Personal Style Dilemmas is a series that helps take the mystery out of discovering and expressing your personal style.

You might have a good sense of your preferred aesthetic in clothes. You might know what kinds of clothes flatter your body best.

You also know that you’re tired of what’s in your closet.

What you don’t know? What to buy.

Do you need more shirts? More skirts? More denim? How many? What kinds?

The best place to start in building (or rebuilding) a wardrobe, is the same place you start when building anything else: the foundation. These are the classic, fundamental clothes around which you can build outfits for any occasion (or Working Mom Level).

I like to call it the Core Wardrobe, and it’s a set of basic building blocks for style. It includes such timeless pieces as a tailored blazer and a Little Black Dress.

So start by finding and buying those parts of the Core Wardrobe you don’t already own, and it becomes much easier to add on from there.

• Fab mamas: What are the basic building blocks in your wardrobe? What’s the one (or two or three …) piece(s) you can’t live without?

Learn more about the Core Wardrobe and get a detailed, comprehensive checklist of what to buy in “No More Yoga Pants: How To Dress Better, Shop Smarter and Reclaim Your Style,” the step-by-step personal style transformation system. Join the Style List and be the first to get a sneak preview (and an early discount code, too)!

Personal Style Dilemmas is a series that helps take the mystery out of discovering and expressing your personal style.

With the reams of personal style advice available today, from books to TV shows to websites (like this one!), you’d think we’d all be paragons of style by now with no-one left to be made over.

But sometimes the hardest part of a personal style transformation isn’t finding the advice.

It’s knowing where to start.

That’s what the Personal Style Dilemmas series is for: helping take away some of the biggest hurdles between you and your inner fabulousness.

The very beginning? Understanding what personal style is.

Personal style is what you’re drawn to: it’s what feels most you. It’s a color, a texture, a shape, a cut, a type of garment.

A woman with personal style has simply* found this sartorial voice for herself, speaks with it every day and lets it change over time as she does.

You have a style voice, too. Maybe you spoke with it once and lost it. Maybe you’re not sure what it ever was. That’s OK. You’re ready to be seen and heard now and that’s all that matters.

So let’s start here. Let’s start by finding your voice and allowing it to speak.

Discovery starts with awareness, so the only thing you have to do to begin is notice.

• Notice what catches your eye in a store window, on a catalog page, in your Pinterest stream.
• Notice what clothes you already have that make you feel fab when you wear them (and even those that make you feel frumpy).
• Notice the patterns in your own wardrobe: color, texture, shape, cut, garment.

With this information in hand, you can start to take the universe of all possible things to wear and limit it to one of clothes that speak to you.

* And I do mean simple. This is not to say that it’s easy, but that it’s straightforward. There are steps you can follow and rules you can be guided by. Nothing secret or magic about it, promise.

• Fab mamas: Do you struggle with your personal style? What are your biggest personal style dilemmas?

Learn the step-by-step process for revealing and speaking with your personal style voice in “No More Yoga Pants: How To Dress Better, Shop Smarter and Reclaim Your Style.” Join the Style List and be the first to get a sneak preview (and an early discount code, too)!