Episode 177: Wardrobe as Wellness with Jenny Wirt of Sartorevi
Have you followed fashion “rules” that you learned from reading teen and fashion magazines? Or struggled over the years knowing how to dress when your body changed to varying sizes?
I’ve experienced this too, spending years searching for help but never really finding anything that “fit” until I found Jenny Wirt of Sartorevi.
Jenny is a potent energy healer whose background includes experience as a fashion stylist and creative director, alongside her Master of Physical Therapy degree and Craniosacral Therapy training.
Independently, Jenny has also studied chakra balancing, inner child healing, and manifestation work.
Additionally, Jenny trained as an assistant fashion stylist in New York, Amsterdam, and Los Angeles, where she honed her visual prowess, working on advertising and editorial shoots for brands and publications like ELLE, Glamour, Bloomingdale’s and Bergdorf Goodman.
Jenny has creatively merged her diverse skills and talents into her wellness-based personal styling offerings under the brand “Sartorevi”, which stands for “sartorial revival.”
Driven by the conviction that every woman deserves to feel radiant, magnetic, and powerful within her body, she believes in empowering women through fashion selections to facilitate healing from the inside out and the outside in her wardrobe as wellness sessions.
Episode Highlights:
How she merged her diverse professional background and talents to create Sartorevi
How our wardrobe is an external reflection of what's going on internally
The influence of colors and their relationship to our chakra centers
Her styling philosophy and tips on building a transitional wardrobe
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Mentioned in the Episode:
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Share the Episode:
“As clients would come in, I observed what they were wearing, because I find it interesting. That’s where I noticed a correlation between what they were wearing and what I was seeing energetically as I was worked with them. That’s how Sartorevi came together; it’s an outward reflection of what’s internal, whether we think about it consciously or not.”
Read the Transcript:
Naomi Nakamura: Hello, my friends and welcome back to The Live FAB Life Podcast. I'm your host, Naomi Nakamura and I'm truly, so excited to share this episode with you.
Over the years, and I'm sure many of you can relate to this, I've physically gone through a lot of changes. I've been many different sizes, I've gone through many different fads. And a lot of what my fashion sense started to develop when I was really young and was reading Teen and Seventeen magazines. I think, there wasn't even Teen Vogue when I was a teenager, but I was really into all these things. And I started learning about what are these fashion rules and what should I wear for what, and really carried that with me throughout my adulthood. But like I said, my body has gone through many different changes over the years.
I have been into different styles and different fads, and over the past few years, I've really been at a loss as how to style myself. I didn't know what my personal style is anymore. And I've been looking for help with this for, I'd say, the past three years. And I found some resources, but really didn't find anything that quite resonated with me. My own values change, especially in how I source clothes, where I shop at, and then different things that were recommended to me didn't feel quite right.
I discovered Jenny Wirt and was introduced to her through Instagram and mutual friends. And I was really curious about her service Wardrobe As Wellness, because I never considered what we wear or fashion as part of wellness. And so I actually booked a session with Jenny Wirt and it was so wonderful. It just exceeded my expectations. So let me just quickly introduce Jenny Wirt to you.
Jenny Wirt is a potent energy healer, but she has a really diverse professional background. She is a physical therapist. She's done work in cranial sacral therapy. She studied chakra balancing, does manifestation work, but she is also a fashion stylist. And she brings all of these things together in the service that she offers. And I went into there expecting to get recommendations on what lines and what styles and what cuts and shapes would work for me, what colors would work. And I definitely got all of that, but then I also cost so much more. And when I talk about her experience as an energy healer, I'm talking about chakra balancing, she brings all of that into the session in such a unique way. And like I said, in many ways, a wake-up call for me.
And it really validated a lot of things, as well as brought things to my attention that maybe I had been putting off or not really wanting to acknowledge or deal with. And again, it was nothing in a bad way, it was just all really gratifying in a personal growth way. I'm really truly excited and so grateful for Jenny Wirt to agree to come on and to share her work with you. And I share much of my experience as well. So I hope you enjoy this. So much of how we present ourselves externally is a reflection of what's going on internally and we really get into that topic. So with that, let's get to the show. Hi, Jenny Wirt, welcome to the show.
Jenny Wirt: Hi, Naomi. Thanks for having me.
Naomi Nakamura: I am very excited to have this conversation with you. I recently had a styling session with you and it was such a wonderful experience. So I'm excited to share who you are and what you do with the listeners. For those who don't yet know you can you introduce yourself?
Jenny Wirt: Sure. Yeah. And thank you for having me on, and I'm excited to be able to share, and I've loved working together and working with you on your personal style. And I'm a wardrobe stylist and healer. And my background is in physical therapy, taken this a little bit of an evolution, I guess, to get to this place where I'm bringing all of that together into one offering. And I've been doing that in LA, but I just moved to Ojai.
Naomi Nakamura: Oh, wonderful.
Jenny Wirt: Yeah. Which is exciting and dreamy and all the things that I expect it would be.
Naomi Nakamura: You have this diverse professional background. Can you share with us the evolution of where you started and how one led to the other?
Jenny Wirt: I got my degree in physical therapy and used that to travel. So I was traveling around and was offered a travel position in New York and I took it. And while I was there decided that I wanted to do something more creative. So I got into fashion styling, which was a total 180 in a lot of ways, but there was this aspect where I was getting to do something that was a little bit more creatively fulfilling, but didn't feel like I was helping people or contributing in a larger sense that I wanted to be able to do with my career, achieve I guess my career. Yeah. I have been on this back and forth and doing a little bit of each and then I moved to LA about four and a half years ago and was working in a wellness facility and having a little bit more of a holistic input. And patients that I was working with would ask me, "Are you a healer?" I just felt to do something and I wasn't trying to do anything, but yeah, I guess I just had that natural connection to people in that way.
Then I got trained in craniosacral therapy, which I had experienced myself and really loved the results and everything snowballed from there. It was a very different experience and I had to change the way that I worked with clients because I couldn't see the number, the volume of people that I was seeing before doing the healing work, which is what I felt really inspired to do. I quit my job and I started healing clients and doing that kind of work. And then I noticed as they would come in, I think I always just paid attention, observe what people are wearing, because I think it's interesting. And where I was noticing that there was correlation between what they were coming in wearing in terms of the colors, or maybe be types of clothes, like a more masculine utilitarian clean versus the super feminine flowy, or certain colors. And that really correlated to what I was seeing energetically as I was working with them in a session.
That's how it came together, was that I just didn't feel like there was really as much separation as with anything, it's an outward reflection of what's internal. And whether we think about it consciously or not.
Naomi Nakamura: For those who aren't familiar, can you share what cranial sacral work is?
Jenny Wirt: Yes. It's its own physiological system in the body, like your respiratory system or cardiovascular system. So it's the cerebral spinal fluid that surrounds the brain and the spinal cord and everything that it's housed in. And it's the rhythm that it creates as that fluid is produced and reabsorbed. So there's a subtle body expansion and contraction. And with the craniosacral therapy is releasing the restrictions in the fascia, but can be stored, they call it trauma, but it's physical, emotional stress or repetitive use, or that one time you bumped your head on the table and you can work in any point of the body because the fascia system is one whole system. And so you can work on any joint in the body and impact the tissue in that way, by releasing the fascia, you improve that rhythm, which affects the central nervous system. And there's also an energetic component as well. You have to approach the person in a certain way to be able to assess and treat that system.
Naomi Nakamura: So that's what you mean when you said you were seeing the correlation between people's outward presentation versus what you were seeing going on internally with them?
Jenny Wirt: Right. And I guess, I mean, I think it's probably not purely craniosacral therapy. That's, it's an intuitive thing. I'm a very visual person and I also receive intuitive information whenever I'm working in a session with someone visually. So I can visually see there's a blockage, they're holding all their energy on the right side, which is the masculine side. And I can work with them to move that. And then I would also may prescribe, say more feminine leaning wardrobe pieces to help support that balance.
Naomi Nakamura: I had the experience of going through that with you. And I was so amazed because, well, let me back it up a little bit. I never really knew what my personal style was, I would read fashion magazines since I was a pre-teen and read these things about, well, what's good for this skin tone and whatnot, and what's good for this body shape or body size. And it just, I never really evolved to what that might be for me as well as I changed over the years. And looking back and I actually thought about this after our session, I'd been searching for that kind of help. I realized in 2019, I signed up for some personal stylist, free workshop they had or something. And they never really helped me and I actually took someone's program, another person's program in 2020, I never really got what I was looking for, but I signed up for a session with you and I answered a really just simple questionnaire.
And then you sent me a mood board or self board to look at beforehand, before we even met face to face at all, had any have a one-on-one interaction. And what you presented it just stunned me because I feel like it hit all these things that I was not only, in fact I was looking for, in terms of aesthetics and style, but when you bring in the energy work with it, with the chakras, it really hit the nail on the head in many ways. And it was just powerful to me because like you said, you do this intuitively, but we had never even had any type of one-on-one interaction prior to that other than exchanging of emails. Can you share with people, what exactly is your wardrobe as wellness experience? Especially the one that I went through.
Jenny Wirt: Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you. That's so kind of you to say, and I'm so glad that we found each other. I mean, the reason I think that it feels like there was a connection there before was because I did connect to your energetic body and see what you had going on. And I think we often do this and you had already started to do this. You were wearing more dresses and certain colors that you're gravitating towards.
Naomi Nakamura: And just for listeners, all I did was center my Instagram account beforehand. I didn't send any other pictures or anything. I'm like, here's my Instagram with some selfies.
Jenny Wirt: Yeah. So, I do distance healing as well. I can tune into a person without having met them. And I think then I just listen intuitively as I'm going through. You filled out a questionnaire, so that gave me some information. But then also as I was reading your questionnaire, certain things would go off or something, like, oh, that's something. Or there's something there, there's something deeper emotionally or something that needs some support or some balance or whatever that might be. So yeah, there's the questionnaire that is helpful to me. I do just a really quick energetic check-in to see color wise. I think, often those colors that correlate with those areas of our body that are maybe a little bit out of balance or just need some support, those colors feel really good to see, even if it's not a color that you normally gravitate towards. It can be one or the other, it can be that it feels really good or that it feels very, it can be a little bit polarizing sometimes too, if it's an area of your body that you've disconnected from that you actively push away.
I, for example, always hated the color orange, which is sacral and yeah, so there's just a relationship there that color has felt better to me as I started to heal that area of my body and worked on supporting that.
Naomi Nakamura: When you talk about the colors, maybe can you speak about what those colors are? For me, and you brought forth the bringing in a lot of golden yellows into my wardrobe. And I was always conditioned to think, whoa, as someone who has... I'm Asian, so there's a lot of just natural yellow tone skin that I should stay away from those colors. I literally have no yellow in my closet, but that's something that you brought up. That's a connection to the solar plexus. Now, when I look at different Instagram accounts or different brands, I'm actually finding a whole different appreciation. And then I'm thinking, well, why didn't I believe that this was not a good color for me? And I think that's what you're getting at. Can you talk more about the colors and what they correspond to?
Jenny Wirt: Yeah. And I also just want to say, I mean, everybody's so individualized and all of these, I don't want to call them, they're like guidelines, if you feel really good in a color or a shape that doesn't necessarily fit your "body type or skin tone," or if it doesn't fall in that category, the biggest thing is for you to feel really illuminated and lit up by what you're wearing. And yeah, so there's a skin tone component where depending on your skin tone, whether it's warm, cool or neutral, certain colors are going to brighten you up more, but there are also ways that you can play with bringing in those colors that maybe don't best compliment your skin tone in a way that isn't going to make you look washed out or whatever that might be. And then there's also the range of pigment too, a hyper saturated versus a very muted pigment are going to look different on different intones or compliment those differently.
And then as far as the energy, I mean, the colors are just correlated to the energy centers of the body. I think some people might be familiar with those, but it's, root is red, sacral is orange, solar plexus is that golden yellow, heart is either pink or green and sometimes both. And that for me is usually an intuitive thing. I can intuitively pick up on it's green for this person or pink or both. And then throat is that aquamarine turquoise light blue, and third eye is indigo, the deep. I always associate it more with navy in terms of colors that people wear. But it's more of a purple-y deep purple. And then a crown is a violet, so a lavender light purple. And then white is associated with your aura, which is the combination of all of those, the energy that is surrounding you like a little energy bubble.
And then there's, whites reflective, so it's going to reflect, energy is going to bounce off of it. Can you think about some light ray, you wear white when you go out in the sun, it bounced that sunlight off and then black is going to absorb. It's the same concept with those two colors there.
Naomi Nakamura: I love that. I feel like it opens this whole world of creativity. I think I shared with you that my family comments on this a lot that, "Oh, you're wearing something other than jeans and a black tank top, what's going on with you?" Because that honestly was just my uniform for many years. And I feel like this whole new world of creativity has been opened up for me, which feels really fun. And yeah, I can't describe it any other way, other than it feels joyful and fun.
Jenny Wirt: That's amazing. You could tell me if you had a different experience but I think sometimes especially women, we dress in a way that we feel is safe and that we know, okay, this is okay, all the time on every level, because I think that there's a lot of societal input around what women wear more so than men. And it's just a lot of you take in what you think looks good, or there'll be these rules in a magazine, or don't wear this or wear this this fall. There's all these things that maybe don't necessarily resonate with you personally, or don't work for you personally, that get inflicted on us. And then it's like, well, I don't know what to wear. So I'm going to just wear these things that I know are good and safe and all cool here.
Naomi Nakamura: What you described is exactly my experience is I stuck to the jeans and black tank tops because it felt safe for pretty much all occasions or even that you can make as casual or you can even make those dressy. But I think again, I was somebody who just read every single teen magazine out there and every single fashion magazine and my perception was based upon what was in these articles about "fashion rules". And I guess I just didn't have the confidence or the guidance to be able to figure out, well, how can I explore this other part of me? Probably seen this meme about when you see something in the magazine and then you put it on and you're like, how do you think it's going to look and then how it actually looks. But then it also, I feel like this again, like I said, it opens up this whole new world and almost gave me permission to start to experiment.
Especially this whole past year of being in a pandemic, where we were most of the time confined to our homes, where I will fully admit, I invested in a lot of really leisure wear of comfort wear. And now if you like, it's time to open up and start getting excited about dressing in something else other than a t-shirt and jogger pants again. And I don't know, that's where I'm at right now.
Jenny Wirt: Well, and I think, I mean, part of what my goal is, and I hope this is what I bring to every session is to educate you on what really works for you and how to take something, you might see something in a magazine and you're like, oh, that's really great. Well, how do you take the elements out of that, that work for you? And knowing, because I think going shopping can be overwhelming-
Naomi Nakamura: Very overwhelming.
Jenny Wirt: And so knowing, being able to go through an online store or a physical store and know, okay, well, this is going to be really great on me or not, or this is how I can wear this in a way that's going to be really flattering for me and my body. Very personal and individualized and specific to you, not only from an aesthetic point of view, but also to support your wellbeing too, which is the holistic approach, this whole person perspective.
Naomi Nakamura: I think it's a whole another opportunity for us to really come to ourselves, both in our bodies and in our emotions and our mental health and get to know ourselves in yet another way. Because I think even when we were conversing and you were saying this kind of a pant may look good for you and measure your natural waist. And I was like, Oh, what's my natural waist? I didn't know what that was. And I didn't know, especially when you're shopping online and you're looking at measurements of what would be recommended and picking your size. I don't necessarily know. I didn't know what a natural waist was, but at the same time with the energetic part, again, it's this whole opportunity to take a step back and to take an honest look at yourself and just give yourself the space to get to know yourself again. That was really my takeaway of the experience.
Jenny Wirt: Yeah. Well, that's great. That's perfect. Because I never want to be inflicting anything on someone else, like wear this, it's more like, yeah, who are you? How do you want to dress? How do you want to be presenting yourself to the world? And helping basically, just a lot of support around that. How can I share with you the best tools for you to be able to go out into the world as your most full and complete and whole fully expressed embodied self?
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah. And I shared this with you as well. Is part of my, I guess challenge, was that I had changed in many ways. And so I didn't know how to dress myself because we all change over time. And I'm realizing now that I've actually also evolved in many non-physical ways. And having that brought to my attention is giving me again the permission and really, I guess, urging myself and giving myself the time and the space to explore those areas as well. Can you walk people through what is the client experience? What's the process that you take people through?
Jenny Wirt: We talked about it a little bit already. We start with the questionnaire and I'll create a mood board and also a style guide so that you have something to refer back to not only for aesthetics and colors, which the colors by the way can change in terms of maybe right now you need a lot of golden yellow with sprinkles of some other colors. And not to say that you can't wear anything outside of those, but it's just a recommendation, I guess. And then as you heal or as you change or as different things come up over the course of your life, you might gravitate more or you might want the support of other colors. But yeah, so we start with the style guide, to mood board, we have a little bit of email back and forth at the beginning. And then we go into the video call, which is an hour and 15 minutes, which is usually a good amount of time to go through everything, answer any questions.
And I also do that energetic check-in beforehand. So then it gives us an opportunity to sort through and... Because there's a big emotional component around the way that we dress, I think, and often in ways that we don't fully understand until you get into that situation where it's being put in front of you, like, well, are you maybe hiding in your clothes a little bit? Or is there something emotional? Somebody maybe told you that you can't wear this color or you maybe had to wear a certain thing growing up where you felt restricted? Or whatever that is, there is a little bit of unpacking that emotional component as well. And then, so then we get into the fun stuff and talk about the shapes and proportions and the ways that you can put clothes on your body in a way that's going to create a lot of balance and enhance your natural features. And then if there's anything from your closet, which you had already gone through a lot of your-
Naomi Nakamura: Oh, I've gone through so many times with the pandemic, there's almost nothing left there.
Jenny Wirt: Yeah. It just depends on what situation the person's in. If they need some help around how do I sift through all these things that I have, or in your case, it's maybe focus more on what do we bring in and not elements of creating a full wardrobe so that you can bring the ideas really to give you all the tools, to do it yourself, to go see your closet and sort through from that perspective. I think maybe it just attracts the Marie Kondo when there've been a few women that I've worked with, who will say, "I've already done the Marie Kondo" and I'm like, "Well, that's awesome and great, but you also want to look at it from a point of view of what is this piece doing for you? Can you edit it or can you alter it or diet, or" there're ways that you can make what you already have work for you so that it's really a sustainable way of going through your closet, I guess, or keeping as much of what you already have in the first place.
And I think, I was going to mention this earlier, but I think that most women that I work with have an idea of you know when you put something on and it feels really good, but you maybe don't know why it does. Why what they put together on this model in a magazine looks so good on that model. It's a lot to do with where are you drawing the eye? How are they balancing the proportions? And that kind of thing. So it's really just to give you a lot of knowledge around that so that you know how to create those elements in your own wardrobe and you can pull anything. You know what to do with what you've got and you know what to bring in, and so that everything is really working for you and it's not a stressful experience. It's yeah, a joyful, happy experience that it should be.
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah. I just never gave much thought or considered the amount of emotions that's tied into how we dress ourselves and what we put on our body. And one thing you mentioned is that what I put on my questionnaire is that it's become a lot more important to me at this time in my life to really wear a lot more sustainable brands. I find myself not even having a desire to go to the local mall or to shop at these big brand name stores, I find myself actually seeking out clothing from maybe lesser name shops or boutiques or brand names. And so I appreciated that you were able to bring that in to the recommendations that you had for me.
Jenny Wirt: Yeah. Well, I think we're really aligned on that aspect and I think there's a lot more awareness being created around that and their impact, that fashion has on environment. But even if you didn't do that, even just the process of going through, if you didn't make that a point, the process of going through this experience is going to be more sustainable because you'll know what you have in your closet, you'll know that it works for, you'll know what to bring in so you're not buying a bunch of things that you're never going to wear because they weren't right for you in the first place. So it's moving forward. It's always going to be more sustainable even if you are buying clothes that are not sustainably made that in itself is a sustainable element. But yes, we can talk forever about these brands and the eco-friendly and then also the fabric choices and dyes and how those impact your skin. And because you're absorbing through your skin, is your largest organ and those things make a difference. And I think to the environment on a broader scale. Lot's of ways to do that.
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah, I think the most fun has been, I've been working from home for nine years now and you're almost like, well, this gives you permission that you don't have to just wear [inaudible 00:28:08] or wear and sweats all day. And I've actually, I'm wearing a dress today and I've been doing that more often lately. And I actually find energetically a new way to show up for my work, just in a more positive way, I guess, a little bit more alert and awake and not just like I'm in sweats today, this is the energy you're going to get out of me today. And of course, I still have those days, but they're not every day.
Jenny Wirt: No. Well, I think it's nice to not feel like you have to have a reason to feel good and to put some effort towards, but it also doesn't take that much more effort to throw on a dress than it does to throw on sweatpants, especially if it's the right kind of piece where you can feel just as comfortable and-
Naomi Nakamura: I would argue that during this summer, it's actually more comfortable to wear a dress than it is to wear sweats or a long pants because they get hot. I'm not someone who likes to sweat.
Jenny Wirt: Yeah. I think you don't have to have a reason to get dressed up. I am probably always overdressed because I like to do it especially something that you enjoy, which just sounds like you're finding that you do enjoy that experience of playing a little bit in your clothes. There's no reason that you can't put on some jewelry, even if you're not leaving the house. And I think this is maybe not so relevant now, but at the beginning I was telling people put on shoes, it feels good to have a full, complete ensemble going. I think it can feel a little bit hopeless, I'm not going anywhere anyway, so I don't even need to bother with it.
Naomi Nakamura: That's exactly what it was like. But yeah, I always found that I had work clothes and non-work clothes. And I guess in my head, the work clothes just felt more restrictive and not comfortable. And I just think this new approach of just having it all be the same, is working for me. And I think it's also just, I don't know, in my head and in my budget, I'm like, I don't need work clothes and then play clothes and then going out clothes, it really can all be the same.
Jenny Wirt: Yeah. I really love those pieces that can transition. And I think that's another aspect of that societal input or you have to dress a certain way, you need to look like everybody else in your office. Even if you have a dress code that you're maintaining, you can still bring in your personality through clothes that can function in your workplace and pair them differently with the nicer pants versus jeans and to go out to dinner after or pieces that are just not segmented. I think that's always a great goal to have so that you don't feel like a split personality in one space and you have to like be a different person and your wardrobe reflects that. But if you can show up and how much better are you going to show up to your work, if you can be a complete version of yourself while you're there or even if you're at home, if you can show up while you're at home in this more complete Naomi self?
Naomi Nakamura: Well, like I said, my experience working with you was so fantastic. It was so exciting to me. I keep going back to the Pinterest board you created for me, I've gotten a few pieces and really excited to start incorporating them, but where can people find you and connect with you?
Jenny Wirt: I can be found on Instagram @sartorevi, which is, I don't know if I need to spell that out. I made it up as a name, so.
Naomi Nakamura: I will connect to your website and your Instagram on the show notes for this episode.
Jenny Wirt: Okay, perfect. Well, I can be found in Ojai as well. I'm going to be around and seeing, healing clients here. And then most of my work is digitally based, that's maybe the question you were asking. Yeah. So it's mostly digitally based at this point and I can be found online or Instagram, my website.
Naomi Nakamura: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining and for your time. I was sharing with you just from a business perspective, I just love how you've been able to incorporate your very diverse background into this one service that I think can benefit so many people.
Jenny Wirt: Yeah. Well, thank you. That's so nice to hear. It's been a journey to get to this place and I think it's still evolving. I would like to move into creating garments and elements more like custom pieces or ready to wear that has a lot of... That takes the guesswork out of what to buy I guess, that's all very made a certain way, like being very particular about the fabric choices and the dyes and all of that. So there's just not a lot of questions I guess, around what to choose and what works for you and that kind of thing.
Naomi Nakamura: Well, I'm excited to see what's to come. Thank you.
Jenny Wirt: Thank you so much.
Naomi Nakamura is a Health x Human Design coach who’s creating a healthier society through aligned energy.
She blends a bespoke mix of Functional Nutrition and Human Design to help others shift into alignment to leverage and correctly manage their energy to support their body, mind, and spirit.
She believes that when we embrace our authenticity and lean into our bio-individuality, we naturally live a life of freedom, empowerment, and optimal health.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
Connect with Naomi on: Instagram
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