Finding Your Personal Style Part II
In last week’s post on finding your personal style, we argued that having a clear sense of personal style can help you improve the way you dress, and that paying attention to what you enjoy wearing can help you to identify style elements that work for you.
Over the last week, a number of readers have asked for a more specific process to help them clarify those thoughts. In this post, I outline a few simple steps, along with a tangible example from my own experience.
All you need is five minutes of uninterrupted time. Grab a pen and paper. Writing your thoughts down can help you to make logical connections between different ideas and impressions, and helps you to remember key insights when you’re choosing what to buy a few days or weeks in the future.
Step 1: Why you like what you like
Choose an item of clothing that you already own and have worn for a while; something that you feel good wearing, and that you are naturally drawn to when you open your closet in the morning.
Ask yourself why you like the article of clothing. Anything is fair game, so don’t worry too much about overthinking it. You might like something about the fabric, the colour, the way you feel when you wear it, the way it feels against your skin. Write down two or three things that come to your mind easily.
Once you’ve got a few ideas down, take each one in turn and ask why that reason is important to you. For example, if it’s the colour that appeals to you, it might be because it’s a bold colour that makes you feel expressive, or it might be a muted colour that is comfortable because it doesn’t scream for attention. Write these deeper reasons down as well.
Step 2: What your clothing says
We discussed how clothing is a cultural language in the previous post (link). The purpose of this step is to identify the cultural associations connected to your item of clothing.
Ask yourself, what kind of guy wears this item of clothing? Is it something a high school english teacher wears to class, or part of the vacation outfit of a banking executive? Write down any associations that you can think of. It can be helpful to think about any tv or movie characters that come to mind as these are some of the most powerful shared associations that we, and others, reference when reading a piece of clothing.
And that’s it.
Keep your scrap of paper with these ideas written down. The next time you buy something, you’ll be able to determine if a potential purchase aligns with the deeper reasons that you like what you already have, and whether that new jacket will fit in with the high school english teacher look that you like so much.
Practical example: My Todd Snyder light wash jeans
I am going to take a close look at a pair of jeans from Todd Snyder that I love. They are straight cut, relatively fitted in the waist and seat, have a roomier thigh and knee compared to a Levi’s 501, and taper into a pretty conventional leg opening. They are very light wash, with an uneven fade between the warp and weave yarns that gives the jeans a more authentic and interesting visual texture. They are also heavily distressed, with holes worn in at the hip and back pocket. I’m not going to talk about the distressing much since I actually think it takes away from the other positive aspects of the jeans.
Todd Snyder
Why I like them
I like the colour and visual texture. They are very light, especially around high wear areas like the knees and thighs. The colour that remains is muted. Its not the warm rich blue that you see on a lot of light wash denim. It’s more of a grey blue - cold and neutral. There is a distinct salt and pepper pattern to the uneven fading.
Why these reasons are important to me
Typical light wash jeans don’t have a lot of visual or physical texture. All the yarns are the same. My mind associates this lack of texture with cheap mass production. I think of jeans that I wore as a kid from the Gap, or the ones that are common on thrift store racks from Old Navy or American Eagle. The Todd Snyder jeans are different. I appreciate that that effect would have been harder to achieve than the more common fade on a typical pair of light wash jeans. When I sit down on the couch and notice the fabric, I have a sense that I am wearing something quality, interesting and a little bit luxurious.
The muted, neutral-leaning colour really appeals to me. I tend to associate neutrals with a kind of sophisticated minimalism. When I wear neutrals I feel like I’m being subtle, and that the colour in my outfit stays in the background and doesn’t yell for attention.
What these jeans say
The very light faded blue reminds me of certain youthful icons from the 80s. I think of the slim, high waisted acid wash jeans that Marty Mcfly wears in Back to the Future. But these associations are quietly hinted at as overall the jeans remain quite conventional in cut.
I won't go too far into fit in this post as I am going to do a deep dive on fit in the future. But fit is an important reason that I appreciate these pants as well. They follow the contours of my body without being too close anywhere. When I sit down, they flow nicely and reinforce the sense of the luxury of the fabric.
Notice in the above descriptions the identification of not only what I like, but why I like it. Try to detect these deeper reasons when you go through this process yourself.
What is the use of this information? By being explicit about what you like and why, you can start to hone in on what matters to you, which in turn forms the basis of your personal style. With this information, you can start to add pieces to your wardrobe in a more consistent and coherent way. The next step is to understand how these individual pieces of clothing can be combined to tell a consistent cultural story, but we’ll save that deep dive for another post.