Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The Life of And podcast is for high-achieving women and working parents who are ready to stop living a life of “have to” and start designing a life they actually want. It’s a space where we talk honestly about the things we’re often afraid to admit — even to ourselves. The exhaustion. The ambition. The loneliness. The joy. The tension of wanting more without losing yourself in the process.
If you’re in the thick of it — feeling stretched, tired, hopeful, driven — this is your invitation to take a breath, get real, and find your way back to your own Life of And.
[00:00:00] Tiffany Sauder: While the way we look and present ourselves is a sense of self-expression, and it is part of putting ourselves out in the world in a certain way. It's not all really for vanity reasons, like wanting to look better than other people. For me, it is about being able to say like, I feel so comfortable with what I'm wearing and how this looks on me, that I can just totally forget myself and like really present my talents.
[00:00:24] Tiffany Sauder: My energy, my observations into the world because I'm not thinking about myself. I'm Tiffany Sauder, entrepreneur, wife, mom to four girls, and a woman figuring it out just like you. If you're tired of living a life of have to and finally ready to build a life of want to, then you're in the right place.
[00:00:42] Tiffany Sauder: Come on, let's go Build your Life of And.
[00:00:53] Tiffany Sauder: One of the things that you know about me, if you know me at all, if you're my family or my extended family or my friends, you know that I love clothes. I love clothes. I just love it. I love new clothes. I love trying new things. I love going to vintage shops. I just love it. I just think it, I love it. I always have.
[00:01:11] Tiffany Sauder: My family, when I was growing up, we didn't have a ton of extra resources and I love clothes. And so I would ask my mom for stuff and she would not always say yes at all. Like that was definitely not the environment. But we had to go on a cash budget as a family, like Dave Ramsey style in part because all of the like extra resources, there was like a family close budget, you know, like an envelope.
[00:01:35] Tiffany Sauder: And 98% of it would be spent on me. 'cause I was a never ending wellspring of, Hey, you know what I'd love And so. I was part of the reason we like it was like Tiffany's closed budget. Brandy's closed budget. Lance is close. Like my brothers, they don't care. But it was like that. So it's always been a thing for me.
[00:01:51] Tiffany Sauder: And my mom's an amazing seamstress. Amazing. So my sister and I, when we were growing up in the middle of nowhere, Indiana four H was like a big thing that we did. It was like social. All the cute boys were in the like. Animal barns, which is a very funny thing to say out loud, but it's just the vibe when you grow up in a small town, and we did sewing in four H, we did clothing.
[00:02:15] Tiffany Sauder: So you, every year you would sew something different, all the way up to like, I sewed my prom dress, I sewed a suit. We were like really into this, not just like sewing a pillowcase, an apron for real into this. And so when you learn to sew, you have to like go to a fabric store and buy a bolt of fabric and a pattern and learn to envision.
[00:02:32] Tiffany Sauder: What is this gonna look like on me? And I think again, when you do that young, you start to learn what fits look good on you. Where do you need things to be slouchy, where do you need it to be tailored? What colors look good on you? Because there's this like literal construction process that you're going through to kind learn what makes me feel good, what makes me look good.
[00:02:52] Tiffany Sauder: And so that's sort of like. Part of where I grew up, and so I, I've just, I've always loved clothes, I've always loved fashion. I've always loved a sense of expression in that way. I grew up sewing, and so I think there's this sense of understanding of construction and how it works and why it works that way, and appreciation for just complex seeming and draping and amazing like fabrics, like all that.
[00:03:14] Tiffany Sauder: And my grandma would often say, dress to forget yourself. All of us sisters and cousins, we have in my grandma's handwriting, a little plaque in our office, in our closets that say, dress to forget yourself in her handwriting. It's so beautiful and. I think it's true, like while the way we look and present ourselves is a sense of self-expression and it is part of putting ourselves out in the world in a certain way.
[00:03:38] Tiffany Sauder: It's not all really for vanity reasons, like wanting to look better than other people. For me, it is about. Being able to say like, I feel so comfortable with what I'm wearing and how this looks on me, that I can just totally forget myself and like really present my talents, my energy, my observations into the world, because I'm not thinking about myself.
[00:03:59] Tiffany Sauder: I'm not like, oh, this is scratchy, this is itchy, this is tight. I hate this color. It's gotta stay. It's too nubby. Whatever the thing is. When you've been in that. Environment where it's like, I hate this. I can only think about myself because I hate how this looks. These are too tight. Whatever's happening.
[00:04:13] Tiffany Sauder: And I've also been in situations where I like wore something and the goal was to be seen. Maybe not, probably even at this stage of my life, the goal was to be seen and once you get to the party, you're like, I stand out maybe a little more than I had preferred. You're just not forgetting yourself. You get what I'm saying?
[00:04:30] Tiffany Sauder: Or maybe you don't. But anyways, this is the point. So I am gonna talk about seven ways to find clothes that you look great in. I'm giving a little bit of backdrop about my own relationship with clothing and fashion. I love it so much. Had to ball on a budget for sure. In seasons of my life, I'm balling less on a budget in this season of my life, and I do like it better, but it literally doesn't matter how much money you have.
[00:04:52] Tiffany Sauder: There's some principles if you understand and if you know your body and what you look good in, it can make it very easy. Like literally, I look for formulas in all areas of my life and this is another place I have a lot of tips and a lot of formulas that just make it so that I can still feel like I have a sense of like I look.
[00:05:09] Tiffany Sauder: Current ish and still like a mom and still feel good about myself and still, I don't know, like flex across all these different lives of, and so I was having conversation with somebody a couple weeks ago and they were asking me about like, how do you put stuff together and know what to wear? And I was like, oh.
[00:05:28] Tiffany Sauder: And I started just like kind of word vomiting, all this stuff that I'm not gonna share with you. A lot of times when I talk to other people, I'm like, oh, maybe other people have this question. And I was like, oh, I didn't realize. I really actually have like a toolbox as it relates to this. So we're going through seven.
[00:05:41] Tiffany Sauder: I say quick tips. I dunno if they're tips or tools to find clothes that you look great in or to feel great in your day. So we're gonna do this. I think it'll be fun. Okay. Number one. So obviously there's a lot of influencers on the internet, Instagram, Pinterest, wherever it is that you like to follow, watch the ones that you follow.
[00:05:57] Tiffany Sauder: I tend to try to always follow people who have the same hair and skin color as me because you can find like same hair color, maybe even similar, kind of like cut right now. 'cause if I follow a bunch of people who have blonde hair and I'm like, oh, I love their stuff, they're gonna wear colors and they're gonna wear.
[00:06:18] Tiffany Sauder: Just, I dunno, outfits that look great on people who are blonde and maybe it would look good on me, but it requires this translation from color palette and language to somebody who has dark hair, dark eyes, dark eyebrows. Would it look good on me too? So that's something that's easy. Like you may love an outfit, you.
[00:06:34] Tiffany Sauder: If that person has a totally different body type than you, totally different hair, totally different, everything. It may not translate in the same way to your body and to your world. So that's one thing I'm aware of. I may find something like, oh, they're so cute, and it's like, well, yeah, they're like Meg Ryan.
[00:06:47] Tiffany Sauder: You know, when we were young, everybody wanted that pixie cut that Meg Ryan had. Only she should have that. So follow influencers that have your same hair color and same skin color. That can be an easy way of finding. Brands, outfits fits that are gonna look good on you. The second is column dressing. This may be really obvious, but I found for some it's not.
[00:07:08] Tiffany Sauder: What is column dressing? So literally like column, like C-O-L-U-M-N column dressing. This is where your color of pants and your color of top. The same. So it could be monochromatic, can be like black pants, black tank, and then a contrasting like jacket or sweater or something like that over it. So it literally makes a column from your ankles, like all the way up to your neck of the same color.
[00:07:34] Tiffany Sauder: I had on black slacks the other day, a black sleeveless tank and a white oversized blazer over it. And I think I wore black shoes too. So like from my toes all the way up to my neck was like a black straight line. Which looks very long and lean. And then the jacket just makes that column narrower, right?
[00:07:53] Tiffany Sauder: Because it's like covering up some of the black. So it is like a hack to look tall and thin no matter how you feel or how tall you actually are or what week of the month it is. We column dressing, literally every single body type can do it. Big chest, little chest, tall, short, it doesn't matter. Column dressing is like one of those things that works.
[00:08:12] Tiffany Sauder: For everyone, so can be pair of jeans, denim shirt. That would just be like not even a blazer, but just like wearing something monochromatic. I had on a pair of ivory pants the other day. And ivory like textured sweater. Another way to just look really long and lean. So column dressing is a trick. It makes you look long and lean.
[00:08:30] Tiffany Sauder: It's almost always what I wear when I speak. So if you do public speaking at all, wearing like black pants and a pink shirt, it cuts you in half visually. It looks cool if you're like just hanging out in the wild in the world. But if you're gonna speak on stage because you're like up and higher, if you're like here for watching this on YouTube, I'm like, lots of hand motions on this one.
[00:08:54] Tiffany Sauder: You're just gonna like, the way that you look in your video better, you're gonna like the way you look in pictures. Better you're gonna, you're just gonna like the way that you look better. So if you go. Look at me speaking. I'm almost always in column dressing, outfit or a dress. Something that is like from almost like head to toe, the exact same.
[00:09:12] Tiffany Sauder: It's less to look at. It makes you less distracting as a speaker and you're gonna like the way that you look on stage much better. So that's number two. Column dressing. The third thing, I've started doing this in probably the last year, and I is so helpful because. The morning is almost always rushed, is take a picture of outfits that you love and put them on an album in your phone.
[00:09:33] Tiffany Sauder: So I literally have an album on my phone that just is called outfits. And it has three different sources of stuff in it. One is like, sometimes I get dressed and I'm like, this is cute. I like this outfit. I'll take a picture of myself in the mirror and I'll save that picture into that album. Another thing I'll do is I'll sometimes take a screenshot of an outfit I see on Pinterest or on a website I'm on.
[00:09:53] Tiffany Sauder: I'm like, oh, I have all the pieces of that. I like how that goes together. I'll take a picture of it. I'll put it in there. Or I'll get magazines in the mail sometimes and I'll see Styley flipping through 'em. I'm like, oh, this is a cute way of styling, like loafers or something, and I'll take a picture of it and I'll save it into that album.
[00:10:10] Tiffany Sauder: I don't know, I have like maybe 70 pictures in there now. As styles change, you can delete them, no problem. But when I'm like in a hot hurry, I cannot think, I'll pull up the album and just do a quick skim and I'll be like, oh, I feel like wearing that today. And I'll put the pieces and parts together and like from my own closet.
[00:10:27] Tiffany Sauder: So it doesn't mean that I necessarily ordered everything, but it's like, oh, that's a cute black. Top with jeans and sneak whatever. Just sometimes like literally any outfit feels hard. And so like coming up with anything 'cause I'm just like creatively melting or it's really fast or I've maybe been in like a real fast casual season where I'm wearing like just lots of jeans and sneaks and t-shirts and suddenly I have to dress up a lot.
[00:10:51] Tiffany Sauder: And I'm like, I can't think of any outfits except for jeans, sneakers, and a t-shirt. What do I wear? And so going to that has been so helpful. 10 out of 10, I'm gonna keep doing it. I really like it a lot. So that's my tip number three.
[00:11:07] Tiffany Sauder: I wanna take a quick moment to thank my partners at Share Your Genius. For the past four years, they have been an incredible part of my journey behind the microphone. Share Your Genius is a content and podcast production agency that helps leaders and brands bring their message to life. So whether you're trying to find your voice, develop a content strategy, or get your leader behind a microphone, they're gonna help you make it simple, strategic and impactful.
[00:11:31] Tiffany Sauder: Number four is know what you look good in and put it on solid, repeat. Know what you look good in, and just put it on solid repeat. If you see me in the wild, I'm probably gonna have one of three things on a button, down a blazer or a dress. I'll be wearing one of those three things, almost certainly a button down a blazer.
[00:11:49] Tiffany Sauder: It's just my uniform. I have lots of different button downs. Some of 'em are cropped, some of 'em are long, some of 'em are stripes, some of 'em are solid, some of them have collars. But I just look good in button downs. I have broad shoulders. I have a very short torso, and so the like v-neck of a button down makes me look taller.
[00:12:04] Tiffany Sauder: I just know that I look good in button downs, and so I wear them all the time with slacks. Skirts with pencil skirts, like it just looks good on me. So learn what looks good on you or what you think you look good in. You might see me in a button down and say, it doesn't look that good. I don't care. I feel good in button downs.
[00:12:19] Tiffany Sauder: I love them. I'm wearing one today. Know what you look good in and put it on repeat. You'll see me in jeans, not shorts. I don't like my legs. You don't need to feel sorry for me. I just don't prefer them. And so I feel much more comfortable in jeans and midy or long dresses. And so that's just what I do. I feel more comfortable that way.
[00:12:37] Tiffany Sauder: So jeans, I love pencil skirts because I have no hips. And so I like how I look in that. And blazers, same thing with a button down. Same like visual of a button down. It's a broad shoulder. A V-neck, if you think about it, has a very similar structure to it. So for the same reasons that I like button downs, I look good in blazers for the same reason.
[00:12:55] Tiffany Sauder: So structured shoulders, v-neck makes me look longer. So learn what you look good at and just put it on repeat. I have been wearing button downs for years. Yes, the styles change. The sleeves are a little bit tighter or oversized. The shoulder seam is dropped, or a little ti whatever, like the style might evolve, but learn what you look good at and just stick with it, and that's just what you look good at.
[00:13:18] Tiffany Sauder: Not every trend is for everybody. My mom used to always say that to me. Number five is do a huge try. Try-on from your closet. A couple times a year. This does not have to be all the time. Take an afternoon once you've taken a bunch of pictures of different things that you like and start putting outfits together and literally just take pictures of yourself in the mirror of what you like.
[00:13:39] Tiffany Sauder: That pressure of getting dressed in the morning in three and a half minutes oftentimes gets us like going back to the same thing over and over again. I get it. The same thing happens to me, but if you wanna kind of branch out and try some different stuff, make it a to-do, take a Sunday afternoon. A Saturday morning, whatever it looks like, or like an evening from five to eight 30.
[00:13:59] Tiffany Sauder: And just get stuff outta your closet. Try it on. Try a different belt. Try it with brown, try it with black, try it with a button down, try it open, whatever the thing is, just try it and let yourself have some creative fun with it, and take pictures of the ones that you like, and then add 'em to your album and save them.
[00:14:15] Tiffany Sauder: And then it's like, oh, I found like four new outfits. Or go find some inspo from a brand that you really like and see if you can make those outfits from the stuff in your closet. Or maybe you just need one extra thing and it'll make it. So I'll do this with JR. Couple times a year for him because he literally, he wants getting dressed to be the easiest thing in the world.
[00:14:34] Tiffany Sauder: I like him to look nice. He likes to look nice too. But sometimes styling like a plaid blazer. It can be overwhelming for him. And so I will literally be like, let's try it on these five different things so that you kind of know what goes with what I've also learned for him, keeping things very simple.
[00:14:51] Tiffany Sauder: Less is so way more for him. When he gets a lot in his closet, he goes back to the same things even more and more. So I've learned if we bring five shirts in, we've gotta take five shirts out. If it gets too much, it's too many decisions for him to make. Not 'cause he's not smart, he just has way too much going on.
[00:15:09] Tiffany Sauder: It's too complicated. I'm making it a Rubik's cube for him and it doesn't need to be. That has worked really well for him. And uh, sometimes for me, I think going into the dressing room and a store can be intimidating, especially if you feel like it's busy and there's like pressure to hurry up or you don't get somebody who's like very helpful.
[00:15:27] Tiffany Sauder: I am not afraid of a big mail order hall if you need jeans. Go to Nordstrom, or I love Shopbop too, or something like that, and buy like five different brands, two different styles and two different sizes. Who cares if you get 30 pair of jeans in the mail? If you need a pair of jeans, do that and then send them all back, usually like max, a 10 bucks to send them back.
[00:15:51] Tiffany Sauder: So I'm a big fan of the try on. I needed some spring dresses, and so I went to the anthropology app and I ordered eight and I kept one. Then I could try it on with my shoes. I could try it on with the belts that I had. I could see if I wanted to accessorize it with, and I could kind of see like, oh, this is an outfit.
[00:16:07] Tiffany Sauder: This is cool. I like this. I have stuff to accessorize it. It can go into my closet like really quickly when I do that, or if I'm at the store, it's a hat. Always hot in the dressing rooms. Always so hot. I'm always so thirsty. I wanna die. Like everything wrong happens. I just don't like it. I'm a big fan of the big try-on at home, uh, as a, a way that I try different stuff and it, I think it makes, uh, helps you turn into an outfit really quickly.
[00:16:30] Tiffany Sauder: 'cause you know, if you have stuff to like do with it, don't buy a shirt that you have nothing to wear with it. Don't do that to yourself. Okay. And this is the last one. This maybe sounds a little bit. Counterintuitive, but I'm gonna say that what I wrote down was buy things before you need them. Here's what I mean by that.
[00:16:45] Tiffany Sauder: I used to have these special occasion panic moments where it was like, oh no, we have a special event coming up. We have a gala, we have a fundraiser, we have, I don't know, some event that Jared, I need to go to. And now I would be like, it's Friday and I forgot, and it's Monday. And so sometime during the week I'm gonna try to run to the mall.
[00:17:04] Tiffany Sauder: And then you're like. Panic pressure buying is the worst thing to do to yourself, and so I started observing. This is starting to become a regular part of our lives, that we have special occasion events that we need to go to. So I'm just gonna be on the lookout for things that I know. The color palette would look good on me.
[00:17:23] Tiffany Sauder: This cut would look good on my body and I'm gonna be okay with having one or two things in my closet that I don't need right now. And I mean this mostly special occasion stuff like a dress. 'cause then I can buy it on like end of season sale. Case in point tonight, Darren. I have a gala that we're going to, I'm wearing a dress that I bought end of season last summer for like 60% off.
[00:17:47] Tiffany Sauder: I didn't need it, but I'm like, next season I know we're gonna have something we're gonna go to. I thought it was super fun and cool and I was like, I can wear it several different ways. Let's rock and roll. So be kind to yourself and sometimes you seem to buy things before you need them because you cannot find them when you need them.
[00:18:04] Tiffany Sauder: Ever. And if you do, it's like the most expensive thing in Sacks because that's just your luck. That's how it's gonna go. You know what I mean? So that's number seven. So I'll do a quick rundown and then we'll be done. But I don't know, this is kind of frivolous, but I also think not. I also think not, I don't know anybody who doesn't do better at life when they feel good about themselves.
[00:18:23] Tiffany Sauder: And so maybe clothes is not your thing. No problem Mo. It's a thing for me. I just love it. Think it's so fun. I love dressing my friends. I love it so much. I love it so much. So maybe someday. I'll start a brand that's like kind of on my dream list. I have some ideas, but later. Okay, Tiffany, stay focused. All right, so here they are.
[00:18:41] Tiffany Sauder: Follow influencers that have your same hair color and skin color. Column dressing, head to toe, same color. Third one, take a picture of the outfits you love and put 'em on an album in your phone. Number four, know what you look good in and put it on repeat. Number five, do a huge try on, on an afternoon and take pics of what you love.
[00:18:59] Tiffany Sauder: Number six, don't be afraid of mail ordering a ton of stuff. Two sizes, almost always, unless it's a brand that you've worn before. Pick your size and then either one bigger or smaller, depending on reviews. And then the last one is buy things before you need them. Because panic buying for special occasions is never a good look.
[00:19:16] Tiffany Sauder: So thanks for listening to this episode. This is very fun. I really enjoyed this one. And the biggest way that we grow the show is by you guys sharing an episode with somebody that you know and love. So if you know somebody who is trying to figure out. This Rubik's Cube of how do I feel Great about the way that I look?
[00:19:31] Tiffany Sauder: I'd love it if you shared this episode with them. So as always, thanks for listening and go crush your week. Thanks. Thanks for listening to the Life of And this is your weekly reminder to keep making bold choices, saying clear yeses and holding space for what matters most. As always, if you like this episode, I'd love for you to drop a review and share it with your friend.
[00:19:52] Tiffany Sauder: It's the fastest way that we can grow the show. Thanks for joining us. I'll see you next time.