Discover your personal style
If you have been following me for a while, you probably know by now that more important than following every trend is discovering your personal style. But how to go about that self-discovery journey?
Style is not only related to clothes or shoes. Style goes much further.
When you find anything that catches your eye, and you feel like somehow it resonates with your personality—that’s your style, that’s a part of who you are. It doesn’t matter what it is (a piece of decor, a concert you want to go to, a piece of art), if you feel like saying, “this is so me,” it probably really is!
Your style is in everything that you choose to surround yourself with. You might not be quite aware of it because you never stop to watch yourself, and so far, you are making decisions based on your gut feeling.
Today I’m walking you through 4 basic steps to recognize and lean into your own style.
1 -Observe!
It’s important to develop an eye for recognizing what you love and don’t. Stay alert, and make sure you notice when something catches your attention for either reason.
But be careful with how you do that curation. Often, we think that we need what we see a lot. That’s how trends work. The tricky part is to look inside by looking elsewhere. My advice is to observe with intention and not simply absorb every trend.
2 - Catalog!
Save references, and create vision boards for what you like. We need the visuals to make sure we will remember. That will help when you feel like you don’t know what to wear.
3 - Copy!
I know, copying gets a bad rep. But in fashion and personal style, nothing is ever created. Everything is reproduced and replicated. The tweaks make the difference and give your style a special flavor.
It’s like cooking: even though you and I could follow the same recipe, the result will likely come out differently.
4 - Experiment!
Sometimes you won’t know unless you try. And I’ll tell you something: It might not work every time, but the worst thing that will happen is failing, which is just a part of trying something new.
Failing equals learning; if you want to embark on a self-discovery journey, you sometimes need to allow yourself to fail.
Bonus tip:
Accept that you already have a style that needs to be found and polished! Often, clients come to me with the idea of creating a style, but what we do is discover it within ourselves.
Now get out there and be your best self!
If you could describe your style in one word, what would it be?
Ana Harris
