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Every person has a style, and every style deserves support. Enter your style strategy cheerleader and founder of BU Style, Natalie Tincher. Since 2010 Natalie has worked with hundreds of personal clients as well as large corporations and a major global news network—and she is here to guide you.
In this podcast, you will gain clarity and insights on how to connect your style with your authentic self through Natalie's style expertise as well as interviews with other style-supporting guests like designers, clients, and other professionals in and out of the fashion industry.
Whether you love fashion, fear fashion, or fall somewhere in between, it doesn't matter. This isn't about fashion; it's about exploring who you are and how to own your unique style identity. This podcast will help you cut through the noise and examine your personal style holistically so you can "wear who you are" every day.
0:00:00 - Natalie Tincher
We've journeyed together through 34 episodes, met 18 different guests, including designers, my clients, a minister, coaches, business owners. We've done a lot. Welcome to when who you Are, a podcast that takes the fear out of fashion and holds space for everyone to explore how to connect your authenticity with your personal style. I'm your host, natalie Tinscher, founder of VU Style, expert style strategist and your enthusiastic friend in safe space of support. I believe that every person has a style and every style deserves a seat. With over a decade of experience working with hundreds of personal clients, I've learned a thing or two about how to help others have a healthy and holistic approach to navigating, how to build a wardrobe that reflects who you are. So pull up your seat and let's get started. Okay, new music, new cover, art that means it's time to cue the confetti. This week, we are celebrating officially one year of when who you Are, and also I just celebrated turning 40 fun, so we've got another year of the podcast to celebrate, another year of consistently putting out episodes of when who you Are. We've journeyed together through 34 episodes, met 18 different guests, including designers, my clients, a minister, coaches, business owners. We've done a lot. We've had listeners in 38 countries and 42 US states, which was pretty shocking to me when I was putting together the analytics. The most downloaded solo episodes were episode four, which was discovering your dope and dopamine dressing, and episode 22, which was the first steps to creating a smart and sustainable style strategy Start in your closet. And then our most downloaded guest episodes were episode number two from the very beginning, a style story claiming your authentic personal style, with Andrea Nunes, and episode 18 style story also, how are you investing in yourself, with Megan Kingery. So, as you know, I also love a good Instagram poll and I thank you very much for indulging me in them.
So I put out a couple of questions just about what you liked about the podcast. Again, I'm just oftentimes talking into the air and so I like to know. I like to know what you like, so I've never just assuming. So I'm pulling up the poll right now to see what everyone said about the podcast in this first year. So first I asked what were some of your favorite episodes. Some of the answers are episodes on sustainability and the makeup episode from Rebecca, a guest that I had on, said mine, hi, mahima. And then she said but seriously loved the one spotlighting small biz, pearlet, grammar, etc. Another friend of mine, faith today, because I heard my name she gets mentioned a lot. Hi again, faith. In terms of.
I asked the next question what type of guest do you most love learning from? And this was relatively split. We had 38% say that they like client style stories, 12% industry adjacent, which are coaches, makeup artists, etc. And 50% likes our industry insiders, our designers, our stylists, the people that are in the style and fashion industry. So thank you for writing out the waves of the first year. Thank you for supporting me in this new thing that I was trying to do.
I am not a trained journalist or public speaker, though I did have a two year stint as the anchor for CNN. That would be the lesser known CNN Columbia Network News or my, also known as my middle school weekly news show. It was very cool. I got to be an anchor with my friend Alyssa and even we got to tour a news studio when I was probably 13 or 14 years old and my nickname growing up was Jabber Jaws. So, come to think of it, maybe this podcast life just chose me.
I thought I would celebrate in this celebratory episode a few things that I've learned specifically in this one year of podcast journey. I put five things together for that. The first one is that I love connecting with my guests and I love learning from other humans. That has generally been a theme in my life and this podcast gives me that opportunity to do that. It energizes me, it helps all of the work that I do. I also love researching the solo episodes that I do. I learn so much, I can build on my messaging and I can figure out what I think are the best ways to distill and package all of the research and all the findings that I have into something that will support you. So thank you for giving me that opportunity.
The second thing that I've learned in this last year is that, especially with guest episodes, it is important to plan and prepare for each episode. I like to anchor our big picture goals, but in doing so after that, that gives me the opportunity to be really present to the energy of the conversation and just let the energy of the moment dictate where the conversation needs to go. So it's that fine balance of planning but not over planning so that you're not able to receive what needs to happen in that moment. And then, third, on that vein, it's important for me when I was listening to the episodes in retrospect, to remember that whatever was said, whatever the energy of the moment, it was dictated by that specific moment in time. So this was something that has really helped me to stop overanalyzing. When you feel cringy, when you hear your voice or you look back and you could say, oh man, that was so silly or that was so dumb, just get super self-conscious. This has really this concept and thinking about that. But in that moment it's not just me, it's whatever that space dictated in the energy of it was what was meant to happen.
The fourth thing that I've learned is that growth really does take a village. I've been a small business owner or a solopreneur since 2010. As someone who has chosen not to have children aside from my pets, I truly think of my business in my life and all the work that I do as my metaphorical child. So I was solo parenting in the beginning. It was ended up being hard, lonely and confusing. In real life, I am an aunt myself who fiercely loves my nieces and nephews, and they are some of the best things to happen in my life. I see anyone who comes into my business as an aunt or an uncle, and finding aunts and uncles up for the job of helping to raise my life's work and bring talents and experience I don't have has been really instrumental in my personal and professional expansion.
Let's take this podcast, for example. The skills to record, edit and distribute. It would be way too daunting for me to tackle alone. Before, when I was totally alone and I didn't know to seek help, I probably would have just been like cool, that would be cool, but obviously it's too much for me. So it was only when I was introduced to my production team shout out to Sean, who is behind the scenes right now, and Chase, I felt like when I met them that for them they were like oh, this is no big deal, this is totally easy, this part of it we can handle. So I was like, oh, the thing that I'm the worst at and that I wouldn't even know where to begin, they can just do no big deal.
Then, from there, I have Allison, who I cannot say enough wonderful things about or express enough gratitude for her. She brings the operations and organizational skills that I need to keep me on track managing this podcast, managing my client experiences, pretty much managing everything on my biz dev and anytime I have an idea, I know now, instead of having to again keep it and wade through the things that I maybe can do but I shouldn't do, I know that I can go to Allison and she gives me. And she gives me this easy button for the things that don't always come easily for me, and not on top of that, she is truly a trusted advisor, she's a friend, and I know that she has my best interests and this community's best interest at heart. From there, I have my creative compliments in Hollis Gallagher, who has created this new cover art that we're seeing today and helped me a little over a year ago, communicate my personal brand in a way that felt so authentic to me. So she was really patient, she really asked me the right questions, really heard and listened and created a really cool personal brand and this podcast art that I feel really proud of and feel like really aligned with me. And then we have Kelly McCready, my newer director of communications and marketing, and she takes all of my ideas, all of my ethos, and she can package it so beautifully in words and images, again in a way that I would be a little I'd be too overwhelmed to do. I was recently talking to a client in that vein about how finding the right who and what you need In the what that you need is so crucial. So it's not just I need this, what I need checklist, it's finding the who, and I feel needless to say, I'm In this gratitude speech that I feel really grateful and without the support I absolutely would not have the bandwidth or the capacity to put together this, this podcast. So I'm having a blast doing it to and these people really help to me be able to focus on the part that I want to do and that I'm I think I'm Better at.
The fifth thing brings me back to the thing for other small business owners and entrepreneurs and something that I've discovered through this journey that, as much as I love business development, it can be scary and uncertain and the to do lists are always really, really long. You know you get your check of, like your checklist of growth, and then having to take decisions on what the next thing is to build or do you have to make sure that you have all the criteria in place, and I know that Overwhelmed me a lot of times and when I was thinking about doing this podcast, I made sure I added into my criteria that it needed to be fun or fulfilling or inspiring. I'm and I've added that to my criteria and anything that I do moving forward and I've done it both ways and anytime that I've done it with fun or inspiration or something fulfilling in mind, it's been the more sustainable piece of growth for me. So even when the lists can feel daunting to put something into place, it's much more pleasant to wade through less sludge when there's joint it and I think even a little aside on that is.
People that know me know that I despise the way that we use the word busy and today society it's like I'm just so busy and it's become this badge of honor and self importance and then a place of like misery or an excuse to maybe you know why they can't hang out and then you should feel honored when they made time to hang out with you. So I have been really like once I felt like that was nails on a chalkboard to me. Instead of today's framing of busy as something that's done to me and like a poor, me, self important, privilege kind of way, I like to look at it as something that I can monitor, I can solve and I can replace with feelings of things like life is full. So I want to feel like life is full, whatever the components of life are, whether it's work, love, curiosity, full of connecting, full of learning, full of growing. You get the idea.
So what I learned with this podcast that just relates this podcast is that I quickly Realize, when I started, that one episode a week was way too much with everything else that I wanted to do and I was totally overwhelming myself. So, you know, I chose to say Let me keep the joy, something I want to have on my plate, and so I needed to control my portion, so I didn't resent this and that it is a place of fun. So Thank you for helping me have that grace in that space to do it on a term that can stay positive, that I can really be focused on bringing you the content that you deserve and the content that I have the bandwidth to create, while maintaining the rest of the life as an entrepreneur, business owner, friend, wife, all of those things that an aunt, all the things that I want to do. And now, in the spirit of reflection, we're gonna get to the style portion of this and look forward. So let's talk about why we are here every other week and that is style and fashion. So in this celebrity episode, I'm gonna issue a big where who you are community challenge, and this is a challenge to myself. I'm hoping that you will participate with me and this is something that I want to take style related to something that you have to do and turn it into a get to do. That's the challenges something related to style that I have to do. I want you to turn it into a get to do. Now I'm gonna share my specific style situation and why I got here.
First, let's talk about the things that we know I love. I love style strategy. I love aligning who I am with my wardrobe and all the ways we've discussed before my values, my cost per wear strategy, being smart, friendly to the environment, friendly to the community, let I love. I love building this community. I love working with my clients. I love mixing and matching wardrobes. I love layering. I love Partnering with clients to implement all of their strategies and goals holistically. I love to implement and practice all of these things that I believe and that I do on myself.
But there's been one big glaring thing that I have not tackled that I've probably secretly hidden or brushed under the rug, and that is my summer style. Now I could say that you know I haven't tackled this because you can't layer as much and you know summer style is more simple. I can't wear my beloved blazers, you know that would be. Those would be facts. But as someone who's been working as a stylist for almost 14 years and who has made it my life's work to bring the inside out and connect it to your wardrobe, I would be kidding you, I'd be lying to you, if I said that this avoidance of summer style isn't rooted in something that started long ago. So here we are Forty fun, one year of the podcast and the spirit of tackling, tackling things. I'm ready to acknowledge it. I'm ready to share it with you. Have you hold me accountable and change my narrative. So here's what I think, as I've had to think about this, coming into the episode and doing what I would ask my clients to do. Here's what I think is the genesis of this. I've shared some pieces, maybe here and there, but this is my packaged together discovery, and I'm sure there will be more as I tackle this challenge.
The first, of course, comes from kids being mean. How many of us have stories of kids being mean that you just don't let go. Here's my story. I remember I was a little cheerleader in middle school. I was third, I think, seventh grade, 13 years old. We're at a game and you're in your little cheerleading skirts and the whole crowd is there and there's a silence and this boy, derek, yells hey, casper, woof, woof. And he starts barking at me. I was devastated, I went home and cried and that was one of the incidents. That was a series of things at the time that middle schoolers in Indiana probably went through high school. It was then I became Casper and then I got teased, and so of course you don't notice all those things.
When A it's not summer, when you can cover up the second part of my discovery, I could have ended it there. I'm like no, no, no, there's got to be more. So the second part of this discovery is that I was raised in a religion, in a household in which modesty was a requirement. The inseam of my shorts had to be a certain length. I couldn't wear spaghetti straps when that was the big thing or tube tops or halter tops. I couldn't wear two piece swimsuits. I couldn't wear short skirts. There was a lot of requirements. So, as such, I didn't really get the chance to try things out in this formative years that you discover your style, you try different things. You look back sometimes and you cringe now, but you were experimenting and you were learning how to wear, who you were and feel like you could start uncovering what that meant. Well, I didn't have that opportunity fully to do that in summer clothes because of all the tight restrictions that I had. So once fall came, I had that clearance to start experimenting and understanding what my style looked like in that season.
And the third thing is, I'm sure, something again a lot of you can relate to, and that was just the beauty influences around me and in my little world. All of my sisters who were older than me were 80s, early 90s teenagers and they went to the tanning beds all the time. All the time are laid outside with baby oil. And I remember one of my sisters saying even something like well, you know, fat looks better tan, which don't even get me started on the layers of problem. That that is, and I hate that she had to feel that way. And then, when I fast forwarded to my hometown anytime there was dances everyone went to the tanning bed and they showed off their skin. Do you remember those Playboy bunny stickers that they would put on, usually like their hip, and then that's how they would monitor how tan they were. So they'd keep putting the sticker back on every time they went to the tanning bed to show their tan line.
So at some point, I think I finally begged my mom and I was allowed to go to the tanning bed when I was maybe a junior or senior, and I tanned myself to death, which did not look natural on me. It was not part of wearing who I am from a beauty sense. And then what I couldn't get from the sun, I would cover up myself up in sunless tanners and all the streaky orange things, and so it never just quite looked right, and so I just couldn't wait for summer to end all around for all of those reasons. And then when I moved to New York, I started learning that it's OK to be fair. There's so, whatever skin color you have, it's beautiful. I love the diversity of New York and it really has started to help me fully receive who I am and the beauty that I have, and just to accept this is, this is what I was given and this is what naturally is me, and so I'm starting to receive that. But I haven't connected that to my summer style and there are those voices that I still feel like I have to cover up in a certain way to feel attractive. I still have those associations with what I grew up with, so of course it came to a head.
I have not worked on my summer wardrobe pretty much at all. I'm usually not super excited to get dressed in hot weather I know a lot of us already aren't just from the heat and then layered on top of it. I really only have about two outfits that I love and one of the dresses I think is going on about six years and I literally worn it to death. And then it really came to a head. Late last summer I had a few speaking opportunities and I was in the position that many of you have been in.
Since I've neglected my summer wardrobe for years and literally have a closet full of spring, fall and winter clothes I love but nothing to wear for summer. I've had to piece together outfits from things that I don't fully feel like are me or have had to be uncomfortable and wear things that maybe like a blazer that I love and be hot and sweaty and then worry about what does my makeup look like, what's it doing to my hair, and so I've really done good enough for maintenance at best in this summer strategy because it's been tackled in and part that I haven't really tackled. I really have the same three dresses that I take on hot weather vacations that I just took on a recent trip and I was like these don't even really feel like me. So I conceptually understand and believe in my messaging, but this has been a spot that I'm still working through for myself, so I am going to tackle it. I'm going to figure out what wearing who I am looks like for summer in my everyday work life, my high impact moments and my leisure and social life. So I'm giving you that that's my wear who you are challenge. So I would like to hold myself accountable and I will share with you my strategies and updates and celebrations and the setbacks, all of it.
I will be super transparent and if you'd like to join me here is your wear who you are community challenge prompt to find the equivalent of your summer wardrobe is so what's something in your personal style journey you have avoided tackling and you want to stop making excuses and conquer it. It could be like me and addressing a specific place in your wardrobe You've avoided, whether it be a particular season, a dress level, like maybe it's special events or work or weekend, something like that. Or maybe it's a particular category of clothing like pants or tops, and there could be numerous reasons why you have not tackled these, and they usually stem from something on the inside. It could be addressing why you put off sorting through your wardrobe and giving it a detox, and then we're gonna take the steps together for you to conquer it. You know, I know this, I know this journey, I know people who have put this off and again, it can be stemming from a lot of things.
Maybe it's Sizing, maybe it's, you know, comes from financial feeling scarcity, maybe it could be a lot of different things, but that could be another Challenge that you want to tackle. Or could just be simply challenging yourself to actually start investing yourself from a wardrobe perspective, how you want to feel and how you want to work that supports it. So maybe you have your mother who is Put off your own growth and taking care of yourself because you've been taking care of your kids, and maybe it's time to challenge yourself to actually start Investing in what it could look like, to where you are. You don't have to make the plan for this yet. The challenge this week is simply just to name it, discover that thing and start to think about where comes from.
So, if you want support, please share your where, who you are, challenge, community challenge, big picture goals, stories and why you have put this off. You can do this by hopping over to my personal instagram and I'll give you a space to do that when this episode launches and subsequently throughout, or I have created a really simple google form that I've linked to in the show notes if you want to share, and you know we can take collectively our challenges and that also help me create episodes that can support you so we can really be on this journey together to where, who we are and who we want to be, and to make the avoidance of whatever was keeping us from moving through this space something that is aware who we were, history. Thank you so much again for being part of this community. I love so, so dearly. Thanks for making this joyful and allowing me the grace to work through one year of podcasting and you know, get my voice and and what you want, and we're only gonna get better. You're the best. Thank you so much and I will see you next time.
Thanks for joining another where who you are Wednesday. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share with others, post about it on social media or leave a rating and review. Be sure to follow along for episode news updates and other bonus style insights on instagram through my business account at be style that's letters, be you and style, or my personal account at natalie underscore tincture, and don't forget to subscribe to where who you are, wherever you listen to your podcast. Thanks again and see you next time.