What Is Personal Style?

Is it all a capitalist ploy to get you to spend more money?

I have to admit, the first time I read someone very passionately explain how the concept of personal style is all an unachievable, capitalist ideal meant to get you to buy more stuff, I had a very hearty cackle. But, I can understand how one could reach this conclusion, and it has nothing to do with the concept of personal style, and everything to do with how we talk about it.

Because it’s important, first, let’s define personal style: It’s how you want to dress. Full stop. It’s not how you actually dress—that’s your self-expression. And it’s not just the things you like—that’s your personal taste. For most people, these are distinct and don’t align perfectly. Basically: just because you like something, doesn’t mean you would wear it, and just because you would wear something, doesn’t mean you will. And that’s fine. There’s a number of factors that make the things we want to wear not quite the same as the things we do wear and we’re all capable of liking a variety of things without necessarily wanting to walk around in them. But, at the end of the day, all of these likes and wants exist in all of us, and it takes a real, concerted effort to merge them with how we present ourselves.

Given this definition, it would seem a bit silly to say that wanting to dress a certain way is something that had to be “invented” by anyone. Since humans learned to paint their faces and string shells together to make necklaces, we’ve had the desire to adorn ourselves. And, while there will always be a strong desire among many to fit in with others in the way they adorn themselves, there will always be those with an equally strong desire to stand out from the crowd for various reasons. Most of us, though, will fall somewhere in the middle, and that, I think, is where the disconnect comes in: in creating a dichotomy between “following trends” and “personal style.”

The way some people talk about personal style is as if it should just spring forth from the ether; as if being authentic to one’s self is synonymous with being the most original person who’s ever lived. But, none of us are above influence. In fact, we are all an aggregation of everything we’ve ever seen and experienced, including other people, which means: so is our personal style, aka how we want to dress.

The idea that personal style should exist independently of everyone else is a gross misrepresentation of the way creativity and, indeed, humans function. None of us just fell out of a coconut tree! If we did, if we were able to exist wholly in a vacuum, free from any outside influence, there would be no such thing as style, because there would be no motivation to create it and nothing to base it on. Style is communication, expression is conversation, and neither exists without something to say and, most importantly, an audience to say it to.

Capitalism really, really hates it when you have something to say, though. Capitalism hates when you come to your own conclusions, when you draw your own lines in the sand and say “this is what I like doing and how I like to do it,” particularly when you are unable to be swayed by the masses liking and doing something else. I wouldn’t go so far as to say personal style is inherently a rejection of capitalism, but it is a path to establishing a strong sense of self, which sucks for capitalism, because people with a strong sense of self are hard to convince to buy something in order to “fix” themselves. That strong sense of self, also, is something very necessary for adopting a slow fashion mindset and divesting altogether from fashion as a system.

Under the fashion system, the name of the game is keeping up: skinny jeans were in last year, you need the flares, now; those chunky platforms were for last season, we’re doing kitten heels, now; who on earth is still wearing florals when plaid is in? Lather, buy, repeat, for the rest of your life. But rejecting that, and saying “no, I wanna wear the skinnies/platforms/florals, and I don’t need to change that,” is being secure. People who are secure in their personal style are fully capable of seeing a trend and saying “I’d like to try that” and incorporating it into the things they already love and wear, without the need to “overhaul” their entire wardrobes; they’re able to stick to their personal preferences and not constantly chase others’; they don’t need words to define what “aesthetic,” they are, they simply are. And that security is achievable, no matter what it looks like: whether that’s striving to have the brightest, most unique outfit in the room or preferring a T-shirt and jeans.

When it comes to becoming more secure in your style, my advice is fairly different than most: I encourage looking to the rest of the world. That is, compiling inspiration (My Moodboard to Wardrobe series covers how!) from those who are already doing the thing you’re drawn to—they’re out there—and forming it into something that works for you; not “works for your body type” or “works for your age” or “works for whatever season you are,” but works for you, the person you are, the life you live, the way you want to feel and what you want to see when you look in the mirror.

Just put it on.