5 Ways to Find your Personal Style

No, really.

’Personal Style’ is the latest buzzword on TikTok and Instagram. These days, the fashion climate is characterised by the oxymoronic nature of wanting to be different, individual, ‘iconic’ (I shudder at the word) but in the most current and trendy way possible.

Be yourself, but not like that.

Wear something timeless, but only in the most current way.

Do something unique, but in a way that will appeal to everyone.

We are all caught in the paradox of wanting to be the most fashionable, confident versions of ourselves yet looking at others for the cheat code on how to achieve it. (Spoiler: no one else can teach you what your style is.)

Here I am, writing a blog post on discovering Personal Style, when truth be told: I haven’t yet found mine. But this is exactly my point! Personal Style is an ever evolving, changing, and shifting concept. The urgency to find a style and stick to it, marking it as your ‘brand’, and the identity you will eternally characterise yourself by, is ludicrous.

Personal Style should be accepted as the fluid piece of expression that it is. It will organically adapt and change dependent on your attitudes, circumstances, and understandings - you should certainly allow it do so! This is how it will maintain its personal relationship to you. It is tailor made for your identity and lifestyle.

So, if you’re stuck in the cycle of a style that is no longer suitable for your sense of self or the life you are leading, here are my five tips to discover your Personal Style.

Address your internal garment discrimination.

Hating skinny jeans doesn’t make you any cooler…

This is a hill I am willing to die on: skinny jeans aren’t inherently bad.

In fact, no garment is.

Yes, they may be unusual, out of trend, difficult to style, a little impractical, or reliant on having shock-factor… but not ugly.

And I can assure you that any pre-conception you have on a garment being ugly is actually just a conditioning from social media and the cycles of fast-fashion.

The sooner you accept that a garment’s attractiveness is a factor largely derived from its styling, the sooner you will be released from the shackles of garment discrimination.

We must all collectively reject the notion that garments we used to wear, and styles we used to obsess over, are now suddenly ‘ugly’. They were of their time. And with the right eye, and mostly the right attitude, a lot of pieces can be re-styled to find that they have so much life left in them.

Trust me… one day you will consider the way you dress now as embarrassing, or ‘cringe’. But in some ways, you must lend yourself this freedom and give yourself the power to experiment with a whole plethora of pieces- regardless of what the mainstream fashion trends are decreeing.

A whole world of opportunity opens itself up to you once you ignore these notions.

Stop looking to Social Media for style inspiration.

I, too, am guilty of looking to my Instagram ‘saves’ when stuck in a rut of what to wear and when.

However, I only then find myself tumbling down the rabbit hole of people I place on a pedestal of style superiority, and clothes my whole sense of self depends on me buying, and the motions of imposter syndrome….

It is a needless endurance all for a simple outfit.

The fact of the matter is: Social Media success relies on being the perfect blend of being slightly unique, yet entirely palatable.

Its the same three brands circulating, and the same reimagined image posted.

Every sense of individuality is ironed out. A big blanket of what’s currently ‘in’ and what’s certainly ‘out’ is established. This suffocates any understanding who you are, and what your personal style is. All your senses of self become dulled and your confidence, threadbare.

So where is best to turn to when in need of style inspiration?

Try films (any genre, any era), independent magazines, editorial shoots, runways, pinterest, or my favourite… people watching.

The best of my style inspiration has emerged from watching people going about their daily business on the streets of cities, towns, villages. And the unsung hero of style inspiration? OAPs, the elderly… their style secrets are a constant source of perplexion and admiration of mine.

And what’s better? They maintain their anonymity (they could be anyone, doing anything) and so it is nearly impossible to compare yourself to them! Simply take inspiration, and go about your day!

Start accepting your style through the ages.

how else is it going to be timeless?

The cringe I spoke of earlier? It’s a feeling I know we are all familiar with. The shame we feel when looking back on old photos, shuddering at the outfit we truly believed was a serve… We are ignorant creatures, really. We actually believe that the way we dress and style ourselves now is always more superior than the last time.

However, we are going to eternally suffer a this cringe every time the cycle of trends nears its end every 8 years. Unless we resolve to break it.

While those outfits may be somewhat outdated (especially in the rapidly accelerating market of trends we are subject to today), at that time they encapsulated what we thought of as the pinnacle of style. They made us feel confident, we got good wear out of them, and we made memories. What other purpose is an outfit suppose to serve?

So, instead of allowing them to be a cause of our cringe, we should use them as a source of inspiration for how we are going to approach dressing today.

More than this, the more you embrace dressing to your personal preferences, the more timeless your style is going to become. Stop allowing fleeting trends to define your wardrobe, otherwise it will be ever bound to a certain culture of a certain era. Instead, pluck inspiration from a whole myriad of movements and genres, and allow your style to become one that can travel through the ages!

Assess your relationship with clothes.

Not everyday ootd for instagram…

We can all get sucked into the idea of dressing for Social Media. Either to impress those on it, or to emulate it in real life.

The constant bombardment of daily ootd (outfit of the day)s, and contrived content with controversial outfits for engagement, doesn’t help.

This results in us becoming desensitised to outlandish outfits that have no relevance in our day to days, making dressing for the everyday a near impossible task with wardrobes only stocked full of statement pieces.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a massive advocate for style over practicality… but there is a limit and it’s certainly not for everyone! (More reason to not take inspiration from Social Media.)

The fact of the matter is that while some may like to dress for experimentation and out-there self expression, others prefer to dress for practicality and day-to-day doings. Each to their own.

To unlock your personal style, you must assess the attitude you possess when it comes to dressing yourself. Which side of the spectrum do you lie? What about dressing yourself, empowers you? The idea that you are prepared for whatever may come your way in a day, or the idea that you are turning heads as you walk down the street?

Once you establish the motivation behind the way you dress, you can begin to work out how to achieve this in the pieces you buy.

Further than this, you can start to consider the style journey you have been on and how dressing when you were younger has shaped the way you dress yourself now. What have your parents and peers instilled in you about the power of dressing? When do you feel your best? What type of occasion do you get the most excited to dress for? All of these answers can give a good sense of what gives you fun and freedom in the way you dress today.

Don’t let anyone else, or oddly specific aesthetics, define your style.

Although I may, sometimes ironically sometimes-not-so-ironically, fall victim to the niche micro internet sub-cultures… I do honestly believe that trying to encapsulate your style (or anyone else’s) in some strange, and oddly specific internet jargon is a ruling factor in feeling uninspired and stuck.

While ‘Blokette’ styles, Ballet-core, my own tokened Secretary Chic can be seen as trends emerging in real time, it is beyond the point to try and characterise the entirety of your personal style within these realms.

Maybe you like an outfit here or there from these ‘aesthetics’, maybe they lend some inspiration for delving further into specific sub-cultures, maybe they reinvigorate a part of yourself and how to dress to express it… but it certainly shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all of your fashion journey.

Less of the something-core, and more of the you-core. Define your own style and allow it to embrace the whole spectrum of what you love and what you find cool.