Finding Your Personal Style: Discovery
Take the first steps to create a wardrobe that is filled with pieces you love
Personal style is a hot topic these days. We have moved away from being constantly bombarded with micro-trends to a place where people want a style that is unique to them. It's less about fitting in with what's cool and more about finding what makes you feel confident in yourself, no matter what's on trend.
As an ex-fashion designer, I am all too well-versed in the trend cycle, and I have been trying to find my personal style outside of what's trending since I left the industry in 2023. To do this, I have been gathering research from the web, books, and people who seem to have what I am looking for: a cohesive wardrobe full of pieces that they love, a signature style, and joy in getting dressed every day.
I am taking those lessons and sharing them with you. I've broken them down into three stages so I can more easily deep dive into the details of each one:
1. Discovery – If you’ve just started thinking about personal style and you don’t know where to begin. This is where you build the foundation for your personal style journey.
2. Experimentation – You have pieces in your closet that you love, but your wardrobe feels disconnected and overwhelming. In this stage, you’ll learn how to create cohesion in your wardrobe while developing your personal style muscles.
3. Curation – At this phase you know what you like and most of your pieces work together, but you want to develop a signature style that allows you to use creativity to evolve your style while still feeling like you.
Today we're talking about Discovery!
This is the starting point to give you the essential building blocks to help you shape your personal style. It's all about figuring out what you actually like and need in your wardrobe.
Let's break it down:
What Are You Wearing?
First, you need to do a little analysis of your current wardrobe and lifestyle. What pieces are you wearing the most? Even if it doesn’t feel like your style, you need to figure out what you're reaching for the most and why it's become a go-to for you. Is it the color, the fit, or something else? Do this with all your pieces that you wear all the time.
In that same vein, if you have pieces in your wardrobe that you never wear write down any details that you love or hate. Don't like wearing dresses? Write it down. Don't like polka dots? Make a note. Don't like V-necks? Add it to the list. Don't be afraid to get it all out there. This isn't set in stone; it's just a starting point to get a clearer vision of what you love about clothes and what you don't. Both will bring you closer to understanding your personal style.
Alongside the analysis of what you're wearing, you need to look at your lifestyle and how your clothes need to serve you. Are you in a corporate environment five days a week? Work with animals and need your clothes to be durable? Have kids and need low-maintenance clothing? These are all important factors that will help you find the clothes that you will wear for your real life.
Because let’s be honest, there are a lot of clothes out there that are very nice, but if they are not functional for our lives, then we won’t reach for them when they are in the closet.
If you are struggling with this, it can be helpful to write down what percentage of your time you spend doing certain activities. Say you're a stay-at-home mom; then the majority of your clothes should probably be relatively low-maintenance and allow for easy movement to keep up with the kids and their activities.
Try Before You Buy
Now that you have a handle on what your likes, dislikes, and lifestyle look like it’s time to have a little fun! I would love to sit here and say it's time to run wild and pin on Pinterest to your heart's content or just buy a bunch of new clothes, but there needs to be a method to the madness.
I am all for creating a Pinterest board and gathering inspiration, but it's not just about pinning pretty things. It's important to make note of what you like about each image. Is it a specific item in the image that drew your eye? Is it the color scheme? Is it the overall proportion of the outfit?
These are just some of the questions you can ask yourself when you're pinning inspiration. In doing this, you can start to see patterns form in what is exciting you and add that to your list of things you like. For example, if you keep pinning outfits with an A-line silhouette, add that to the list. If you can't stop drooling over anything plaid, maybe that’s something that could work in your wardrobe.
Another way to test things out without buying a whole new wardrobe is to go to a store and just try on a bunch of stuff. If you do decide to do this, I highly suggest trying things that are out of your comfort zone, they might surprise you.
I mean, how many times has Tan France on Queer Eye picked something out for the hero, and they immediately say they would never have picked it out for themselves, but that they love it? Almost every single time! The best part is, you can just take a picture if you like something about it or put it back on the rack if you downright hate it. No need to spend a dime.
Snap a Pic
Now that there's a list of things you love and hate, as well as a Pinterest board filled with inspiration, it's time to start taking photos of your outfits. Let me say, these do not need to be Instagram-worthy shots. The photos you take of your outfits are a personal archive so you can take your style to the next level. You might be asking how taking photos of my outfits is going to help my style?
The first reason is, if you're not sure about an outfit, you can take the photo and then look at it later with more of an objective eye. Sometimes when the outfit is on the body, it looks different than when you see it in a photograph. I don't know the science behind that, but I can tell you from personal experience that it's helped me gain clarity on whether or not I actually like an outfit. Just trust me on this.
Taking photos of your outfits also gives you insights into what your style uniforms are. These are the outfit combinations that you're reaching for day after day. This is important because you can see what your favorite base outfits are; these will give you the starting point where you can start to experiment in the next stage of finding your personal style.
Some examples of my own style uniforms are a midi skirt with a sweater as well as trousers with a t-shirt. It doesn't have to be anything too complicated, but it will tell you a lot about the types of pieces you like wearing.
Starting to discover your personal style can feel overwhelming. There is a lot of information out there, but to make it a bit simpler below is a breakdown of the first few steps that I discussed within this post so you can easily reference them:
Look at your wardrobe and write down what you like about the clothes that you wear most often as well as details that you don't like.
Write down how you spend your time and how you need your clothes to function for those activities.
Start pinning, but make sure to make note of what specifically you like about each outfit and look out for patterns to emerge.
Try stuff on! Go to a store and pull 10 different things into the fitting room and just try it. It won't cost you any money but will give you insights on what's a yes and what's a no.
Take photos of your outfits and take note of what your style uniforms are—the go-to outfit combinations that you wear all the time.
Following these steps will create the foundation that we will build upon in stage two, Experimentation, which will dive deeper into making your wardrobe feel more cohesive as well as developing your personal color palette and fabric preferences. In the meantime, focus on the steps above to start working on discovering what's unique about your personal style!