There's an irony in completely losing your sense of style while editing one of the UK's biggest fashion magazines. For seven years I was Editor-in-Chief of GLAMOUR. I worked alongside brilliant stylists and fashion editors, sat on the front row at fashion shows, oversaw shoots and spent my working days discussing trends, designers and seasonal styles.

I'd be the one my friends would turn to for colour trends or shoe styles. I could tell you what thousands of women were going to want to wear next season. But while guiding others on what was fashionable, I completely lost the ability to work out what suited me.

My loss of fashion identity didn't happen overnight. It slipped away so gradually that I barely noticed. I went from experimental and bold in my teens and twenties to something more professional in my 30s. Then came six rounds of IVF, each changing my body and the way I felt about it, and three pregnancies in quick succession. I took on the full-on job of editing Glamour at 42, and the onset of perimenopause left my body feeling unrecognisable. My fashion sense went with it.

I used to be able to look at a piece of clothing on a hanger and know instinctively whether it would suit me, and more often than not, whether it would fit me too. But these changing life phases meant I found myself ordering things online that would once have been a shoo-in, and feeling shocked when they arrived. Sometimes they didn't fit. Sometimes they fitted perfectly. Nothing looked right anymore.

Parenting three young children (aged two, four and six), while working full-time and managing a team across Europe, took up all of my headspace. The fun of styling myself went out of the window; I relied on practicality. Top-to-toe black or navy, a long dress that I could throw on with little thought and that required no mixing or matching. Light-coloured clothes could be ruined by sticky fingers before I'd stepped out of the front door. I needed a wardrobe that worked for my life, not just one I liked the look of.

This is what happens when your body, and your own needs, take a back seat to almost everything else in your life. Yes, I was still very lucky. I had access to beautiful brands, like Zimmermann for evening events and confidence-building Borgo de Nor when I was hosting panel talks.

But when I looked in the mirror, the woman in the reflection didn't really look like me anymore. Of course, being editor of Glamour made it worse: enter my internal identity crisis. Leading teams of mainly much younger women threw up questions about age appropriateness. Did I want to follow all the trends we were promoting to Gen Z and Millennials when my own life stage was somewhere completely different? Yes, I know intellectually that style has no age limit and that women should be able to wear whatever they want, whatever their age. But knowing that and feeling it are two different things.

Then, at 50 years old, I left Glamour to go freelance and write a book. Suddenly I wasn't Deborah, Editor-in-Chief of Glamour. I was just Deborah. And with that, I started enjoying clothes again.

I had more time to think about what I liked rather than what I needed to wear to work. I spent an hour talking through my wardrobe with one of my close friends, Joanne Jacobson, who's a fashion stylist. She encouraged me to ditch the dresses and start wearing trousers again that showed more waist, which hadn't disappeared completely in perimenopause, even though that's how it had felt.

I started trying things I'd decided weren't for me anymore. I bought balloon pants, jorts, straight legged and barrel legged jeans. I started experimenting more with colour - red, purple, tassels, paisley. I injected some fun back into my wardrobe. The suit jackets and dresses no longer fitted my new WFH life (I sold most of them on Vinted and Vestiaire Collective), which felt more casual and relaxed.

And I started posting my outfits on Instagram. Sharing my own wardrobe story struck a chord, and I was inundated with messages from women who felt exactly the same way: either post-babies, or in midlife, they'd also lost themselves in the mix.

What came through in those messages was uncertainty, and a shortage of time. Maybe that's what happens to many of us in our 40s and 50s? We don't necessarily lose our style, but we do lose the headspace to have one.

These years can be relentless. Children, ageing parents, careers, relationships, mortgages, domestic admin, all competing for attention. Standing in front of a mirror trying three different pairs of trousers can feel trivial. And if we are also navigating a menopausal body shift, it can feel confusing too. So, we find a quick formula that works, even if it comes to feel, and look, boring and predictable.

Sometimes other things in life do matter more, and that's OK. But my style hadn't gone anywhere. I had stopped making room for it. I spent seven years telling women what to wear next, and it took leaving to remember what I wanted to wear myself.

Lost your sense of style, or yourself? You're not alone. Our Power Years festival is coming up to support you on exactly this. Friday 6 November at The Arding Rooms: a full day of speakers, workshops and women who get it. Book your place