clothes whose friends came over and borrowed my shoes. But it was that was one of the things that was really a huge loss to me because I didn't really know, even after five kids, I had no idea how to get dressed anymore. Which is the which is the heart of where we're getting here, right? We took a long version to get there. Um you're gonna cut some of this, right? I know it's like a very long meandering. I'm not sure what we're doing.

DanielaSm 8:53

I want to know the reasons.

Stacey Herndon 8:55

I loved being a mom so much that I didn't care that I had let myself go. And that's kind of the the state of it. Um and it was that process of realizing at some point in time I was I was kind of done letting myself go. Like I still had the purpose of my kids, it was still there. But I also realized that I could do better at fulfilling that purpose if I took care of myself a little bit better. So it's a little bit of a self-care thing for sure.

DanielaSm 9:16

Well, I I feel like you know, you're always leading by example. So if you let yourself go, what are you teaching your kids? That after they have kids, the life is half-ended.

Stacey Herndon 9:26

Yeah, exactly. I didn't want to let myself go. It kind of just, you know, it like evolved. And it wasn't like it wasn't super bad. It wasn't like I was wearing sweatpants every day. But also it kind of it rail-roaded for me though after the fifth baby was born because I had been trying to kind of find myself again, especially through style, which is my area of expertise now. I'd been experimenting and trying for several years to kind of find that part of myself again, that spark that I enjoyed like pretty things and fashion and shoes and all that stuff. But I hadn't really had any luck. I hadn't really found a system that worked for me as a mom who likes things relatively simple, but also pretty and functional

Pain, Comfort, And A Dress Uniform

Stacey Herndon 10:01

and fun. And when he was born, my fifth baby, it was 2020, it was the start of the pandemic. You know, life was weird. And it's really funny because I feel like my business started at the same time, everybody started really like living in their sweatpants. And so it was kind of a an odd time in the world at that moment. But I also, after he was born, I started having really bad autoimmune flares to the point that my skin hurt kind of all over. And so when things would touch my skin, it hurt really bad. And so all of my like fashion and style attempts that I had been doing fell apart because nothing was actually comfortable. Everything actually hurt. I had two things that I liked wearing, and one of them was pajamas, obviously, and the other one was just a dress. Instead of trying to create 50,000 different outfits, I went to my husband one day and I was like, hey, do you think my whole wardrobe could just be like this dress and maybe some different color dresses, the same thing, and maybe some cardigans, and some different colors of the cardigans, and I could just wear those all the time. And he looked at me with this look on his face, like, why are you even asking me this question? This seems so obvious to me. And he said, Why do you think I asked you to buy me seven of the exact same shirt? Like the simplicity of just choosing the same thing, essentially, to create that space in your life when it's full and busy and you care about, you know, your purpose and your family and your mission in life. And it's it's such a big thing that drives you every day that you've lost that piece of yourself. Like, how do you get it back in a way that doesn't take away from those people and those things that mean so much to you?

DanielaSm 11:29

Hmm. Interesting. Then your husband has been always uh minimalistic in a way and simplistic.

Personal Uniforms And Decision Fatigue

Stacey Herndon 11:34

I even I've never thought about that before. I would say it's interesting because what we're talking about is kind of the concept of a personal uniform. And it's interesting because um it's something that highly successful people somewhat do without really registering it because they recognize that it gives them back more time, more energy. Um, it doesn't create as much decision fatigue in their morning, stealing their creative output. And so people like Steve Jobs is kind of one of the original people who did this. A lot of men naturally do this. Um, and nobody bats an eye because men aren't judged for style the way that women are. You know, women get dressed for other women, and we show up for other women in that way. Um, but men don't kind of have that same social contract when it comes to fashion, so they're more free to just have seven gray shirts and wear the same thing every day. My entrepreneurial grandfather was actually somebody who did this as well. He wore the exact same thing every day. And when I was a kid, I always thought that he must have just one set of the same clothes. But one day when I was about 14 or so, I remember going into his closet and it felt very forbidden because I never went into their bedroom. And um, I opened in the closet and I looked, and he had seven of the exact same shirt and seven of the exact same pair of pants, and then back in the corner was his one brown suit that he wore for weddings and funerals. And so it's kind of something that's been modeled my whole life, this idea of true simplicity. Um, but what works for men, right, with the black or my husband's green shirt or Zuckerberg's gray shirt, right? Like they just wear the exact same color all the time. We as women tend to be a little bit more creative and expressive, and we don't want to wear the same black shirt every day. It feels stifling. Some women do, and that's great. I actually did it when I was in grad school, so I totally get the appeal of that, but we want something that's more expressive and fun. So the idea is that instead of wearing, you know, having seven of the same black shirt or blue shirt or whatever color it happens to be, um, you would say if it's going to be, you know, a simple dress, right? Well just a simple dress, you might have black and navy and red and green, right? So it's four different colors of the exact same dress. So it's the same idea of simplicity, of wearing the same thing every day, but with the added bonus of the creative aspect of adding color and and texture and different bits of style.

DanielaSm 13:40

Depends also on the country. Some some places like in South America, for example, they like to wear color all the time. And then here in North America is mostly gray colors and black colors.

Stacey Herndon 13:51

The sad boring beige.

DanielaSm 13:52

So you feel strange.

Stacey Herndon 13:54

Yeah, and you feel strange when you're using colors. You know, color is actually what

Colour Psychology And Style Goals

Stacey Herndon 13:58

started my business. It's the thing I started talking about first when I didn't when I was trying to figure out the system for myself and how to get dressed and just make it simple. Um, color is where I started, and so color is actually sort of my passion and love language, to be honest. Um, but it's such a powerful thing, right? And what you talked about is so true. Culturally, there are very many differences in how people use color as expression. And definitely minimalism and beige and gray has sort of been trending for quite some time in the US, and it's probably a reaction to, you know, generational things. Color is powerful, you know, it's it's not just a creative expression or artistic expression, but it actually is a very powerful form of communication because colors have psychological principles that are attached to them. And so, you know, again, what you choose to wear, I always say this, my sister loves it when I say this, but like every day when you get dressed, you're communicating something, and whether you mean to or not. So let's be really sure that you're communicating something intentional, what you want to say, instead of just accidentally saying something else.

DanielaSm 14:52

Can you explain that a little more? I mean, I like to be creative, like, and I love it when I'm like, oh, I can put this with that, and I feel like, oh my god, I was created today. And that's uh, but I'm not, you know, like I'm not I I know I'm not great at it, uh, but I I feel that that's it. I don't think that I have I'm giving a message. So what what is the message that you think that people sent? But it's always something, right?

Stacey Herndon 15:16

It ha like we can communicate our our approach to life, whether we, you know, someone dressed in sweatpants going out to dinner at a restaurant is uh perceived very differently than somebody who is wearing nice clothing at a restaurant, it's a different perception. And in that moment alone, people are communicating how much they care about their appearance, how much they care about their perception of others. Another situation is for instance, if you're wearing something really uncomfortable because you're focused on like the aesthetic appearance of how you look versus how it's feeling on your body. And then you go out and you have coffee with a friend. A friend's telling you a story, wants your advice, they're having a tough time. But you, because you're wearing uncomfortable clothes, so you're fidgeting and you're picking and you're not paying attention to your friend. So in that moment, your clothing choices are now communicating that your friend's problems, life, relationship to you is not as valuable as how people perceive you. We really get into this. We teach our clients a concept called style goals where we have them really think about how they want to be perceived, how they want to communicate with the world, and we teach them as these big kind of concepts. You know, do I want to be confident or those things? And then we show them how to really kind of focus in on that and make sure that the way they get dressed every day helps them to communicate those things that they want to be seen as. You know, and we have different areas of life, right? So we want to be confident at work, maybe we want to be nurturing at home. And so we have to talk about how to like dial in those different things for different areas and different relationships and different people and situations. But ultimately, yeah, everything that we wear is is some choice about who we are. We're saying something about who we are. We're telling the world, because clothing is a form of nonverbal communication beyond just the color piece, we're telling the world who we are. I would hate nothing more than for any of us to be out there telling the world I don't care, rather than, you know, this is what I'm passionate about and this is what matters to me.

DanielaSm 17:04

Yes, I've been seeing that a lot. And I remember having a guest that she is always on Instagram and she's posting, she she always gets uh clothes from the secondhand shop and then she meets mix matches and then she takes pictures and and she's like 67, maybe now, a little older. She's amazing, like the way she does, and it's the confidence that she puts it. And and of course, the clothes also makes you feel confident.

Stacey Herndon 17:30

It does. I've had I've had I've had so many clients over the years say to me, because you know, we I started during COVID, and so I had to so many people were into that athleisure and being comfortable. Um, and there's so much cultural stuff around that too. It's really interesting. I have clients in Germany that, you know, like we never wear athletic wear outside of the gym. You know, it's very different. And so I've had clients that come to me and say that like I don't, I'm afraid to look overdressed. I'm afraid that people will think I'm snobby if I'm too overdressed. And I always tell them it is m it is much better to be overdressed than underdressed, because at least if you're overdressed, you're showing that the effort matters to you and the people matter to you. Um you would never wear sweatpants to a job interview, most of unless you're a unless you're a trainer, like a fitness trainer, right? Even then. Because we know in our heads that what we're wearing communicates something about us. And we want to be, if we go to a job interview, we want to be seen as confident and trustworthy and competent and able to do the job that they're gonna give us.

DanielaSm 18:22

You know, I always say that you have to be just one level up from where you're going. And and I feel like that's kind of, you know, if I invite you over for dinner, cooking and making an effort, maybe setting the table. I mean, I do care about setting the table. I mean, I know that as a host I have to be comfortable, like, but other than that, I feel like it's so important that you kind of respect that somebody's making an effort, you

Seven Outfit Types For Real Life

DanielaSm 18:44

you make it too.

Stacey Herndon 18:44

Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned that because we actually so I just released a book a couple weeks ago. Um, and one of the things that we taught inside of it was something called the seven foolproof outfits, because we again it's this concept of a personal uniform, but people don't, you know, you don't wear the same thing everywhere you go. You you have different settings in your life, essentially. And so we built this concept of seven different settings, outfit types basically, um, that people can create. And most people don't need seven, most people need like three to five. But you know, it's something like, you know, maybe you need a specific outfit-based uniform, we call them, a uniform for going to church on Sunday. And then you have something separate for being casual at home, so we call that one. And then we have another one. So casual community would be out in public, casual at home, is a little more dressed down like what you're talking about, hosting friends for dinner. Um, and then we have one for like going out. So if you were going to the theater regularly or something like that, you would have something like that. And then we even have one for loungewear because your lounge wear, what you're relaxing in at home, should still be separate from pajamas. Your pajamas for should really just be for sleeping. And it's because there are all these studies about productivity and mindset being better when you're fully dressed, right? And so we built all these different setting kind of categories to find just the right idea. For this, I need a dress and a cardigan. And for this one, I need jeans and a blouse, you know, and so in these different areas, and then we take each of those and we just multiply them to make the getting dress process really easy. So there's all this creativity baked into what is really a very simplistic system at base.

DanielaSm 20:09

Sounds wonderful. So we're going back to you had the kids, then you decided during COVID to come up with this business idea.

Stacey Herndon 20:16

Yeah, it just kind of it just really it just happened. Yeah, I just I started talking about what I was doing and kind of muddling through the process of fixing my own style problem. The business just kind of grew.

DanielaSm 20:26

Asking your husband about the dresses and the cardigans, did you decide to do that? So I'm going to have seven dresses, different colors with different cardigans, and then combine them? That's exactly what I did.

Stacey Herndon 20:37

Except I didn't, I didn't do seven. I went a little crazy in the beginning, and I think I had like 16 dresses and like 10 cardigans. So I am not really a minimalist at heart. I'm more of a maximalist. So for me, you know, seven dresses is not quite enough for my creative outlets. And to this day, still, it's six years later, to this day, so I can tell you that's still the same thing I wear every day. The dresses are different, they've changed. I've changed preference for, you know, fabric types and color, some colors a little bit, but really like the colors are very similar to what I had six years ago because I stick to the colors that are really flattering for me. I still wear dresses that are mostly, you know, kind of a fit and flare, not really, I don't wear like shapeless dresses because they don't look great on me. So I still wear fit and flare dresses. I still wear cardigans. It's the exact same thing, it's just grown with me over time.

Style Shifts With Seasons Of Life

DanielaSm 21:22

Yeah, yeah, that sounds interesting. I mean, I I used to be a dress person, like I always wear love dresses, and then I started to work in a sport facility uh in 2019, and then it changed because you know, like the dresses didn't fit. I felt like there was more masculine energy in that place, and so I needed to be wearing pants. The dresses I realized, so they they've been in the closet for a while, and I decided, okay, I'm gonna clean up and they were very structured. I have an hourglass shape, so that the dresses were like that too. I feel, but I haven't figured out something that it flows a bit more, something that is more freedom, like that you know, the structure is kind of re. It and I feel like my personality now has to change a little. So I don't know if you have come across with that that can happen also that your personality can change a little bit and then you you don't want to wear the same things because of that.

Stacey Herndon 22:13

Absolutely. It's so true. And it it happens, and I think it's funny because this was a misconception that I had when I was struggling with style. I thought that if I just could build the perfect closet, the perfect wardrobe, the perfect set of clothes, my problems would go away and they would be fixed. But what I realized, and this is something I realized, and I would not have have had this realization if it wasn't for all the wonderful clients I've had over the years, is that style as a practice, as an experience, is something that we do. It is a circular process. Um, there is no finish line, and it's because we do keep changing. And for many of us, it's these, it's small changes, just like a preferential thing. Like I just don't want to wear constricting clothes anymore. And I totally get this because I was once in grad school for my MBA and I worked in hospital administration and I wore, you know, business professional clothing, much more structured. And now, as a mom of seven who spends 99% of my time at home with them working virtually, I can't stand anything that feels constricting. It literally just feels like I'm being choked. And so I totally get the preference bit, but also we have to think about how we as people physically change as well, right? Um, I'm 45, I'm in the early stages of perimenopause, there are really big changes coming for me down the pipeline. And so it's these, it's these body changes, it's these preferential changes. We can also talk about how lifestyle changes go into effect, right? So for many women, they spend their whole lives working in a career and then they hit retirement and they have a closet of beautiful clothing that no longer suits them because they're now retired. That it is a process, color analysis, which sticks with you through your lifetime, or um, style analysis, which we also do, which is based on your facial features and your body type a little bit and things like that. Um, when we can nail those things down as time goes by, the changes aren't nearly as traumatic for people because you still have the baseline of this is who I am, these are the colors that look good on me, this are the type of clothing that really looks best on me. And so the tweaks then become how do I shift small things to kind of reflect who I'm becoming now? How do I shift my wardrobe for a different season of life that I'm now in? I'm bored wearing blue all the time. How do I think about maybe adding a different color to my wardrobe? And so the shifts become smaller. It's definitely true that life is gonna continue to throw things at us and our style is gonna continue to have to evolve with us as we evolve

When Unflattering Colours Drain Energy

Stacey Herndon 24:28

as people.

DanielaSm 24:28

For example, with the colors that you said, I heard that yes, you have your season. However, if you happen to like, I don't know, green when green is not in the tone of the greens that you're supposed to like be, it could be your color because you really, really like it. Sometimes the rules can be broken.

Stacey Herndon 24:46

I actually disagree. The first thing I'll say is I never tell anyone they can't wear colors because color analysis is supposed to be freeing and it's supposed to help you feel confident and good. And if a color makes you feel confident, you're most likely going to look good. So, for example, so the color lavender. I love the color lavender. I am a winter, I look good in dark, bright colors. Um, lavender makes me look like a pale, washed-out sick fish. Like it's really, really unflattering. But I love it. And there were so many times over the years that I would buy it anyways and wear it. And what I have noticed over time is that it affects the way I feel like energetically, like who I am as a person. It makes me feel it's not just like physically how it looks against my skin, which is a real thing. It actually makes me feel dragged down, sort of depressed even. And I find this to be true with most colors that are what I would consider to be really, really unflattering for me. But yes, as far as like the seasons themselves, there is a lot of borrowing and leaning and and pulling that we can do. But most people do have colors that are really, really unflattering. Um, and those will typically make you actually feel bad for lack of a better word, to just feel really down on yourself. And if if you don't feel confident and you don't feel good, even if you can't place like why you don't feel good, it affects how you show up in the world around you, which goes back to the you know, how we're communicating thing. So I would say the answer to that is yes and no. Yes, there's a lot of leaning and borrowing and pulling and making things work and the confidence of it has to be taken into account.

DanielaSm 26:12

But that's interesting. I I did I didn't think about the energy, and that's something that I also am mindful about.

Stacey Herndon 26:18

There's this incredible theory, like it's a style theory system. It was kind of developed by a man named John Kitchener, but it goes back earlier, um, early in the 20th century to Harriet May Jimsey, um, and another name that I have suddenly lost in my brain. But it's the system of style typing. Um, and I love it because just like color analysis, it's based on like how you were born, your features, your genetics. So it's not something that you can just like change unless you, you know, were to go get like plastic surgery kind of things. Um and so it's intrinsic to who you are. And so, like you said, once you figure out what it is, you can either stop doing the thing that doesn't work or do more of the thing that does work, which is what the point is, is that how to like help you embrace that. It answers that question of why don't I like this thing? And then once you kind of see how it all fits into the system, it's like, oh, this is exactly why I don't like that thing. And it's okay that I don't like that thing because it's not for me. And I can still look at that thing and think it's really beautiful, and I really love it on the people that it works for. For me, it's a no, and for you, it's a beautiful yes. And I think that that gives us freedom in expressing ourselves through style and feeling confident and at home and like free to be who we really are as a person and how we get dressed and present ourselves.

DanielaSm 27:24

You know, one of my favorite places to go is to go to a fabric store.

Stacey Herndon 27:28

They're yeah. They're gone now, they're all gone now, pretty much. No, right? It's very sad. It does, it's a very joyful thing, you know, and each colors have different, like I said earlier, psychological principles that go with them. You know, like yellow is associated with happiness and warmth, and red's associated with passion and power, and and blue is associated with trustworthiness, depending on the shade of blue, trustworthiness and calm. You know, it it it conveys all these things, and we can use colors so powerfully to really like dial in in a different way, um, and think about it from that. Just and brown is grounded, grounded and earthy, green's organic. Orange is um orange is also like optimism and uh passion.

DanielaSm 28:08

Yeah, that's right. I the black, you know. I I have a I can wear a black pants, but if I have to wear a black shirt, I work in events sometimes, so I have to work black. I just don't feel good.

Stacey Herndon 28:20

Like the energy and it's that energy, that energy that we talked about, it drains you. And that's what that's what unflattering colors typically they just do that for they just drain it out of you. I did this challenge several years ago. Um, and it's uh it's you wear the same exact wool dress for a hundred days, and you get a gift card at the end, it's actually like a style challenge focusing on consumption, sustainability, and stuff. And so I did this and I chose a black dress for a hundred days. And I am a winter, I look good in black, I love wearing black. I've always considered black to be like a beautiful blank canvas for all the other color that I want to wear. But I will tell you that after wearing black for a hundred days, I was so done and over it and burned out. I wore navy for like a good six months as my core base neutral after that. But it was just so stark. And and one of the things I realized during that process, because it's it's me and I like to go dig into everything and why everything exists, and I realized um that from a color perspective, white is the full light spectrum, all the colors, and black is the absence of all light, the absence of all color. I was like, oh, maybe that's why it just kind of feels draining now after wearing it for so long, is because I've like removed that, but remove the light from my clothing, and so I had to add it back in.

Research, Frameworks, And Building A System

DanielaSm 29:28

Yeah, that's true. Okay, so go back because this is too interesting, and we could talk for hours. But so then you started these pieces, so how do you start it? So you you got the clothes and then you decided, oh, maybe I can help people.

Stacey Herndon 29:40

I was in some different groups of people who were exploring like capsule wardrobes, which is that whole concept of a mix and match wardrobe that makes getting dressed easy. And I had been experimenting and I knew some people, and so someone said to me one day when I said, you know, I think I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna wear the same dress, and I'm gonna wear the same outfit with different colors. Like this is gonna be my one outfit, right? So when we talk about an outfit, we talk about like the pieces that go together. So a top, a bottom, usually we add a third piece and that makes it look really intentional. So for me, the outfit was just two pieces, it was a dress and a cardigan. And that was gonna be my go-to outfit formula, if you will, for my life, my uniform. I told someone about this, and she's like, Hey, you should start a blog about it. And so I said, Okay, I can do that. I've done that before. And and I just sat down and I I started telling other people about it, and the question was like, where do I get started? was what people asked me, where do I start with this? And so I the first question to answer was, where do you start? And for me it was, oh, let's just start with color because that's what makes sense. We can we can talk about how to create this concept of wearing the same thing every day, but we need to put a parameter around it. And the parameter needs to be color because it's very functional, it's very useful, it's very joyful. Um, it does, it fits all the boxes. I started writing articles about color analysis and it evolved. And first things we offered was a six-week program for women to come in. We walked them through the process of creating these style uniforms for their life. And we started with color and we talked about style analysis, and then we showed them how do you think about breaking out the areas of your life, those situational pieces that we talked about, to create different uniforms for every part of your life.

DanielaSm 31:12

And it evolved over the years. You knew about colors from the past, or you started to research more to write in your blogs?

Stacey Herndon 31:20

Um, it was just research. So I actually got a nickname in college and they called me the research junkie. And so people would come to me and say, If if it exists out there, Stacey can find it. And so for me, research is like part of who I am at the core. So, yes, I just started researching. I started reading literally everything that had ever been published about color analysis that I could get my hands on. And then my brain is very much an analytical kind of person, started breaking it apart and then putting it back together, and so I just started sharing framework for what I was discovering that aligned with one that already existed. It wasn't anything new at that point. But last year we actually did develop our own proprietary system.

DanielaSm 31:52

When you say we, I mean I I'm just talking to you.

Stacey Herndon 31:55

I have a team, the business would not be where it is if it wasn't for my team.

DanielaSm 31:59

Yeah, I can imagine.

Teaching Kids Simplicity And Decluttering

DanielaSm 32:00

You think that everybody can learn? Do you have to take a course? Also, practice. So, what are the the must have to be able to be successful at what you're teaching? I'll answer this from the other direction.

Stacey Herndon 32:11

There are a couple things I have seen that makes it sort of impossible to implement this kind of style system in your life. People who have shopping as a hobby, women who are very, very much into trends don't really do well with this process just because um it requires you to settle and to look at yourself instead of looking at what's out there. You can go to our website, radiantlydressed.com. We have tons of articles with all of this information out there. It does take time though, and that's one of the things we tell people. Um, one of the things that we tell them to do is just to take pictures of your clothing every day. Put your clothes on, look in the mirror, take an outfit of your clothes. It's actually best if you can take a picture from far away. Like set your camera up on the bar or something and let it take a picture from like the back side because it gives you a very realistic, undistorted view of yourself and how you look in your clothes. Because that just daily studying of what you're wearing is very illuminating. It will show you so much about what works, what doesn't work. Um, and even if you don't know the why, those things will give you the why behind why it doesn't work, but you'll start to notice a pattern of what looks great, what doesn't look great, what feels good, what doesn't feel good. And over time you'll start to see a pattern of what your style really is and who you are as somebody, how you express your style.

DanielaSm 33:24

Wonderful. What about your seven kids? How are you teaching them? Yeah, imagine you have boys and girls, so uh are you only focusing on the girls or are you also teaching the boys?

Stacey Herndon 33:34

I think about so much of parenting is modeling what you do rather than always talking about it all the time. I mean, they they know about the business, they know what I do. My oldest daughter is very interested in what are my colors, what looks good on me, and I keep telling her, we won't do your colors till you're at least 16 because this is one of those nerdy things, but your coloring matures between the ages of 18 and 21, so you really shouldn't focus too much on it before then, just have fun, be a kid, right? But I do I do all the shopping for my family, so I definitely implement the uniform framework for all of my kids. Because with seven kids, if they all have too many clothes, it gets very chaotic very quickly. One of the things that we have is what we call a four-piece wardrobe system, which basically says that you get four pieces. So for my kids, I'll do, you know, four shorts in the summer and four t-shirts for their kind of play clothes. In the winter, we'll do like four pairs of pants and four long sleeve shirts. Um, everybody gets just one jacket because we live in a really warm climate. And so I do implement this in their wardrobes. So we're just really trying to teach them you don't need a time to be happy. You just need clothes that make you happy.

DanielaSm 34:32

Yes, but though so the oldest one gets the four pieces, but then the the next one gets four pieces, and then the other four pieces from the older ones are now are too small. So then the youngest one has the most, the most clothes.

Stacey Herndon 34:44

I try to clean it out. One of the things that's really important to do, obviously, is to go through and do sort of a decluttering process on a regular basis. Because obviously, with seven kids, yes, I'm handing things down. I ask, would I buy this again right now in its current state? So would I be happy to buy this right now? And if the answer is no, I try to just get rid of it.

DanielaSm 35:00

We only have two boys, but I remember that the youngest one and then there was one point that he actually had like 60 t-shirts from collections of from his brother. And so I was like, Oh my god, here you go. You can wear one every day. And he will always wear the first seven or less. Yeah, so the other ones were there because you know they look good and we didn't want to give it away.

Stacey Herndon 35:22

Eventually we did. You know, collecting clothing is an a whole different conversation. I have clients that do this. I'm a bit of a collector myself. We collect things. Oh, this is beautiful. Oh, I'm gonna wear it here, and then we never really wear it, and then it sits in our closet and it makes us feel guilty because it's still got tags sitting on it. Um, and so that's one of the things we always talk about, you know, it's like wear buying clothes that you're actually gonna wear versus collecting things. You're saw it in his collection, but it just it made me realize that that's such a good moment to talk about, too, is only having clothes in our closet that actually fit. And what you said about him in the first seven, that is so true. Because earlier I told you that when I first did this, I had like 20 dresses, right? I had so many. I realized the same thing. I tended to gravitate to like a set of favorites, and the rest of them I hardly ever wore. And so they were really just there as some sort of safety net, like a collection safety net. Like, oh, what if what if what, Stacy? What if what if you're not gonna be naked one day? That's the worst thing that could happen. Like, what am I what-ifing this for?

Shopping Dopamine And Trusting Your Gut

Stacey Herndon 36:15

Yeah.

DanielaSm 36:15

So I had a friend, and so we were gonna meet in one store once, a fancy uh department store, and then I'd really never go in. I was waiting, I got there earlier, and then I decided to look at the clothes, and and and I was calling my husband, oh my god, can you believe it the price of this? And blah blah. So we walk around, and there was this coat, and I always believed that you know, I have one coat and that's all what I need. She was like, Oh no, you need seven. And then I see this coat. Wow, this coat is really beautiful, but I don't need it, I don't need it. And so I go home, I share my mom, I tell my mom, my aunt that the really beautiful coat, and though all of them, that's really a good investment. You should all get it, and everybody, and I was like, that that's that's wrong, but everybody insisted, so I thought, oh my god, I must have it. And so finally I get the coat, and the coat has been worn maybe six times, and I have it in my closet, and it's very pretty, and I feel terrible that I actually made that portraits for no reason.

Stacey Herndon 37:19

Well, you you did. There was a lot, there was a lot going on there actually when you tell your story. So, number one, shopping feeds dopamine, and dopamine is that feel-good hormone, right? Which is why so many people get into shopping addictions, and even shopping as a hobby, um, is because it makes them feel good and it gives you a sense of, especially it gives you a sense of controls for people who are struggling in life. It can feel very much like I can do this, I can buy this, I'm gonna be good. But it also gives you that like that drug type rush of dopamine. But also you had peer pressure going on, so you had like all these people convincing you to buy it, and that's why I tell people all often, um, if you're gonna go shopping, just go shopping alone because then there's nobody convincing you you should buy that. Because I truly feel this is something I will I will say to the end of time. Um, we know when clothes are good for us before we ever look in the mirror. So think about sometime that you maybe you ordered something online um and you put it on and you didn't look in the mirror, and you immediately knew when it hit your body that it was a yes or no. And then what happens is it was a no when you put it on. You're like, I don't like the way this feels, but then you look in the mirror and you think, oh, but it looks good. It looks good, it looks nice. I could see myself wearing it XYZ, but you still kind of know it wasn't right. And so then maybe you ask a friend or ask your husband, and they, oh yeah, it looks great, you should keep it. And so we start to ignore that voice in our head that said, This is a no for me. You knew the coat was a no for you because it was beautiful, but you didn't need it. And then, you know, the rush of the shopping, you're being with your friend, you know, we could probably, I mean, the environment itself also is designed to create that like rush of shopping feeling. And then you went home and your family was like, Oh yeah, keep it. Like everything was talking you into going against what you knew instinctively to be true. And I think that's such a powerful thing. I I tell people when you're trying on clothes, um, try them on and don't look in the mirror. And let that first, let that first feeling like sit with you and hit you because you'll know. You'll know immediately if it's a yes, and if it's not a yes, then it's a no. Like it's you know, you don't have to talk yourself into it.

DanielaSm 39:21

I read this book called The Essentialism. He says, you know, when it's uh if it's a not a yes is a it's a no, and there's no maybes. What if it's a maybe is a no. And I'm applying that also, you know. Yeah, if it's not a yes, it's a no. It it's hard sometimes, for sure. It's hard.

Stacey Herndon 39:39

It is. Because we can rationalize so many things about what if and and maybe and perhaps and all those things, but at the end of the day, it's just like it's just clutter, right? It's just clutter in our houses, clutter in our minds, more things that we have to deal with and decide about, and it's just usually not worth the effort.

The U Uniform Book Explained

DanielaSm 39:56

Yes, wow. And you said that you just finish a book. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Stacey Herndon 40:00

I did. I did. I I wrote this book. This is this one's an I. So I wrote this book all of last year. We just launched it, we did launch it. It is called a uniform, and that is Y-O-U uniform, not just a U. It's a Y-O-U, because it should be uniquely yours for you. And the idea is just it is a book full of style systems. You know, systems being things that we can repeat and get a good result all the time and not have to stand in our closet for 17 minutes trying on three different outfits to figure out we're gonna wear that day, because that is that is madness. Every one of us here has some purpose on life, right? We have people, we have relationships, we have goals, we have things that we're actively trying to do in life to make the world a better place. And if you're standing in your closet in the morning, spending 17 minutes getting dressed, like you're stealing that time from somewhere, stealing it from somebody. Um, and usually it's the things that have more meaning because really what we wear, yes, it's fun, yes, it's creative, but at the end of the day, it's it's kind of meaningless in a way, especially when compared to things like your family or your career or your goals or what's gonna leave a lasting legacy and impact in your life. And so it's really the goal is to teach women how to get dressed in two minutes a day. So it's full of systems, so you can get dressed in two minutes a day. Um, it talks about why it's so hard, right? The time piece of and the decision fatigue in the mornings, the fashion industry and how it's really built to make you fail at shopping, getting dressed, how they really want you in there, spending money all the time, throwing away your clothes, not keeping them. Uh, we talk about the communication aspect, the psychological aspect of why we get dressed, all the fun stuff about how to create repeatable outfits for every single part of your life, from you know, casual at home to date night to loungewear to your work uniform, like all the things are covered in there. And then we get into the fun stuff about the color and the style typing and the body typing a bit, decluttering and shopping tips and all of those different things. So it is really a full uh encompassing system to help any woman revamp her wardrobe so that she can have more time to focus on purpose and what matters most.

Accessories, Shoes, And Outfit Multipliers

Stacey Herndon 42:01

But do you talk about shoes too?

DanielaSm 42:03

No, but I love shoes.

Stacey Herndon 42:04

Shoes are really part of just the whole like overall aesthetic.

DanielaSm 42:07

And I'm sure you also love accessories.

Stacey Herndon 42:10

No, it it's really interesting. I find that people don't ask me those questions a lot. People get really focused on the the creating the uniform part, and so the accessories bit is more of an advanced tactic. And it's interesting, I did not really include it in my book, other than just some like cursory mentions of how we would add accessories to a sample uniform that we created, you know, to make it more broad. Things like a scarf for shoes. But it actually is not in there, and it's funny, I truly am a shoe lover, just like you. I had heels that um some of them still live in my closet, but I moved boxes of heels from house to house to house in my 20s and 30s, and they were my prized possessions, and I also no longer wear them. Right, and and that's so important. Accessories are really important for me. I just I uniform them too. You know, I have this scarf on today, and I I think I have like six of them in different colors, and they're all sparkly and they're all the same shape, and I just mix and match them out. Uh my shoes are kind of the same. I I have different uniform categories for my shoes. So for me, it is even my earrings. I have this pair of earrings that I'm wearing today. I have them in seven seven different colors. So for me, it really is it very much is the rinse and repeat, like same style dress, same style cardigan, same style shoes, same kind of earrings. And I just put them together, and it's really interesting because if you if you created like a three-piece uniform, so that would be four, and then you had four tops, four bottoms, and four completer pieces, like a blazer, cardigan, etc. It gives you 12 pieces of clothing. But you can take those 12 pieces of clothing and you can maximize them to 64 outfits, and that is before you add your shoes, accessories, jewelry. So you're at 64 without the accessories, which is kind of mind blowing when you think about it.

DanielaSm 43:49

Yes. I I like to wear the same earrings. I always have the pearls. I'm too lazy to be changing that. The only thing that I love is my is bracelets. I love to collect them. Oh, stacked bracelets are beautiful. They just stay with me all the time and I don't put them on and off because that's too much work. Like that's waste of time for me. But accessories, I I feel like a bell makes such a difference. Wearing a scarf makes such a difference. I don't like necklaces too much. Sunglasses nowadays, I'm very much into that. Realize now it's not about looking good on the glasses, but actually wearing the glasses. That's something that hit me and I'm like, oh I learned something new and now I I'm changing.

Confidence With Age And Less Validation

DanielaSm 44:27

So I'm I'm happy about that.

Stacey Herndon 44:28

Yes I love sunglasses. I you know one of the things I find interesting is that I used to try to market to women who were in their 30s who were homeschool moms like me. But I found that for some reason my message didn't land quite right. And I think it's because there's something that happens as we mature as women. I've seen it said especially now that menopause is such a big topic and trending that as we go through like the perimenopause, menopause change, um we kind of lose our giving a crap feeling about what other people think of us. And I it truly is a moment of freedom to be able to unlock this is who I am and this is how I'm going to express myself and to be fully confident and fully joyful and have fun with it and not focus so much on do these glasses fit my face shape versus I just really love these glasses and I'm going to wear them. And that's all there is to it.

DanielaSm 45:12

And if you don't like it, don't look at me like people always say I don't I don't care what people think, but I feel it's more like we have the confidence that if we like it that's all what matters. So I don't I don't know if I I don't care what people think is good in a way you still want to hear compliments. I don't know if it's not that you don't care. It's just that you have the confident and I and I want to wear it and I think that shows when you have the confidence it shows whatever you're wearing that you're carrying it with like the confidence that it's yours. You're grounded.

Stacey Herndon 45:41

Yeah I maybe it's that you don't need the external validation because you are happy with yourself and you are content with yourself and who you are. And it's nice and it's beautiful to get it. It's those compliments but it's really interesting how when you get to that place where you are confident and you don't need the validation it's you get more compliments. It's the strangest thing how it's almost like people are reacting to the confidence and to your presence and sense of self that you are sure and just centered in who you are and settled.

DanielaSm 46:13

Yes.

Final Reflections And What To Do Next

DanielaSm 46:14

We were talking about this beautiful book that I'm gonna get guys going to ask you what's more for Stacy, but I think that I'm gonna tell you what's more for you which will be a book for shoes and accessories.

Stacey Herndon 46:25

Is that a good idea? Yeah that's a fantastic idea actually wasn't even on my radar and I guess there's so many different foundational things to think about that that's icing on the cake.

DanielaSm 46:36

Well and can I add and know how to walk with the shoes and know how to wear the accessories a little bit of manners.

Stacey Herndon 46:46

I don't know is that too old fashioned no I think that etiquette does have a piece in it dressing for the occasion not wearing your stuff hands to dinner with anybody basically for sure there is a piece that's interesting. I had never considered that I don't really it's interesting how I don't think of it from that perspective. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah so I think man is also your next uh chapter next book I have several more books in me ready to be written so the next one will probably be I mentioned that we had developed a proprietary um style typing system so that will actually be the next book I actually previewed it a little bit in the appendix of this one so it's back there. Answering those questions like why do I like this but why do I not like that kind of does that. So that's gonna be the next book actually. Okay.

DanielaSm 47:27

Wow. And when is that coming huh?

Stacey Herndon 47:29

Oh it's gonna be a couple years. I have this wonderful book coach who walked with me every step of the way for writing a book and publishing a book um and she told me that this one needs to breathe for a while. So so really the next step for this year is to just um get this book into as many hands as possible to help as many women get dressed in two minutes in the morning and really find that confidence and happiness and beauty in themselves.

DanielaSm 47:53

I'm gonna write down accessories and shoes because I do love when they're both yes I think they're important. Well Stacey thank you so much I'm so glad that you were here and that we talk about all these things up yet because I don't know people tend to say oh that's you know that's not important but I think it is important you know it it it it gives beauty to the world to have colors to dress nice to feel confident.

Stacey Herndon 48:15

People think that it's shallow but it's not like fashion and style is not shallow at all. It is truly a turning inside out process of finding who you are and you have to honestly to be successful in your personal style to feel good in your clothes to express yourself authentically and truthfully in how you look you have to get really comfortable and uncomfortable with who you truly are and be willing to face that person and make the changes because it is a personal development journey at its heart.

DanielaSm 48:43

Yes personal development is true I totally agree.

Stacey Herndon 48:45

So thank you for that it is important it really is. Thank you so much for having me here and letting me share my story.

DanielaSm 48:51

So thank you. Stacy's story reminds us that style isn't about having more clothes or chasing trends. It is about creating a wardrobe that supports the life you're living today. I bought her book I have learned a few things and one of them accepting the idea that we don't just grow out of clothes because our body changes we outgrow them because our life changes we become parents change careers retire move to a new home face health challenges discover new passions or simply become different people our world should evolve with us. Sometimes the greatest confidence comes from simplifying letting go of what no longer serves us and this could be with clothing with relationships with activities and choosing things in clothes that reflect who we are today not who we used to be. If something from this conversation inspires you share it with someone join me next time for another story conversation. Thank you for listening at the project