Intuitive Style podcast is back and better than ever!

I took a break over the summer to rest, rejuvenate, and overhaul my recording method from top-to-bottom! We’re talking: new backdrop, haircut, logo, audio-set-up and even a new theme song created specifically for the show! While working a full-time job and continuing to write this newsletter. So when I say I took a break, I am speaking aspirationally.

That said, we have an exciting series ahead with episodes featuring Substack gems Harriet Hadfield, and OFELIA (and way more!) plus a few new faces you’ll be sure to love.

Despite my best attempts, this podcast continues to be 100% reader supported. If you enjoy what we’re doing here, please consider sharing with someone you think would love the show so we can get the word out!

Onto the show…

Episode Transcript

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Welcome

Welcome back to Season 2 of the Intuitive Style Podcast!

I'm Maureen McLennon Welton. I can't wait for you to see these episodes. I think it's going to be a fabulous season, kicking off with our guest today, Asta / Aastha. This is a great conversation. I think you're really going to enjoy getting to know her a little bit better.

And this podcast is entirely community supported. So please consider liking, sharing, subscribing, and really just getting the word out there so that more people can find this show.

And without further ado, let's get into the episode!

Maureen: 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 Aastha, the author behind the fabulous Substack Fit Happens—which is of course a fabulous name. Aastha loves wearing the brand Tibi, styling clothes in different ways, sharing about color mixing and silhouette, and chatting about weird shoes. Aastha, welcome to the show.

Aastha: Thank you, thank you, and thank you for the introduction.

Maureen: I feel that your newsletter, Fit Happens, is a good foil for mine in the way that you seem to have really honed the skill of dressing intuitively and do it with relative ease. Can you share a little bit about what dressing intuitively means to you and how you foster that sensibility?

Aastha: Yes, yes, for sure. But before I jump into the answer, I do want to say just a few words to embarrass you a little bit, Maureen, because I'm just such a big fan of everything that you're doing. And I really appreciate your vulnerability in how you put yourself out there.

I've been a big fan of your podcast too, and I really appreciate how welcoming you make the space for everyone and hold space for everyone. That’s why I was very excited to do this. So I wanted to officially do that after you start the recording—so you cannot take it out. So don’t take this out.

Now, let me answer the question.

So, it’s something that… just the idea of living intuitively has been very important to me for, I don’t know, like 15, 20 years at this point. And I don’t even remember what sparked that. But in terms of what it means to dress, it’s about—there is so much out there that tells you what is right, what is wrong. And there is no objective truth about how you dress, but also about how you live. Like, the kind of decisions you make. For example, I am here in Los Angeles and my family is in India, which means I’m probably not going to see my parents that many times in my lifetime. But who’s to say whether that’s right or wrong? That’s just a very big example to begin with.

But truly, there are so many decisions you need to make for your own life where there is no objective way to say what is right or what is wrong. And to actually be living a life where you don’t have regrets, it’s so important that you tap into your intuition and what feels right in that moment.

And intuitive style and intuitive dressing to me is just a capsule form of that exact same idea—that you wear what feels right in that moment. And as long as it feels right, you’re going to have a good day and you’re not going to worry too much about, “is this right or is this wrong?”

Even if I look back at my style five years ago, ten years ago, fifteen years ago—I don’t have any regrets, because I know it felt right in that moment. Who cares if it doesn’t feel right now? If I had fun in that moment, that’s enough.

It’s kind of like: if you have fun in the present, the past and the future take care of themselves.

Maureen: I was going to ask about the regret of it all—you already answered. So what I heard from that is basically the only way to prevent future regret, which is this scary intangible thing we can’t predict, is by trusting that we’re making the best choices in the moment. And if we change our minds later, that doesn’t mean anything about what we did in the past.

Aastha: No, no, it doesn’t. And also, I think when you live long enough, you realize you will change your mind. That is normal, right? So if that’s going to happen anyway, why worry too much about it? When people ask me for career advice, I usually say, just do what feels good to you in the moment. Because if you have fun every day, you will also be having fun every day in the future, right? So the future takes care of itself if you just focus on the present, basically.

Maureen: I did a meditation before this, so it's really ringing true for me. No, I love this—such a good way to explain dressing intuitively. I know we'll talk about it more throughout the call.

Switching gears slightly, I love to talk about the Tibi of it all. I know that Tibi, the brand—you’re not affiliated with them, you don’t use affiliate links—but you mostly or very often wear their clothing. And I just think it's so interesting, to me and to other people, to see someone really living authentically with a particular brand. That's also, like, sometimes divisive, as I think you’ve shared on your social media and on Substack.

So I’d just like to hear a little bit more about the origin—how you found Tibi and what it is about that brand that resonates with you so much?

Aastha: Yeah, it's such a great question. It is a big part of my style life for sure, and my closet, right? To the point where, because I'm a big Indyx user too—and you know how you can choose whether you want to see the brand names or the item names—the default is brand name. And I was like, that is useless to me because all I’ll see is Tibi, Tibi, Tibi. That does nothing for me. So I changed it to item name.

But the thing about me is that I really, really dislike searching for things, shopping, and trying on different things—figuring out what's going to work and what's not. I just feel so frustrated when I have to spend time doing that. I think it's such a waste of time and there are so many other things that I’d rather be doing.

In the past, I think pretty early on, I learned about my body type and what works for me. And the thing about most brands—unless they're very expensive brands, like Margiela, Comme des Garçons, that level—is that they’re not very consistent in the lines and the clothing that they make.

So, for example, with Anthropologie or J.Crew, those kinds of brands—they just make anything and everything. When I would wear some of those brands (and I’m a big Anthropologie fan, just as an example), it was like: I’d have to look and not understand exactly what they’re doing this season. It would be all over the place. Some stuff worked, some stuff didn’t. Just very annoying.

I am a fan of Issey Miyake. That said, their lines are consistent, but those lines don’t look great on me. There are very few pieces that actually work for me.

Anyway, long story long—I was in New York, and I wanted to go to the Issey Miyake store because I was willing to spend time finding the one thing that might work for me. But the store was very busy—it’s a small store in Soho—and I didn’t want to deal with that. So I was like, let me just walk around and see what else is out here.

Tibi was right around the corner. I didn’t know anything about the brand because it’s not that well known. I’m also not very engaged in style content on social media—at least before Substack—so I didn’t know anything about them.

I walked in, and there was a stylist there, Grace, who was super nice. She talked about the brand, I was interested in some of the clothes, she helped me try them on—and I instantly fell in love. Literally 90% of the stuff looked good on me and the lines worked well for me. I ended up buying three things, walked out still not knowing about the style classes or anything like that.

Then I did a few email exchanges with Grace afterward to figure out shoe sizing—because their sizing is all over the place. That’s when she told me about the style class, I started watching it, and the rest is history.

But truly, I think what drew me to them is that they are very consistent in the kind of clothes they make. And most of their lines work really well on me. They do make some clothes where the lines don’t work well on me, and I just know that and steer clear of those s