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Today's guest is Sienna Reid, writer of the Substack column The Bronze Edit. I am both so inspired by her very cool personal style AND the way she writes about the experience of getting dressed. I so enjoyed connecting with her. Enjoy!

Episode Transcript

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

You're listening to Intuitive Style, where we believe that everyone has style. I'm Maureen Welton. In conversation with fantastic guests, we explore how to tap into our style intuition so that we can dress authentically and live fully. Today's guest is Sienna Reid from The Bronze Edit. In her newsletter, Sienna chronicles her experience figuring out her personal style in her 30s. As a fellow wide pants lover, she pulls the best inspiration images and eloquently analyzes how getting dressed feels. Sienna, welcome to the show.

Sienna: Thank you so much, Maureen. I'm so happy to be here.

Maureen: We've been having internet conversations for a while, so it's nice to actually see your face and talk to you. One of my favorite posts of yours is about the outfits you're too afraid to wear. I love how you bring awareness to that feeling—when you're excited to wear something authentic, you have all the right pieces, but it just doesn't feel quite right once it's on. You end up changing into something else. Could you share more about that post and what initially drew you to those outfits?

Sienna: Yes, absolutely. That post came from a moment when I was getting dressed for my niece’s birthday party. I don’t have kids, so I was already feeling a little unsure about what to wear to something like that. I wanted to feel like myself but still fit in. I put together an outfit with a floral dress layered under a sweater and over jeans—pieces I’ve owned for years. I loved how it looked in the mirror. But the moment I thought about walking out the door, a flood of insecurity hit me. What will people think? Will I be taken seriously? Which is wild because it's a toddler’s birthday party. But the voice of doubt was loud. And that’s what made me write that post. I realized I already owned my dream wardrobe, but I didn’t always have the confidence to wear it. And the response to the post made me realize so many people feel the same way. That alone gave me the push to actually wear one of those outfits out.

Maureen: Do you think it was sharing that post online that changed how you felt about those outfits?

Sienna: I think it helped, yes. I wasn’t posting it to get validation, but seeing how many people resonated with the experience reminded me that people aren’t scrutinizing me the way I imagine. That realization helped ground me. It’s not that the outfit is wrong—it’s just fear. If I want to show up in a way that feels true to me, I have to push past that fear. And it's not easy. I’ve only worn one of the outfits from that post, but it’s a start.

Maureen: I have a theory I’d love to hear your take on. Do you think we’re drawn to these outfits because they’re more expressive or editorial, which makes them harder to wear? Like we’re asserting something about ourselves that feels bold or different from what’s around us?

Sienna: I think you're really hitting the nail on the head because I think most of us here do love fashion or style or something about getting dressed. Otherwise, I think we wouldn't be here. But then it is scary to go out into that real world and, and kind of say to the world, yes, I actually am interested in this, or this is something that I actually enjoy doing. It's kind of really putting yourself out there because. If you go out and people think, oh, she put no effort into her outfit, then I don't care if they judge me, right? But it's scarier if they think, she tried and came up with that?

But it's scarier if they think, she tried and came up with that?

I think the other piece is, there's something about to like, when I'm alone in my room, and I think about outfits I love, I do like when they're different. And I do like when they stand out. But then That is also really hard because in the, you know, in my real life, I'm a pretty introverted person. Like I don't love a lot of attention. So it's tough.

Maureen: This is a really big question, but what are you afraid of? I'm asking myself too, right? I think you, you got pretty close with the idea of It's, it's harder when I've actually tried. It's more vulnerable than when I didn't try. Maybe that's why everyone's so obsessed with looking effortless?

Sienna: That's actually such a good point. Yeah. I do think that is a huge part of it. Like I even think about, you know, other things in, in my life, like whether it's career or sports or things like that. It's kind of like when you're just starting out and there's no. Expectation that you should be good at it. It's okay if you fail, but. It's like if once you go farther and you've put in that work to get better, if you still fail, that's a lot harder to deal with.

Maureen: I'd love to transition then to talking about the Bronze Edit. I feel some pressure as someone writing about style online, I feel like I should be pushing myself a little bit further, be a little bit more expressive or, I should be trying a little bit harder. Is that something that crosses your mind ever with The Bronze Edit?

Sienna: That's a really good question. I think a couple of things. I think the one next almost negative that I've noticed is that—and I really fight this—I repeat the same outfits a lot. I have a couple of sweaters, a couple of pairs of jeans that without fail, I will wear every week. Maybe I wear like a different belt, but it's basically the same outfit. And I think there is sometimes this sense of guilt that I feel when I post the same thing over and over again, even though that's so normal in real life. It's almost like, okay, is this super boring for people? Because I literally wore this outfit last week and the week before and the week before. I consciously don't let me stop, like stop me from wearing those outfits because I love them, they're comfortable. I'm just gonna wear them.

A very positive thing that has come out of it is that It's sort of giving me more confidence to try new things. I'm not at a point where I feel pressure to try and be more experimental. I have found it's actually been kind of a, a positive, um, effect to sort of say like, yes, you can try new things. If it doesn't work out, then that's probably a really fun thing to write about as well. It's been just such a natural organic thing. And I think you had posted something recently about like sort of the difference between Instagram and Substack. I don't think I will ever be someone who is regularly posting on Instagram. I just don't think that could work for me and my personality. That would be a lot of pressure to be coming up with these super cool outfits all the time. Whereas with Substack, if my outfits are boring, then I can write about how my outfits are boring and work through things that way.

I don't think I will ever be someone who is regularly posting on Instagram. I just don't think that could work for me and my personality. That would be a lot of pressure to be coming up with these super cool outfits all the time. Whereas with Substack, if my outfits are boring, then I can write about how my outfits are boring and work through things that way.

Maureen: Yeah, I would love to talk about this more because I had this thought the other day and I want to make the disclaimer that I think that Substack is a social media platform just like any other. The thing that I like about Substack is that there is long form content and so inherently that means that we aren't trying to make every little thing a sound bite that you can just digest in like a second. The process of trying to write my little Instagram bio was an absolute headache because everything that I write is really nuanced. And I can say something that can be completely contradictory to something else, and I hold space for both. A lot of writers on Substack do that and that's the benefit of a long form narrative is that you can actually get into the meat of something.

Maybe that's why I like YouTube so much too — you can go so much deeper with long-form. Then on Instagram, I tried to promote this podcast, which doesn’t come naturally to me. Instead of putting up clips, I thought I had to make videos of myself putting on clothes.

And I didn’t like it. It’s not what I want to do, so I only made two videos. But I had a moment where I thought, “Why am I trying to sell my personal identity and style?” That’s not what I do on Substack. I don’t know how you feel about that, because your platform is very much about your personal style, but it’s more nuanced. It’s about the experience.

Sienna: Yea