What Is Personal Style, And Does It Even Matter?

In September 2016, I wrote a blog post titled ‘Lost your personal style? Here’s how to get it back’. I’m not sure what qualified me to be giving such instruction, but I went on to suggest looking back at old photos to see what you love, and - can you guess what’s coming? - to start a Pinterest board of inspo images. *le sigh*

Later in 2017, I wrote ‘Dress for your style, not your shape’, a piece which, alongside declaring a big fuck you to the Trinny & Susannah era of determining what should be worn based on whether you’re an apple, a pear, a triangle or square (I used the same rhyme in my original post and I’m not ashamed), celebrated choice and confidence in the arena of everyday dressing.

Fast forward once more to 2018, and here we are discussing personal style again. I’d like to start by saying that in both 2016 and 2017 I had no idea what my personal style was, let alone anybody else’s, and I have to confess that I still don’t. In fact, I’m not even sure that personal style is a ~ thing ~. And does it matter if it is anyway?

Dress - ASOS

Basket - Topshop (borrowed from Jess - cute ASOS alternative here)

Shoes - Mango (can't find them on the website, sorry!)

I often get asked to describe my personal style in three words or less, and I tend to default to the same old faithfuls: simple, comfortable and classic. But actually, I don’t think those words summarise me well. For one, simple really means lazy. I’m a lazy dresser, and if the styling goes much beyond ‘I guess I could put this top with these trousers?’, then I’m lost. Secondly, I like to be comfortable, but I persist in wearing shoes that give me blisters when I know a pair of trainers would be much, much kinder to my feet. Thirdly, when I say classic, I think I’m circling back to simple and guessing that if I wear a plain black tee most days, I won’t look back on photos of myself and question whether I’d been let loose on the balloons before getting dressed.

I'm of the belief that we all cycle through a number of different personalities. Sometimes I feel like an extra lazy bastard, in which case I'll put on the same jeans I've been wearing for four days and any t-shirt that doesn't smell faintly of fake tan or armpit sweat. Sometimes I feel like a rich divorcee, and I'll put on a maxi dress with some bougie pearl earrings and a neck scarf. Sometimes I feel like Shoreditch personified, and I'll put on wide leg trousers, a baggy jumper from Keiran's wardrobe and a phat pair of ugly trainers. What I wear is so dependent on my mood and the weather and what I'm doing and who I want to appear to be on any given day, that having a consistent sense of "personal style" seems difficult. And a little bit pointless, too.

This is probably why I hate choosing clothes for other people. I'm great at finding options online (I spend a lot of time in the New In sections of all of our high street faves, as you can imagine), but when it comes to actually suggesting a style or a colour or a combination of items? I'm useless. A little bit of me panics inside whenever I'm asked 'what do you think would look good with this?', mostly because I routinely default to black with everything (there's that lazy dresser coming out again), but also because if I don't know what my own personal style is, I'm really shooting in the dark trying to guess somebody else's.