Can you define your style in a sentence or less?
I tried to define my current style in a sentence, and then I realized that I couldn’t. I couldn’t even define what I wanted my personal style to be. All I could think of was “frumpy” and “t-shirt and jeans.” This may have worked in my early 20s, but now that I’m a grown up in a professional environment, this isn’t exactly a look I wanted to be identified with who I was.
Considering I’m an Art Director by day, I decided to approach my personal style in the same way I approach a problem for a client, with inspiration and brain storming.
How to define your personal style:
First thing to do is to find pictures and colors that move you and put them together in one place.
I used my Pinterest account and set up a board to collect my inspiration. I grabbed colors, styles, and people whose style I admire. I tried to really go with my gut, and grab things that spoke to me. I didn’t want to think, I wanted to just grab. I figured I could just sort it out later, and hope to find some sort of theme.
Things I learned:
So putting this all this knowledge together, what is my style?
I’m tentatively defining it as (drum roll please):
Sassy Femininity
I wanted to define my style as lively, bold, cheeky, spirited and embracing womanly shapes and textures. This definition allows me to easily pair urban and edgy styles that are bold and attention getting, while still having womanly shapes like fashions from the 40’s, 50’s and early 60’s.
You don’t want to limit your style by your definition, but you want it to be an easy mortar you can think of when you decide what styles to wear. And remember, style is about looking and feeling good in the clothes you wear, so if you don’t think you’ll feel comfortable or confident in don’t put it on your style boards. For example, I don’t feel comfortable or confident in shorts, so they don’t take a lot of prominence on my style board.
I suggest printing out or making a collage of images from your Pinterest board for inspiration, sorting the items according to what drew you to them, and how they reflect your defined style. If you are super anal, you can put it in a notebook you take shopping, put it on your wall as a reminder to the look you want to develop for yourself, or just leave it on the internet for reference.
For my male readers:
For my whole “Wardrobe 101” feature I’ll include a section which target’s a man’s wardrobe. For this post, keep in mind that the process is the same for a man and a woman. Finding inspiration may be a little harder to come by, so I suggest finding characters in media that you are drawn to. What are they wearing? Do you like how they dress? Their attitude?
I started a Pinterest board for my fiance where we’ve started collecting fashion inspiration for him as well. I’m sort of forcing him along this journey with me.
If you have other ideas for defining your style, want to share your style board on Pinterest, or just want to post your style definition, I would love to read it! Just leave it in the comments or let me know on twitter. I really want to make this wardrobe series something that a group of us can go through at the same time, either like a small community or a support group.
Next week: What makes a good wardrobe
