The limitations to finding your personal style (Revised)
We’re over-editorializing over-consumptiom
I wrote this newsletter in 2022 after writing “The Pursuit of Personal Style is Ruining Your Wardrobe.” I noticed I accidentally deleted it early last year and planned to resend it. I had a nagging feeling something was missing and planned to figure it out before resending. It has taken me over a year to finally figure out what this insightful (to me) newsletter was missing. I began editing it last week after expressing to a friend that I’d had enough of the overconsumption discourse on Substack and on every other social media platform because they weren’t addressing the genesis of the overconsumption pandemic. And although I am glad many of you are reconsidering your attitude to consumption and capitalism, I fear we are focusing on the symptom of the problem and over-editorializing it.
Before continuing this revised version, I urge you to read part 1 which I have linked above.
Most people think they get the general gist of what having personal style means until it’s time to point out someone who has great personal style and they mention Hailey Bieber (?!?!?!). Before writing this series, I spent months thinking about what personal style means to me. I watched Sex & the City again, I watched countless videos on fashion Tik Tok, and I even watched 12 videos from the first year of Tibi’s Style Class. I also spent hours on the phone talking about it with friends and asked them to weigh in in order for me to gain a more robust, non-commercialized perspective on what we may all be missing.
Based on my observations through my work and frequently asked questions, there seems to be some confusion about what fashion and personal style means and how they relate to each other.
Fashion:
The prevailing style (as in dress) during a particular time, e.g. the spring fashions are now on display. The term fashion connotes sameness, e.g. “the fashions of the 1960s,” implying a general uniformity. Fashion can refer to the latest clothing trend as well as to a previous era.
If you decided that wearing head-to-toe 70s fashions was your new look, you are simply wearing fashion. Most people participate in wearing clothes by simply wearing the latest fashions and fashion trends. And even attempts to personalize these fashions through accessorizing do not necessarily make your style personal. In some cases, you might end up creating a contrived caricature of your desired look.
Personal style:
The way an individual expresses themselves through aesthetic choices such as their clothing, accessories, hairstyle, and the way they put an outfit together. Having personal style highlights differences between people that one might otherwise miss. It’s the way a person’s character and interests translate into how they choose to represent themselves regardless of what they’re wearing. Personal style is understanding what you prefer instead of what others deem stylish. It has nothing to do with uniqueness. It is about observing oneself and choosing what you like while respecting imposed restrictions from religion, work, and location. Personal style is knowing how to dress appropriately for every function instead of focusing on standing out or upstaging anyone.
Despite what many people think, personal style is not all about self-discovery because the self does not exist in isolation. Personal style is shaped by the opinions of others including your mother, your beloved friends, your romantic partner, as well as the dress codes for various life activities and functions. A person’s ability to include all of these references, restrictions, experiences and point of views without losing themselves is something we take for granted because it is no small feat to articulate one’s essence through clothing. In essence, true personal style is not an individual process. It is a constellation of our many selves and our many references.
True personal style is antithetical to uniqueness. Fashion is cyclical, especially in the social media era, which is why putting so much emphasis on standing out on one’s journey to personal style can be dangerous. Whatever you think is unique to you right now may become mainstream. You cannot control that and if you try to avoid it, you will end up spending a lot of money constantly changing your look to maintain your individuality. Instead of having an existential crisis about standing out, learn how a blazer should fit and find your preference within those constraints. Learning about proper garment fit and your body will help your intuition on how to alter clothes to fit you well.
Discovering one’s personal style is a lifelong journey; you never arrive at your destination because you’re constantly evolving along with your influences and experiences. However, dressing yourself will become intuitive with practice, repetition, and familiarity with your clothes and self. With more practice in dressing others and myself, personal style is simply what you like and reaching wardrobe clarity is understanding what you like, why, and how to merge those desires into coherent ensembles. Personal style is also what others notice about how you dress. I do not think it is something one can articulate because it must be witnessed by others. It might be difficult to honestly witness oneself.
My grandmother recently sent me photos of myself as a child at different stages in my life and one of my friends pointed out how much most of what I wear today is similar to or has the same essence as what I wore at age 10, 12, and 14. Until I began living alone at age 19, my mother, Cleopatra, picked out most of my clothes. Because Cleo was a stylish woman, my wardrobe was a constellation of the teen trends in Nigeria and America. Cleo insisted on certain combinations and the rest of them were influenced by what I thought looked good and copied styling notes from the women who raised me. As I write this paragraph, I am wearing my blue woven silk shawl over a linen button down shirt with a monk collar. In one of the photos my grandmother, Grace, sent me, I am wearing a black woven shawl over a white shirt. And I remember owning and obsessively wearing a monk-collared linen shirt my grandmother made for me.