S3 E56: 👗 The Real Reason You Keep Buying Clothes You Don't Wear with Dacy Gillespie
This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute mental health, financial, tax, or legal advice.
Episode Summary
Somewhere along the way, "flattering" stopped meaning "you look lovely" and started meaning "you look as thin as possible." This week on the Money Healing Club podcast, Rachel sits down with Dacy Gillespie, a personal stylist who helps people get dressed from the inside out. You'll hear why so much clothing spending is really a search for validation, and why nothing in the fitting room fits. Along the way, Rachel and Dacy get into the tender intersection of clothes and money, how getting dressed becomes a weighty category of spending, and how enoughness lives underneath both.
💬 "The clothes were not made for you.”- Dacy Gillespie
In this episode:
Why "flattering" almost always means "thinner," and what to reach for instead
How to tell dressing for you apart from dressing for validation
Why nothing fits, and why that is the clothes' fault, not your body's
How to find the pieces you actually return to, without going all-or-nothing capsule wardrobe
⏰ Episode Breakdown
03:38 | What "flattering" really means | Dacy unpacks the word and the fatphobia quietly baked into it
04:48 | From how you look to how you feel | Moving away from the body as display and toward comfort and self-expression
10:34 | Enoughness and the sparkle of novelty | Why we overspend chasing external validation, and how to come back to what you actually want
19:15 | The fit lottery | Why nothing fits, the study that found 58 different measurements on every body, and letting go of "my body is wrong"
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📚 Resources and links
Dacy Gillespie is a personal stylist who helps people let go of the rules they were handed about clothes and get dressed from the inside out. Her work centers comfort, self-expression, and undoing the idea that your body is the thing that needs fixing.
Connect with Dacy Gillespie:
Website: dacygillespie.com
Substack: Unflattering, at dacygillespie.substack.com
Instagram: @dacygillespie
Book: Unflattering: A Radical New Way to Get Dressed, from an imprint of Macmillan, expected early 2028
Also mentioned:
Ace & Jig, an ethically made, size-inclusive clothing brand that goes up to a size 5X, which Dacy references wearing
A late-1940s USDA study that measured thousands of women and found 58 distinct body measurements that vary from person to person
Reddit, which Dacy points to as a useful place to find size-inclusive brands
🎙️ Join the Conversation
Click the big orange button on our site, right from your phone or browser, and let Rachel know: what is one piece of clothing you always feel like yourself in? https://www.moneyhealingclub.com/podcast
💝 Support the Podcast
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🎧 Your next listen: S2 E41, Curb Your Impulse Spending with Nervous System Awareness w/ Stacy Peterson
Full transcript: https://www.moneyhealingclub.com/podcast
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Dacy Gillespie (00:00)
it makes absolutely perfect sense that your body would not fit into those clothes. The clothes were not made for you.
You know, long time ago, 150 years ago, clothes were made for your body. Clothing sizing didn't even exist until the late 1800s,
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (00:19)
Welcome to the Money Healing Club podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Duncan. I'm a certified financial therapist and art therapist, and you've come to the softest place to land in personal finance. Just to note, this podcast is educational in nature. It does not replace mental health care or legal or financial advice.
I want you to take a moment with me and reflect on how you feel in and around your clothes today. Right now I'm feeling comfy, but like a teeny bit dressy in this loose knit sweater because well I'm recording for you. I have earrings a friend gave me ages ago that I love, and of course I'm wearing baggy pants because no one should have to wear hard clothes at home. That's a right.
I am, I don't know, I'd say a slightly elevated casual on purpose. It speaks to the vibe I want to give, to be honest, right? Artsy, comfy, a little profesh. Maybe you right now, you're in sweatpants right now, or your workout clothes, or you're in fact wearing hard clothes, and maybe you love it. Maybe your relationship with clothes is very tied with your relationship to spending and money in a very special way. I get it. Now
What's your reaction to a word, a word that's often associated with clothes? Flattering. What does flattering actually mean? And who decided? So, to help us get into this weighty, very common topic, I have a very special guest for you today, Dacy Gillespie Dacy is a weight inclusive, anti diet personal stylist who helps her clients reject the fashion rules
And beauty standards handed down by the patriarchy, white supremacy, the whole thing, so they can uncover their actual authentic style. Through the work of building a functional wardrobe, her clients make a mindset shift, often, from wearing what's quote, flattering, to unapologetically taking up space in the world. Dacy came to this work after a lifetime of high-stress careers, never quite fit her.
She's highly sensitive and introverted. So in 2013, she started her personal styling business, The Mindful Closet.
Dacy also has a wonderful Substack newsletter community called Unflattering, which became a Substack bestseller within 24 hours. It's great, I'm on there. Her work has since been featured in Forbes, Real Simple, New York magazine's The Strategist, and Life Hacker. She's also a certified body trust provider through the Center for Body Trust. Dacy lives in St. Louis with her husband, a musician with a St. Louis.
Symphony Orchestra and their two kids. You can find all of her stuff at mindfulcloset.com and on Substack at Unflattering. Dacy and I, in this conversation, are going to talk about comfort over conformity, enoughness over novelty, and what it feels like to get dressed for yourself instead of for the hedonic treadmill. So basically
We're gonna talk about all the things we don't usually say when we talk about our relationship to clothing with Dacy Gillespie.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (03:30)
Dacy Gillespie, welcome to the Money Healing Club podcast.
Dacy Gillespie (03:34)
Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to talk about this today.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (03:38)
Okay, so clothes itself is a huge topic and and I'm wondering if you could kind of unpack like this loaded word of flattering and what that means to you, how it's used, how it's misused. What does that mean for you?
Dacy Gillespie (03:53)
Well, I think it's important to note that it does have different meanings for different people. and for some people it could just mean that you look lovely or something suits you. and of course that's always nice to hear, but I think in the general kind of lexicon of the way we talk about clothes, the idea that something is flattering means that it makes you look as thin as possible. and that is really a way in which we use clothes as a tool to kind of
try and advance ourselves up this ladder of of beauty standards and hierarchy and things like that. And so in that sense I think it is not a great thing to prioritize when you're talking about your clothes. There are there are things that I think are more important to prioritize.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (04:39)
That's so interesting thinking about like the fat phobia that's implicit in the flattering conversation. Yeah.
Dacy Gillespie (04:46)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (04:48)
So how do you think of it instead then? Because you are talking about clothes. So, like, what are
we going for? If it's not necessarily flattering, and obviously that could mean different things to different people, but what are we looking for? Like, what what do you help people look for in their relationship with their clothing?
Dacy Gillespie (05:04)
I think clothing, I mean, it's something we all have to deal with every day, right? It's it's like food, something that is a part of our daily lives. And I think it is something that has the potential to be something that really enhances your life and your sense of well-being and your sense of self, really. and so for me, I mean the the short answer is that I would love for people to begin to move away from prioritizing
how their body looks and start to prioritize how their body feels and how they feel in the clothing. and to, and you know, and this is a very hard idea for women, because we've been conditioned for so long to be uncomfortable for the sake of looking a certain way. And so I would love us to shift our thinking and our feeling to the point of being able to be comfortable even if it may not look the way we're expected to look to other people.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (05:57)
Mm-hmm. I mean, really, you're talking about, you know, pretty radical self acceptance out there.
Dacy Gillespie (06:02)
Yeah.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (06:03)
Like I'm not gonna modify my body here. Like this
is this is how my body is and this is what I like wearing and this feels good to me. I I think sometimes we diminish like the opportunity for creativity and self expression in clothing.
Dacy Gillespie (06:18)
Yeah, absolutely. And I know you have that, you know, art background as well. And I really for me, getting dressed is I I mean, it's my work and it's what I talk about all the time, but it's also kind of my hobby. Like that's what I spend time thinking about and gathering inspiration for and kind of curating. I know also that you're a thrifter and I am as well. And so, you know, kind of like that searching for the treasure out there that's going to embody some some piece of me.
It's what brings me joy. And it and clothing doesn't have to serve that purpose for everyone. It certainly doesn't. and especially conditioned you know, people who are conditioned as female from birth are are especially taught that it should be important to them and it doesn't have to be. But for some of us it it can be almost that curation art project.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (07:05)
Totally. You know, I've worked with a lot of my clients, you know, where clothing is a really specific and weighty category of spending,
Dacy Gillespie (07:15)
Absolutely.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (07:15)
you know, it's hard to differentiate needs and wants. I don't like the differentiation anyway.
I kind of throw that in the garbage. But, you know, yeah, the keeping up the standards and also I think sometimes when we're talking about how someone relates to buying clothing, there's also their relationship with their location.
With who they're with, the cities that they're in, you know, there's so much unconscious impact of of the place where you live. You know, I'm in Colorado. It's a pretty informal place, you know. We're
Dacy Gillespie (07:47)
Mm-hmm.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (07:48)
anything with buttons and someone's gonna comment. Like it's a very
informal place. And so that, you know, impacts my my dress.
You know, as opposed to someone living in LA or New York City, you know, it's a very different experience with clothing. And I'm wondering if you if you see that inner play of like it's a personal choice and it's such a reflection of where we are.
Dacy Gillespie (08:08)
A hundred percent. and it's interesting, you're the second person to ask me about this recently. and it is it is really so contextual. I live in the Midwest, I'm in St. Louis, but my clients are all virtual and remote, and so they're all around the country, and even in some other countries. And it really is a huge factor. And a lot of it really does come with that the the community expectation, right? So, you know, I also live in a very casual
Town, there becomes a fear of judgment if you make too much effort. and then in certain places you would be judged for making not enough effort, right? And so it really is it's always a balancing act. And I know you talk a lot about kind of feeling safe and and but also like you know, you want to express kind of who you are, but there's always this like really delicate balance between how you want to express yourself, where you are.
whether you want to draw attention or don't, whether that feels good to you or not. and with clothing, you know, I always acknowledge at some point that sometimes you can't fully wear everything you want to wear because you it may not be completely safe for you wherever you are. like like you truly may come into physical harm in some places if you wear what fully expresses yourself. and of course that is
not the world we want to live in, but it's the reality right now.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (09:32)
Gosh, that's so fair. That's so fair. There's so many considerations, or even like, I mean, on a not quite the same scale, but you it's like the UV exposure is such a factor here in Colorado. Like I have to have my shoulders covered at all times. You know, like we're just inner interfacing with or this world around us and taking that into consideration.
Dacy Gillespie (09:52)
Yeah, and I just want to interject one thing that, you know, I think there's certainly a lot on TikTok and Instagram about kind of developing your personal style, and which is a a huge you know, piece of the the puzzle that I put together with clients. But personal style can't just be about the clothes that you want to wear. It really has to encompass all of these other factors, right? So your your social community, the location that you live in.
of course, factors like body size and and financial scarcity or abundance. and so it it really is more than I always say this always comes up, but it's really all more than just about the clothes.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (10:34)
Yes. It it it totally is. And and that idea of enoughness. I I'm wondering what do you see like with your clients or with the community just sort of navigating this idea of enoughness when, you know, that sense of novelty is such a is so fun. It's such a sparkle. And it
has it has a dark side, right? Of like, wow, like I'm constantly seeking so much novelty, I have no money left.
but I'm wondering how do you approach sort of walking that line of of cultivating enoughness with balancing, you know, a sense of novelty and just how how we look at that with our closets.
Dacy Gillespie (11:13)
Yeah, I mean, I I gave a big sigh because this is a question that has so many different layers. and you know, so a couple of the things that I want to mention about that is that part of my entire philosophy, I mean, the work that I'm hoping to put out into the world all the time is that if you are able to reject the cultural standards that have somehow
made you uncomfortable, made you spend money on things that maybe you didn't even really like but felt like you should have or that would make your body look more acceptable, or you know, that someone else voiced an opinion that you should really wear. that a lot of our quote mistakes are really I see it all as learning, but you know, a lot of times we do spend a lot of money on things
Because we're looking for that external validation. And so my whole approach is about figuring out what is your internal need and what's your internal desire. And my hope is that if we can approach style from that direction by first, you know, kind of naming and and you know telling our story about where we got the ideas about clothes, where those came from.
if we can connect them to larger systems of oppression, you know, is this a patriarchal idea? Is this a white supremacist idea? And then choosing, is that an idea I want to continue to perpetuate? or is it something I would like to reject? And then you know, reject those things in favor of my taking the time to explore and learn what makes me happy, what makes my body feel good.
I really think so many of those issues of overspending and not feeling enough can be mitigated by learning this internal kind of sense of what you want and need.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (13:06)
I wonder you have a personal example. I'd love to know, is there like a trend that you've just bucked or is there a part of your journey where like actually I'm gonna I'm gonna really take a different lane?
Dacy Gillespie (13:17)
So many. I mean, yeah, I was, you know, as I was listening to some of your earlier episodes, I was just finding so many resonating ideas with kind of the way I grew up and and the the stories that I heard about money. my parents were both labor organizers and therefore worked in kind of blue-collar jobs. My dad organized in a a shipyard and my mom organized in a sewing factory.
And so I grew up without a lot of money, but always being like acutely aware of what the cool kids had, you know, and then never being able to acquire that thing. and so, you know, for a long time when I grew up and had a little bit more money, I was still going after those it items or the trendy items, or you know, what I was seeing in New York or on fashion runways and
really looking to all those things to find a sense of belonging, to find a sense of I'm good enough to be a cool kid.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (14:18)
Is there something
that stands out specifically? I'm just curious.
Dacy Gillespie (14:20)
my gosh.
Something might come to me, but not not right off the top of my head. But yeah, of course. Yeah.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (14:26)
for me right away, do you remember that trend of like cut out shoulders? I hate it. I never liked that. I was like that was one of
the first times I'm like, I'm very intentionally not doing I just don't like that. Maybe it's that UV thing I'm sensitive about. Like I'm not doing like weird
cutouts on my shoulders.
Dacy Gillespie (14:42)
Yeah, no, I mean there there are a million different things. I mean, I yeah, I mean, I can remember when I was growing up, I grew up in the Deep South in Mobile, Alabama, and so there was a very specific ideal of beauty and fashionableness there. and that was kind of blonde hair, big hairbows, you know, plaid, embroidered initials on things, you know, monograms. and one thing that was
for some reason really popular. I've I've found that this did not continue around the country. Of course this was the eighties, so we didn't have the internet to know kind of
what trends were in other places. But it was tree torn sneakers, like this weird, you know, brand of literal tennis shoes, like Shoes that you wore to play tennis.
And I, you know, finally, I was in the seventh grade. I finally somehow my parents agreed to buy me some. I think it was like these will be your back to school sneakers. and you know, they got stolen out of my locker in gym class like two weeks later. And I was like, is that like retribution for wanting, you know, for having that desire? Yeah.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (15:48)
they were a hot commodity, clearly. They had street value.
Dacy Gillespie (15:53)
Yeah, but in terms of like seeing all of that stuff out there, again, I think if you've done more of this internal work to know what your true aesthetic preferences are, what works for your body, what works for your lifestyle, you can pick and choose. You can kind of look at those things. And like for the your your example was such a perfect one. And I'll I'll I know you said it kind of flippantly, but like let's say you're looking at the cold shoulder trend and you're just saying, Well, I like to cover my shoulders, so that trend is not gonna work for me.
You know, that's a very concrete example. you know, one that was big in the last couple of years is kind of a strange one. But whenever you see something pop up and then it's everywhere, like immediately everywhere. Last summer, I don't know if you ever saw this, but it was like the sardine print. It was like fish and sardines and this kind of like beach print was everywhere. It was on beaded handbags, it was on dresses and
You know, it it happened so quickly that just, you know, after forty years of studying this stuff, I was like, okay, that's gonna be a flash in the pan, that's gonna be a quick one, I'm not gonna buy into it. And sure enough, by the end of the summer, I was seeing it in thrift stores already, right? Like people had
again spent their money on things that maybe didn't internally align as much. But again, sometimes it's fun to have that newness. You know, again, like there's there's really two ways to look at any of these things. but that one definitely went through.
Really quickly.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (17:18)
Totally gosh. I remember it was like twenty ten with like Chevron. I was like I was irritated
Dacy Gillespie (17:22)
Mm-hmm.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (17:23)
with Chevron like before it even really hit. I'm like,
I could just tell, like this is not I don't like the print. I don't like what it does to my eyes and like nope and yeah, there you go. Now it's very dated.
Dacy Gillespie (17:31)
Mm. Yep. that one I bought right into. I even had
like Chevron all around my house and yeah. And you
know, sometimes you do and sometimes you don't
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (17:42)
And it's okay, right? Also, like, hey, we are
there's a social aspect of this. We're always, you know, seeking safety and it's very subconscious, but like, you know, you see a group of friends and they're all kind of dressed alike. Like we don't even realize we're doing it. You know, we kind of have this subconscious uniform that we're that we're doing and say, hey, if jumped on a trend and you kind of have some regrets. it's a good opportunity to just reflect on that. Like, did I have a sense of
Dacy Gillespie (18:07)
Absolutely.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (18:08)
that at the time?
You know, what pieces do I keep returning to? I mean, for me, like a collared shirt, it's just my uniform. Like I have tried to like get away from it, but like a collared shirt with a tank top, it's just my daily. And you know, sometimes I experiment and veer from that, but like actually there's a lot of range within that that really works for me. And somehow I always feel like myself
Dacy Gillespie (18:28)
Yeah, that's amazing. I mean,
to get to that point, I'm sure many listeners would agree, like that is an amazing thing, just to get to that point where you found something that works for you. and a lot of people are still kind of searching for that. And so yeah,
once you find it, like rock it.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (18:44)
Yeah, yeah. Well that's I got like long arms and legs. I mean, we could talk about kind of, you know not all clothes are made for all bodies and clothes are can be so inflexible. Like I'm a tall, curvy woman and God, shopping for jeans, get me out. Like it it sucks. It's so hard for me to find a pair of jeans that work for me. And I have taken some to a tailor long ago and I just sort of like I work around it, but I really hate it and it's like
Nothing's gonna cut down my ego a few notches than trying to buy jeans.
Dacy Gillespie (19:14)
Yeah.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (19:15)
and I'm wondering like, you know, folks whose bodies don't fit the typical mold of of what most mainstream clothes are made for. How do you how do you help folks with that?
Dacy Gillespie (19:26)
First of all, it's really hard. And so you having trouble makes sense. Anyone having trouble makes sense. Anyone whose body deviates from the typical, you know, pattern that manufacturers make clothing for, which is an hourglass shape, right? And listen, I mean, I don't know what the percentages are, but you know, yeah, I mean, you know,
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (19:45)
a short hourglass.
Dacy Gillespie (19:48)
there was a study done by the USDA actually in the late forties.
taking measurements from like thousands of women and they found that there were 58 distinct measurements on every woman's body that could vary from body to body. So again, I don't know math, but the combinations of 58 different measurements all being different is a lot. And so you know the biggest thing I always want to share about trying on clothes is that it makes absolutely perfect sense that your body would not fit into those clothes. The clothes were not made for you.
You know, long time ago, 150 years ago, clothes were made for your body. Clothing sizing didn't even exist until the late 1800s, right? So there was no sense of I'm a X size, you know, it was just these clothes are made for my body, they fit me. and so the fact that we're all trying to put our bodies into mass manufactured clothing, is something that's just really not natural. And so it is
it should be more of the expectation that nothing will fit and that it's kind of a I call it the fit lottery that you have to try a lot of different things to find the one kind of brand or the one item that that does fit your specific proportions. And that is really hard. and and especially if you are outside of what we call straight sizes, which is generally sizes like zero to fourteen or so, it's going to be ten times harder, truly exponentially harder.
and so I think a big piece of it is just letting yourself, giving yourself that acknowledgement that this is not my body that's wrong. Bodies have always been different shapes and sizes. This is the the way that clothes are manufactured today does not work for human women.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (21:35)
Do you have any go to resources for folks whose bodies are outside of that those straight measurements or straight sizes?
Dacy Gillespie (21:43)
Well, I mean, you can work with me. No.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (21:46)
Yes, call it Dacy
Dacy Gillespie (21:48)
I keep a running list. I have a spreadsheet that I'm constantly adding to that has about three hundred brands on it, of which at least half, a little bit more than half are brands that go up to at least a size three X. for brands that go up above a size three X, that number drops drastically down to about fifty brands. and so, you know, there there are
definitely resources on the internet. it's it's it's also like a a perk for some of my courses and and workshops and things to to get access to that spreadsheet. But you know, Reddit honestly is kind of a good place to go these days for for kind of those finding those specific things. But it is it is very hard. And unfortunately we had a we had a little tiny bubble of body positivity that allowed for some brands to expand their sizing and that has
That bubble has popped and a lot of those brands are shutting down. And again, just just full compassion for how hard it is. So, you know, not only to find clothes that fit, but I think we deserve more than just clothes that fit. I think we deserve clothes that, you know, express some part of ourselves that make us feel safe, make us feel cool, you know, yeah,
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (23:02)
Make us feel great. Yeah.
Dacy Gillespie (23:03)
as something aesthetic that appeals to us. And so when those
options get narrowed so far, it's it's incredibly hard and I have I'm in a straight sized body and I have thin privilege and so I I don't know that experience except through work living it with my clients. When I shop for them, I get that brief feeling of how hard it is. But I'm not living that experience. So
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (23:27)
marginalized experience. I
it actually makes me wonder, you know, could you tell us more about your Substack community? Because I love that
Dacy Gillespie (23:33)
Yeah.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (23:34)
you've brought this topic, you know, outside of just like our closets or just maybe working with someone like you one on one into this beautiful thread. could you tell us more about your Substack?
Dacy Gillespie (23:44)
Yeah, sure. So my substack is called Unflattering. and that really is meant to evoke, you know, a kind of a rejection of some of those beauty standards. and so I write a lot about the ways in which clothes have been used, again, you know, to kind of show an external view of of what's societally appropriate or expected. and, you know, of gosh, probably maybe two years ago I started a Friday thread.
where just anyone could post their outfit. and it has become this super joyful, like, you know, as safe as something on the internet can be, really welcoming place where you know, typically most of most of the people who post are are people assigned female at birth, but we definitely have some non-binary and and trans people in there as well. And everyone can just post what they're wearing without judgment.
all different shapes and sizes. And these are not people who have fashion blogs. They're not people who post their outfits on Instagram. This is truly like, you know, your your cut of just the everyday person around the country posting what they're wearing and get getting so much validation and affirmation for it. and so if you want to get ideas or if you just need a little cleansing for your eyes to be able to see like an average American body instead of a
you know, the one percent that is, you know, the at the at the top of the ladder of hierarchy, of beauty standards, then it's a great place to come.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (25:16)
It's such a cool thing. I pop in there when I'm on Substack and I love I love scrolling through and seeing like also like, yeah, I just love my outfit and I want to share or I'm trying something new
Dacy Gillespie (25:24)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (25:25)
or like this is this a stretch. I'm not sure. And
and it's so fun. It reminds me of there's a boutique near my house that had a sign that said, I'm a nicer person when I like my outfit.
Dacy Gillespie (25:35)
Yeah, no, it's true.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (25:37)
like, why can't we share? Like I really like what I put together here and I feel good and and that this stuff is important, you know?
It it can be important and it's important for some people. And I love
that. Dacy could you tell me about a recent outfit maybe you put together for yourself that you feel really good about?
Dacy Gillespie (25:54)
Mm, that's interesting. yeah, I mean, first of all, just for all the perimenopausal and menopausal women out there, I don't retain much in my brain. So I'll just talk about the outfit that I'm wearing right now because this is one that I
really love. and also, you know, I'm in St. Louis. The the heat index is probably 105 today. and again, you've got a
kind of take into account your surroundings. So I'm wearing this very, very lightweight top from the brand Ace and Jig, which is a ethically made clothing brand that does go up to I think size 5X. So it's size inclusive as well. It's very lightweight. I'm not wearing a bra. I try as often as possible to not wear a bra. And I'm wearing some very comfortable like knit pants that I they're so comfortable I could sleep in if I wanted to.
and I'm wearing a couple of necklaces. one that I made myself and one that, you know, I just kind of found. And I it it does feel great. And this is I I wanna also just kind of note that this is something I wear often, like this exact same outfit. And it doesn't always mean you have to like recreate the wheel to feel good in your outfit. Like if you find again, like you, Rachel, like find some things that work for you and stick to them and repeat them and it doesn't always have to be
a production and it always it doesn't always have to be a performance.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (27:10)
And then also doesn't have to go the other side and be all capsule wardrobe. I think sometimes we get very all or nothing about it and like I definitely
Dacy Gillespie (27:16)
Absolutely.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (27:17)
have my standards with enough variety I can mix it up and
get your chunky necklaces are so great. I kinda I love like that the chunky necklaces of the nineties are coming back.
Dacy Gillespie (27:27)
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (27:29)
Well Dacy how can folks get in touch with you, follow your work? What would you recommend?
Dacy Gillespie (27:34)
I'm definitely very active on Substack. And again, the the title of my Substack is Unflattering, but it's at dacygillespie.substack.com My website is dacygillespie.com. and I'm on Instagram @dacygillespie as well. So just my name everywhere. and I did just turn in the first draft of my book, which is with an imprint of Macmillan and the book is called Unflattering: A Radical New Way to Get Dressed.
And that is going into production and it probably won't be out until early 2028, but definitely stay tuned for that.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (28:10)
Well, I would love to have you back on the pod to talk about your book. Awesome. Well, thank you thank
Dacy Gillespie (28:12)
Yes, that would be great.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (28:15)
you so much for being here and just sharing sharing your work. and we will link to everything in the show notes. Thank you so much, Dacy
Dacy Gillespie (28:22)
Thanks, Rachel. This is fun. I love thinking about that intersection between money and clothes and and that enoughness. It's really important.
Rachel Duncan CFT ATR-P (28:29)
It's everything.
Rachel Duncan (28:35)
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