“ASSISTANT ARCTURAN PILOT: Why don’t ya tie a knot in your hanky like everyone else?
ZAPHOD: Style friend, style. Now come on I gotta go.”
– Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

Far from a fashion plate myself, I found myself thinking about what advice I’d give to someone putting together a wardrobe or trying to figure out their own sense of style. Then I second guessed myself because there are whole magazines devoted to this question, what the hell did I have to offer? But given the context I’ve been thinking and writing about style for this project, I thought I’d give it a go anyway. Based on personal experience, here are my Five Tips For Defining Your Style

You do you, boo. You can spend a lot of years and money trying to look like someone you are not, and your lack of comfort with yourself will show. However if you spend a little time and energy to learn and understand what clothing you like and why early on, I think it is easier to own your own tastes rather than trying to prioritize society’s or someone else’s. If you know what you genuinely like to look like, that’s what you will end up buying. And if you genuinely like your clothing, you will wear it and avoid buyer’s remorse.

Consider your lifestyle and be reasonable about it. There is nothing wrong with the occasional aspirational purchase–so long as you can afford it and you actually use it (more on that in a later post). But it is the height of folly to buy either items or multiple products that you are simply not going to wear. When I started working full time, I found myself continuing to buy more casual clothes that were better suited to university lectures than the workplace. It took me a while to really get it through my head that five days out of seven were now going to require a new level of formality and that 5/7ths of my budget and closet (metaphorically speaking) needed to reflect that. Having gone back and forth between full time and freelance all my working life, I’ve had to make multiple mental shifts when it comes to my lifestyle and how I need to dress for it.

Don’t compare your wants, needs, and preferences to anyone else’s–not even those you’re drawing inspiration from. And don’t try to force your tastes to match theirs. There may be a friend, family member, or influencer who you really admire and have found value in following. Great! But don’t therefore assume that because they have prioritized certain items in their wardrobe that you have to make the same choices to achieve similar style results.

I fell into this trap a few years ago when starting to build a work wardrobe after leaving university. Many of the women whose professional style I admired wore a lot of skirts and so I too ended up buying a lot of skirts…and frankly not wearing them often enough to justify the purchases. I realize in retrospect that I was trying to recreate the professional but feminine looks that the women who influenced me had mastered, but my mistake was in trying to go against my natural preferences to do so. For me, ease and convenience are high priorities, and most skirts I bought seemed to come with some added discomfort and minor frustrations–waistbands shifting about during the day, constantly retucking shirts or rearranging leggings or tights beneath them, having to coordinate multiple items of clothing during a rushed morning, and so on. These are really small inconveniences and preferences, but they added up to mean that I wasn’t using the items I’d spent good money on; I defaulted to other items in my wardrobe. The long term takeaway as been that at heart I am a mostly trousers kind of girl and that’s okay, but that I still like more traditionally feminine looks from time to time. The solution has been to invest in a handful of dresses; single pieces that achieve the look I want are more manageable to me than multiple pieces that require coordination and more effort.

Pinterest isn’t silly. I say Pinterest but all of social media can be really useful in helping you figure out what you gravitate towards. I’ve talked about this a bit already, and I stand by it. As with my skirt story above, I think it can be easy to mistake what you think you want to look like for how you actually feel most comfortable and stylish. Spending a little time really examining your aesthetics and preferences can save you quite a bit of time and money. As a consumer, I think it can also help train you to admire beautiful clothes or makeup without necessarily coveting it–thereby avoiding impulse purchases simply because a favorite blogger bought a similar piece, for instance. Done well, social media can be an excellent visual research tool for first admiring certain looks and, over time, learning what about them appeals to you specifically.

Take inspiration from stylish people, and remember Amy Poehler’s wisdom, “Good for her, not for me.” I follow a lot of minimalists who have monochromatic wardrobes and styles. I also follow bona fide fashionistas with closets for days and shoes for years. Neither of these options represent me and my own preferences, but I admire people who have a handle on their own style, and I often have picked up tips or tricks from people who have curated a “look” for themselves which bears no resemblance to my own. Remember my defining premise: style is the choices we make and why. Go forth and enjoy other people who like different things than you! You’ll be surprised at what you discover interests you and pick up wisdom about self-presentation along the way.

Broadly summarized, I’d say that to define your own style, figure out what you value, clothes-wise, rather than what stuff you think you want. This sense of value can be characterized by anything from comfort, convenience, color, or messaging, to level of care and upkeep, trends, and price tag. Prioritize your purchases accordingly.

Your turn. Have you “figured out” you sense of fashion or style yet? Has it changed over the years? Is this an area you want to invest some time and attention in the future? Talk to me about how you put your closet together!

“Behind the perfection of a man’s style, must lie the passion of a man’s soul.”
― Oscar Wilde, Reviews

Consumerism, both personally and more broadly speaking, have been on my mind for a while now. Several years to be honest, though my thinking and habits are in a state of constant revision. I thought it was worth dedicating at least one post to exploring the topic, especially given my framing of style as a series of choices we make about how we present ourselves.

Until the Star Trek future of infinite abundance arrives (or until the current world order collapses), capitalism is the predominant game in town. Though it’s the system we all live in, it’s not without its challenges. We are able to consume information and goods at a pace never before seen in human history, and as fashion has become more accessible, demand has grown to match. This is having a lot of interesting effects on consumer of society.

For instance, one of the biggest conversations in the fashion world right now is how the traditional mode of designing and showing clothes several seasons in advance to allow for the production  is struggling to keep up with fast fashion. In a world crafted around instant gratification, it’s not entirely ridiculous for consumers to expect to be able to see-now-buy-now; we’ve been trained to expect just that. At the moment, the fashion world logistically can’t keep up with this. You could dismiss that demand as selfish and impatient consumerism, and you wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but it also leads to questions of ethical labor, production methods and environmental costs.

When sweatshops can churn out dupes of products for consumers now instead of making them wait months to get their hands on the designer version, the customer may be happy, but the cost is cheaper materials, usually badly sourced and badly made, with short shelf lives that result in more waste when they are thrown away, all produced by people not making enough money and often working in awful and unsafe conditions. This is a disturbing social reality and most of us are complicit in it.

On the other hand, given the current media age and it’s technical advances, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think fashion and style to be as accessible as possible to as many people who want to follow and participate in it. And if so, how are we to achieve that with an out of date design and production system originally designed to cater almost exclusively to the wealthy and privileged? To pull a Tevye, on the other hand, what does it say about our value for design, artisan skills, and art if we want the “look” but aren’t willing to wait for it to be produced by the designer who created it, or pay the money for original pieces instead of illegal knock offs? There are a lot of big questions to ask about what we consume and why.

Lest you think I’m trying to lecture, I’m not! My point is not necessarily to convince anyone to change their behaviors or habits, but rather to be a bit more opened eyed about the fact that our style choices are not made in a vacuum (as that iconic scene from The Devil Wears Prada so fabulously puts it), and that our day to day decisions of what we buy, why, and how we use it has much bigger footprints that most of us realize. Style choices are informed by economic, political, social, and industrial realities just as much as they are by cultural trends. Recognizing those facts means that in a small way, we have an ability to impact how those economic, political, social, and industrial systems work if we choose to, based on making informed purchase and presentation decisions.

I think we’re living in a period of peak consumer savvy and choice. There are more ways than ever to command your personal presentation, and do so with goods that align with the values you prioritize. Actress Emma Watson, for a high profile example, has famously chosen to wear and promote fashion and beauty brands that promote sustainability and natural ingredients. WAY down here in the proletariat I’ve written before about my decision to shop almost entirely secondhand to avoid fast fashion. But both of us have made choices that affect our consumption…and the way we look in public as a result.

Even though I love following fashion, I will very rarely ever look “trendy” as a result of my shopping choices. Buying mostly second hand or vintage means that I’m of necessity buying clothing that are several months to decades old. I’m fine with that trade off personally, where another person will make totally different style choices for totally different consumer reasons. Moving forward, I want do be better informed on the new items I do occasionally buy: who is manufacturing them, where, and in what circumstances. I’d like to improve my beauty game as well (keep an eye out for Beauty Week, coming Monday!) and do better at researching and buying from female owned, black owned, cruelty free, and boutique brands, as part of my effort put my money where my mouth is.

I don’t want to dampen anyone’s mood or playfulness when it comes to style, clothing, and fashion. As I’ve said before and continue to defend as a concept, style is supposed to be fun! But I do think that there is room for all of us, when putting our outfits together and our faces on, to consider our product choices in a wider context. After all, if we’re just throwing any old substance on our skin or clothes on our backs without any thought or intention, I’m not sure we’re being stylish so much as “sheeple.”

Your turn, what are some deliberate consumer choices have you made when it comes to clothing, and why? Do you eschew fur, cashmere, or leather for ethical purposes? Are there certain brands you shop at or avoid, and why? Have you tried a capsule wardrobe collection to experiment with closet size? Do you have a specific budget for clothing, and if so, how do you allocate it?