How to find your personal style

In a world full of influencers and trending aesthetics, figuring out your personal style has become both easier and overwhelming. While there is nothing wrong with taking inspiration from fashion icons, finding your signature aesthetic requires a touch of introspection. Here are some tips for navigating the very personal journey toward landing on your own, very individual style.

Start with your closet

Your first thought may be to start buying new clothes, but before you start refreshing your closet, take stock of what you already have. Begin from the “left side of your wardrobe and commit to wearing each item every day,” CNN said. Consider whether to “save it for evening wear or chuck it altogether.” This will give you a “clearer view of what does and doesn’t work, as well as what you’re missing.”

Everyone has a go-to outfit, “something you know works and makes you feel good,” Vitor Arruda, a personal stylist and content creator, said to The Guardian. Once you identify that outfit, “figure out what it is that makes you like it so much,” the outlet said. Once you figure that out, you can search for “clothes that look or feel similar.”

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Go window shopping

Shopping sprees can be fun, but they aren’t “always productive to finding your style,” said The Every Girl. There are “crowds and long lines for dressing rooms,” and sometimes the “chaos can make you pick up things you don’t actually love.”

Instead, spend your time “looking at clothes, not buying clothes.” Pick a day and “commit yourself to not swiping your credit card.” Instead, spend a “no-pressure day getting a better grasp of what you like.” You can also “test drive new pieces” by using a clothing rental service. You can “bring some of your style inspiration to life” without needing to “commit to new pieces that might not actually resonate with you in the long run.”

Make a mood board

Mood boards and Pinterest are great ways to visualize your style ideas. If you’re a “tactile person,” you can “absolutely print and paste pictures, words, vibes together,” said The Good Trade. If you’re more tech-savvy, you can do this in Photoshop or Canva. Laying your inspirations out visually is a “great way to see commonalities in who and what you are drawn to.” Any kind of media or color swatches that catch your eye can be included. Once you put your vision board together, “you can see what aligns with what you already own and what feels far off.”

Don’t hyperfixate on your body

Many of us are conditioned to “believe that our body shape and size dictate what we wear,” said The Guardian. But this undermines the premise of personal style. Fashion advice devoted to dressing for your body type “creates a misconception that your body is wrong or that you have to hide certain parts,” Arruda said. When you do this, “you’re dressing with shame and fear,” which will “never allow you to be your true self and develop a style.”

It’s hard to “build perspective” when your “top concern is that every garment you wear makes it clear exactly how your waist is shaped,” or if you’re “worried about looking short in a long coat,” Lizzie Wheeler, a vintage expert, said to The Guardian. Don’t be afraid to experiment with shape, volume and proportion.

Learn to ride the wave

Personal style isn’t “something you find overnight,” Amanda Murray, a creative consultant, said to CNN. “It’s something you arrive at.” Over time, through “living, failing, heartbreak, love, wanting, shedding,” you will “understand what feels true on your body and what doesn’t.”

Your aesthetic is not just a reflection of your current life but “the life you’re aspiring to or think you deserve,” Jalil Johnson, writer of the fashion Substack Consider Yourself Cultured, said to CNN. Much like our “ever-evolving and changing lives,” our style “evolves too, and that evolution is not only natural but necessary.”