Create Your Personal Style Type

Your Style, Your Way

1. Why this, why now

I grew up with teen magazines, Slim Fast, fruit body shapes, and frankly body dysmorphia. I learned that loving fashion was vain and vapid but that having a fashionable presentation was socially valuable.

I’ve read a million different ways to “type” my style. Some are simple. Some are complex. All fill me with angst. I have spent hours (weeks, months) poring over abstract adjectives and unflattering body descriptions, scared to commit myself to one, but needing to.

Why not just do whatever I want?

Would if I could. The fact of the matter is, I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. Any time I have ever gone shopping at the mall, I have left with a few interesting, terribly suited items that I never wear again. That is because they don’t match my other clothes or my lifestyle or something. So I hardly ever shop. In fact, most of my life, I left the shopping to Christmas and birthday presents from my mom. My mom has that rare, coveted intuition for fashion where she could make a cool outfit out of a potato sack. The fact of the matter is, I gravitate toward these systems because it gives me some direction.

I think this problem is pretty common (maybe not the mom buying your clothes part).

How many of us are frustrated or bored with our wardrobes? Clueless about shopping or overbuying junk we’re not wearing or not happy with? Doom scrolling Pinterest or Instagram? Not sure where to begin?

2. A curious, expansive community

These struggles have been highlighted for me in the resurgence of Body Typing, Essence, or Image systems. (If you know, you know.) I love the intentions behind some of those systems, which is to be the antithesis of the fruit system. Unfortunately, in practice I think they can be a maddening labyrinth that devolves into more confusion, labels, and boxes.

I would like to create a community that empowers women (people) to identify and hone their own style, without having to fit into a box.

3. First steps

If you’re like me, I invite you to journey with me in an attempt to create a personalized style type in a way that is easy, specific, and fun.

For Part I, I’ve created a This or That template to identify core personal elements that you’d like to express.

4. The results

What I love about these answers are the variety of meanings behind each word. In future newsletters, I will provide image examples of terms to illustrate concepts, but for today, I want you to go with your gut. After all, my interpretation of “Statement” could be completely different than yours, and I’m not trying to create more boxes.

My answers are:

• Statement

• Established

• Girly

• Playful

• Contemporary

• Urban

• Simple

Some of these are easy for me to answer, like girly. Others, I hesitate at — I want my outfits to be interesting, but does that mean complex? No, I guess I like the combination of items to be simple.

Just go with your first instinct. And if your first instinct is to circle both or add a disclaimer, do it.

I love the the contradictions and nuances of these descriptors. I want to look Established, but Playful. That’s an epiphany. I realized looking youthful rather than established is what often makes me disappointed with my outfits.

What might this combination look like for me?

Girly, playful, yet decently established, contemporary, urban, but still simple in the sense I only have to throw on a shirt, skirt, and shoes. I would feel like I’m showing my personality but also meeting my style “goals.”

Did you have any epiphanies?

Subscribe for next week as we explore Part II: Signature Silhouettes.

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