So, you feel like you know the image you’re trying to present of yourself to the world. You feel like you know your best pieces, your best colours, and your most flattering outfits. But perhaps you don’t exactly feel like you have a style.
If you find yourself flitting between outfits, changing formal serious get ups for informal and fun, and dark and moody palettes for bright and pastel with no real cohesiveness between choices, it can be very easy to start wondering how to find your fashion style.
After all, different things can work on different people, but sometimes the imagery we’re trying to put across to the world can become muddled if we’re not sure how our favourite choices interlink, or what really suits us best.
If you’re someone with a load of different items in the wardrobe, or you're a designer trying to nail down which style is strongest for your line, use our below tips to help identify what your fashion style is.
What is personal style?
To start with, personal style refers to the way someone chooses to express themselves through aesthetic choices like their clothing, hairstyle, accessories and the way they choose to put together an outfit.
For example, one style could be the instantly recognisable Punk. Punk fashion styles tend to incorporate piercings, heavily dyed hairstyles using bright colours like pinks, purples and greens, accessories which are predominantly spiked or made from metal, and clothing that is traditionally either leather, chunky (for example boots), ripped (fishnets or torn band t shirts) or black (skinny jeans or black leather skirts).
A person channelling a punk fashion style may be trying to present an image of themselves to society that they have rebellious tendencies, are anti-establishment, and are against conforming with atypical societal norms.
But this channeling of values and traits is exactly what defines personal style: It is personal. Personal style does not opt to follow fashion trends, instead it uses attributes of a particular style that align with personal attributes to develop and display a true sense of self.
How to find your fashion style
When searching for your fashion style it’s best to take into consideration the attributes that make you, you! What do you resonate with most? What are your personal values and views? Try to tap into these and keep these at the forefront of your mind when reading through our tips.
Find your silhouettes
When talking about silhouettes, we’re referring to the outline of the clothing. Amazingly an outline can tell a lot about a person. For example, take the five predominant silhouettes:
The Hourglass Silhouette: Emphasises the hips and shoulders and cinches in the waist to give off an incredibly elegant and feminine appearance by accentuating female curves.
The S-Curve Silhouette: Just like the Hourglass, the S-Curve also places emphasis on the shoulders and upper half of the body but varies by providing a fullness in the back of the skirt or dress. A more traditional silhouette now and still recognised as an opulent dress style.
The Tubular Silhouette: The simplest silhouette of all, it’s straight from top to bottom with no accentuating features. Its main idea is simplify the clothings shape, flatter the body and make the lines simpler.
The Inverted Triangle Silhouette: Emphasises the shoulders but simplifies the hips by cinching directly into the waist. The inverted triangle is commonly seen in business attire, and so is still recognised as a more formal style.
The A-Line Silhouette: Alternatively known as The Triangle Silhouette. This emphasises the lower half of the body, but doesn’t emphasise the hips. Instead it creates a visual line past the hips to add flare to the legs. A much more common silhouette now.
Depending on the style of your body and the look that you are trying to convey will depend on which silhouette works best. For example for a predominantly feminine style, clothing which uses the hourglass silhouette would be best. For a more staid, smart casual appearance, look for inverted triangle blouses and blazers. Once you have found your silhouette you can begin using it as a base to build other pieces of your style around.
2. Identify your signature pieces
Everybody, from celebrities to your friends and family, has signature pieces. They just do. These are pieces of clothing, accessories, or hairstyles that you associate predominantly with them. Everyday examples can be found in your best friend who is never without their aviators, your sister always in a band t shirt, or your colleague with a million pairs of skinny jeans in all types of different colours.
Finding yours can help you intertwine just that little bit of you and your personality throughout your fashion. Signature pieces can also build your look. Take Kate Middleton for example who is mostly always rocking a trenchcoat, which predominantly reflects on the rest of her style being a mixture between smart and casual. Or Brad Pitt, never found without aviators who commonly pairs the sunnies with a polo shirt and his signature spiked hair.
Signature poses are basically your signature, but aesthetically. To find them, take notice of what you wear a lot. What are you never without? Skinnies? Oversize shirts or sweaters? What about your footwear? Consider how your signature piece reflects your personality, and build the rest of your style choices around your answer.
3. Invest in forever items
Chopping and changing styles can actually be harmful to our environment, especially if we’re only wearing things once or twice. So to counteract this, build a signature style that you know you’ll love for years.
Opting to upcycle and reuse clothing greatly benefits fashions carbon footprint. Find out more in our Brand Friendly Guide to Sustainable Fashion.
One of the best ways to find your signature style is to literally monitor what you wear. For a month, put aside everything you’ve worn. You’ll soon realise that there are items that are more commonly worn than others, and these are the building blocks of your wardrobe that you can begin to craft your style around.
4. Create your own mood board
Anybody in the fashion world can benefit from creating a moodboard. Moodboards can be a collection of images, inspirational outfits, ideas, and even colours or patterns. By getting them down in front of you you’ll soon see that there are colours or themes that appear more regularly than others, and these types of ideas will be able to form the inspiration for your fashion style.
We described how to make the perfect fashion mood board in our blog, which you can read here.
5. Find your likes
This sounds like perhaps the most obvious step but finding your fashion style means getting particular about what pieces you truly like, and what pieces you just keep around and thrown on “as and when”.
Don’t fall into Fast Fashion traps. Read these shocking statistics to find out more.
Identify colours that make you happy, or shirt styles or silhouettes that make you stand that little bit taller. Chances are that those items in particular resonate most with you, so they’re the types of things you should keep in mind on your next shopping trip.
6. And throw out dislikes
One of the drawbacks about social media and influencers in particular is that certain items of clothing get more airtime than others. A good example is Balmain, Gucci and the Fear of God Essentials range. These are common pieces that many influencers promote, and it leads to audiences buying the pieces because they want to experience what everyone else is.
However just because Gucci feels good for one person, doesn’t mean it has to feel good for you. When sorting through your wardrobe think of what you really like and what really makes you feel good. Keep the things that make you feel good and comfortable, and upcycle or sell anything that makes you apathetic.
7. Create your own uniform
Don’t see uniform as a bad word, see it as a unified dress code! Your uniform might just be staple pieces that you can mix and match to create an effortless look. For example you might include classic pieces that are neutral in colour and go with everything like skinny jeans, or oversized shirts.
This type of style may sound simple, but it will help you craft your style by providing a foundation for more exciting pieces.
In conclusion:
Finding your fashion style doesn’t have to be complicated. You can start by identifying your signature items, and putting your personality under the spotlight. For more about how to find your fashion style and develop your concepts, click here.
