Having a hard time knowing how to find your personal style? I’ve go toyu covered
I think a lot of advice about finding your personal style starts in the wrong place.
It usually starts with Pinterest boards, mood boards and figuring out whether you’re “classic”, “bohemian”, “minimalist” or something else entirely. And while I love a good Pinterest board as much as anyone, I’ve never found that looking at hundreds of beautiful outfits actually tells me what my personal style is.
Because an outfit can look amazing on someone else and still feel completely wrong for you.
For me, finding your personal style isn’t really about choosing an aesthetic and then trying to build a wardrobe around it. It’s much more about paying attention to what you already love, what you actually wear and, probably most importantly, what makes you feel like yourself.
Your personal style isn’t a completely new version of you that you need to create.
It’s probably already there. You just need to start noticing it.
Here’s how to do it.
1. Look at What You Actually Wear
Not what you own, what you actually wear.
Go to your wardrobe and look at the pieces that are constantly in rotation. What needs washing? What do you reach for when you don’t want to think about what to wear? What do you put on when you want to feel good without trying too hard?
Those pieces are telling you something.
In my own wardrobe, I always come back to things like loose fit jeans, button up shirts, wide-leg pants, sneakers, ballerina flats and a good blazer.
None of these choices are particularly revolutionary. But they’re the things I reach for again and again because they feel like me, and that’s much more useful information than a Pinterest board telling me that I should suddenly be dressing in a completely different way.
So, before you buy anything new or decide that you need to completely reinvent your wardrobe, look at what’s already working.
The answer to “what’s my personal style?” might already be sitting in your wardrobe, you just have to notice it.
2. Pay Attention to What You Notice
For the next couple of weeks, start paying attention to the outfits that catch your eye.
And I don’t mean the ones you consciously decide are beautiful.
I mean the ones that make you look twice.
Maybe it’s someone you see walking down the street, an outfit in a shop window, a photo you saved on Instagram without really knowing why you like it.
Save those things. Don’t overthink them at first, just collect them.
After a couple of weeks, go back and look at everything you’ve saved.
You’ll probably start seeing patterns.
Maybe you’re constantly saving outfits with wide-leg pants. Maybe almost everything has some kind of neutral color palette. Maybe you’re drawn to simple outfits with statement accessories. Maybe you keep saving oversized blazers, even though you haven’t actually bought one yet.
Those little patterns are useful because personal style isn’t always something you can define immediately. Sometimes you have to collect enough examples before you can actually see what you like.
3. Separate What You Love From What You Think You Should Love
This one is probably the hardest.
There are so many things I love looking at that I don’t necessarily want to wear.
And I think that’s completely normal.
You can appreciate a maximalist outfit without wanting a maximalist wardrobe. You can think an ultra-feminine aesthetic is beautiful without wanting to dress that way every day. You can love street style and still feel much more comfortable in something simple and classic.
The problem starts when you confuse admiring something with wanting to wear it.
I’ve definitely done this before. I’ll see an outfit online and think, “I love this,” and then imagine myself actually wearing it and suddenly it doesn’t feel quite so right.
That’s why I think it’s worth asking yourself a very simple question: “If I had to wear this outfit on a completely normal Tuesday, would I actually want to?”
Not on vacation, not to a beautiful café in Paris and definitely not in a perfectly styled Instagram photo.
Just you, on a normal day, living your actual life.
If the answer is yes, pay attention.
If the answer is no, you can still love the outfit. It just doesn’t necessarily belong in your wardrobe.
4. Think About How You Want to Feel, Not Just How You Want to Look
I think this is something we often forget when talking about personal style.
We talk about colors, silhouettes, fabrics and trends, but what we’re really looking for when we get dressed is a feeling.
Think about the outfits you’ve worn where you’ve felt the most like yourself.
What did they have in common?
Maybe you felt feminine, relaxed, confident, effortless or put together.
For me, the feeling is something like comfy, effortless and never trying too hard.
That feeling naturally leads me towards certain things: warm neutrals, natural fabrics, simple jewellery, flat shoes, relaxed silhouettes and pieces that feel timeless rather than overly trendy.
But the feeling comes first.
If I start with a piece I’ve decided I should want and try to build an outfit around it, I can end up feeling like I’m wearing a costume.
If I start with how I want to feel and then choose clothes that create that feeling, the outfits tend to feel much more like me. I think that’s really what finding your personal style is about.
5. Create a Reference, Not a Rulebook
Once you’ve started noticing the patterns, create some kind of reference for yourself.
But please don’t make this another massive mood board with 150 images.
I think five to ten images that really capture what you love are much more useful.
Then write down a few words that describe the feeling you’re trying to create. Then, when you’re shopping and you find something you really like, you have something to compare it to.
Does it fit with the way I actually want to dress?
Sometimes the answer will be yes.
Sometimes it will be no.
And that’s okay.
The point isn’t to create a list of rules that you can never break. It’s simply a little cheat sheet to help you make decisions when you’re unsure.
What Personal Style Actually Is
I don’t think personal style is an aesthetic. It’s not something you can necessarily find in a style quiz, and it’s definitely not something you need to completely reinvent your wardrobe to achieve.
It’s the result of all those tiny decisions you’ve made over time. The colors you always come back to, the silhouettes you feel comfortable in, the fabrics you love wearing, the outfits you repeat, the things you buy and never wear, the things you thought you’d love but don’t and the things you wear so often that you barely even think about them anymore.
All of that is information and I think there’s something freeing about looking at personal style this way because it means you don’t need to become someone else to have great style.
You don’t need to suddenly decide you’re a “minimalist” or an “old money girl” or whatever aesthetic is currently everywhere on Pinterest.
You can just be you and then get a little better at dressing like you.
5 Things You Can Do This Week to Find Your Personal Style
If all of this feels a little abstract, here’s where you can start this perosnal style journey.
1-Pull out the five pieces you wear the most.
Look at what they have in common. Is it the colour? The fabric? The shape? The way they make you feel?
2-Think of three outfits you’ve worn recently that made you feel really good.
What were you wearing? Why did you like those outfits?
3-Find one “should” purchase in your wardrobe.
You know the one. The thing you bought because you thought you should own it, even though you never actually wanted it that much. Ask yourself why you’re keeping it.
4-Save ten outfits that genuinely feel like you.
Not outfits that you think you should like. Not outfits that look impressive. Just ones that make you think, “I’d wear that.”
Then look for the patterns.
5-Write down two or three words describing how you want to feel when you’re dressed.
Not how you want other people to see you. How you want to feel.
Conclusion
You don’t need to figure everything out immediately.
In fact, I think personal style is something you keep discovering as your life changes. What feels like you at 25 might not be exactly what feels like you at 30, and that’s not a problem.
Your wardrobe is allowed to evolve with you, the important thing is that you’re paying attention.
I don’t think finding your personal style is really about finding the perfect aesthetic, it’s about getting to a point where you open your wardrobe, put something on and think: “Yes. This feels like me.” And honestly, I think that’s the best kind of style there is.
if you like dthis post, you might also like:
- 7 Easy Fall Outfit Formulas To Wear on Repeat
- 7 Old Money Autumn Outfits to Recreate This Season
- What to Wear with a Linen Blazer: 6 Outfits From Summer Into Autumn
FOLLOW ME:
INSTAGRAM | PINTEREST
