Well what a year 2020 was!

If you are like me, my saviour during lockdown 1 was PE with Joe.  I was home-schooling at the time, and that 30 mins in the morning meant that the day started with a positive experience.

And since that I’ve been lunging, squatting and crunching in the privacy of my lounge.  Now I can do a hiit session, but I’m no runner (and seriously admire people who can!)  I know that lots of people have taken up running and jogging too, or even incorporating a daily walk into their working from home routine.

But whether we are exercising alone in our own private space, or heading out to get some fresh air and miles in the legs, we will feel better knowing that we are not only improving our bodies on the inside, but we also look the best version of ourselves on the outside.

I often get asked ‘should my exercise gear be in my best colours?’ And my honest answer is ‘why wouldn’t it be’? When working out we tend not to have as much (or any!) makeup on, and our hair is tied up out of the way – all we have is the clothes we choose to wear to make us look good – so my advice is to make those clothes work hard for you.

Whatever type of exercise you do there are two important style considerations: Colour and Patterns

Colour: Colour will brighten up a January jog or a winter workout. Plus colour brightens up how we look too. So wear your best colour on your top and next to your face – this way that fab colour will reflect on your face and give the effect of a brighter healthier you (even before you start your work out!).

This vest from Sweaty Betty in teal – is great if you like your colour on the subtle side. Plus Teal is a universal colour, meaning that it looks great on many of us.

 

The other way to think about colour – is to use it to hide any bits you aren’t a big fan of.  We can do this by wearing a brighter or lighter colour on the area of our body that we like, or by putting a darker shades on the areas we don’t like.  Take these two examples from M&S: the lighter pink top vs the navy leggings draws your eye to the top half.  Whilst the khaki bottoms vs black top draws your eye to the leg area.

 

So moving on to

Patterns:

Patterns can really transform our shape, if they are worn on the ‘right’ parts of our body and used to balance out our proportions.

So where should you wear patterns? Well on a part of you that you are happy with and want to emphasise.

At the moment there are a lot of statement logos on garments, which are often across the chest. These are great if you want to emphasis your chest line, but just remember that the logo will draw attention to that area! If you like a bit of sparkle then this top from Next is a great option. If you are pear shaped then wear with darker (e.g. black of charcoal leggings)

This hoodies from M&Co is perfect for drawing attention away from any hips / legs that you might not like, and the horizontal stripes on your top half will instantly shrink the appearance of your hips!

Whilst if you have great legs, then show them off with a bold pattern – like these leggings from Sweaty Betty.  They are also perfect to draw attention away from your top half.  Just wear with a plain darker shade top

And I love these leggings from H&M, with the pattern below the knee – perfect to draw the attention away from hips and down to slim ankles!

If you need any help or guidance on understanding how you personally can wear colour or patterns, then drop me a line.