Fashion Inspo: Fall 2023 Style Avatar Update

September is a melancholy time of year in many ways … but it’s also the most exciting time of year and I can sum that up for you in 2 words: Fall Fashion. Fall is my favourite sartorial season – that all-too-brief period of time when I can wear all my favourite clothes. Sweaters! Wool jackets and skirts! Coats! All the coats! I love planning my fall fashion “strategy”. As it’s been a while since I’ve done one, I thought it was also a good time to do an avatar review/update. Let’s dig in!

As a quick back-of-the-napkin summary, my avatars are characters that embody the different vibes/ flavours/moods of my personal style. They are the High Priestess/Crone (previously the Prince), the Artist, the Historian (previously the Adventurer), and the Bohemian. You can read my thoughts on the last iteration of my avatars here. Over the years, the influence of each avatar on my actual outfits has waxed and waned. For example, 2018 had big Prince energy: edgy, architectural, dark clothing was my comfort zone. 2020, in contrast, was very Bohemian: colourful, zany, unconventional. In the last few years, I’ve been alternating mostly between the Historian and the Bohemian, with subtle shifts and changes in the flavour of each avatar from season to season.

Taking stock of my sartorial landscape this fall, I think it’s safe to say that the Historian and the Bohemian will remain my primary avatars. I also feel like there is another player coming into the mix. Initially, I wondered whether it was a wholly new avatar, but I’ve decided that it’s simply an evolution of the Artist in a slightly new direction. In the past, the Artist was a character very much under the sign of the moon; a dramatic but soft feminine energy, fluid and elegant. Now, I feel like it has acquired an edge – call it grunge elegance. If it was Mucha before, it’s Basquiat now.

Now let’s put all this into visual terms of reference.

The Historian avatar remains a Luxe Academia crossed with English Manor Chic vibe. I still very much identify this avatar with Diana Bishop from A Discovery of Witches who is a university professor, a witch, AND the wife of a super-rich Anglo-French vampire who looks like Matthew Goode. In other words, my dream life, hahahaha! For fall 2023, here is my Historian style inspo:

The Bohemian avatar has lately had a distinctive Jo-March-meets-Ralph Lauren-on-a-prairie. I’m taking that into fall mode with darker, rich colours and an Edwardian flair:

As for the Artist, I am feeling very inspired by 90s grunge – plaid is a fall staple for me anyway. But this is a dramatic, glam sort of grunge and not too masculine.

I haven’t talked a lot about the High Priestess/Crone avatar, and that’s because this one remains a little bit in the wings, so to speak. It’s not an energy I feel strongly at the moment, so I am content to keep it in reserve for the time being. It might be something that will resurface again in the winter, which is very much a time of regeneration and rebirth when the wise mother aspect of the High Priestess/Crone makes itself felt.

Having taken stock of my inspiration, the next step in my fall fashion planning is to think about what pieces I already have and what pieces I would like to add to my closet, and compile a “thrift hit list” for the season. Stay tuned next week for that!