Style Building – A Guide to De-Cloning Yourself – Part One

Figuring out what you like and don’t like is the first step to doing what I like to call ‘style-building’. If you’re anything like me then you hate looking like a clone of anything or anyone else.

I remember once, someone saw me get dressed and left the room only to return in the exact thing I was wearing. I don’t mean that she had on the same shirt from the same store. I mean the style and the colour, everything! It irked me so much it almost spoilt my night – we looked like the wonder twins. As in really, style is something so individual, why would you want to copy someone else’s? You lose your identity that way. My style is very important to me and clothes, whether gifted or purchased by me, that don’t emit what I think my personality is, always fall to the back of my closet or go into that pile for alteration or to undergo some creative deconstruction.

So yes, style-building is really about what aspect or aspects of yourself you want to bring out that day, in other words it is inexplicably tied to your personality. Now I would like to think of myself as a multi-faceted, diverse individual, so my style changes from sweet, to rocker-chic, to glam to fashion forward, to conservative to a little bit sexy on a daily basis. How did I come to this conclusion? By a simple process of elimination. I looked through magazines, blogs, looked at the television, on the streets, everywhere. You usually don’t have a positive reaction to things you don’t like- some of us know instinctively, and others of us have to carefully distinguish between things that we don’t think we could pull off and things that we actually don’t like.

The easiest way to know that you don’t like something, is if you find yourself asking ‘why would anyone wear that?’ That universal ‘anyone’ is important because if you limit it to just the particular person that is wearing the outfit then it becomes more about whether it is flattering on that person or not. I always always find myself asking this question when it comes on to ponchos or capes. I cannot understand why for the life of me anyone would want to wear a triangle shaped blanket. Granted, all fashion is art and it may look beautiful in an artsy way on someone but when it comes to real life fashion I would never be able to see someone sporting a poncho on the street and say that I like the person’s outfit.

Once you have established what you don’t like, then its time to educate yourself. This is the best way to approach it, especially if you shop. Stores like to separate their clothing into styling categories, and you can save yourself a lot of time if you are able to identify those styles you like. You can take the easy out and buy a style guide from a bookstore or you can chance it via google but this is not for the easily exasperated. Some of the classifications include:

·         Classic – this speaks to basic styles, that are wearable despite trends, and tend to include necessities such as jeans, a white shirt, black dress. These are usually in solid colours.

·         Casual- this usually describes the style of the t-shirt, jeans and flats-wearing individual. This style is very dressed down and usually is worn by persons with very laid back personalities. The girl who will wear a maxi dress to get away with not wearing heels.

·         Glam- dressy, dressed up style, usually accompanied by a sophisticated sexiness

·         Rocker- think black, hardware, leather, and grungy even

·         Girly- pastels, pinks, skirts, ruffles, frill, lace

There are numerous other styles but they usually incorporate one or several of the elements of the abovementioned style and have been given a name to suit the marriage of them. I myself, wear things that are all those styles, though I wear less of casual and rocker.

Once you have identified your style group, it goes without saying that you have identified the types of pieces you like, and depending on your taste and your personality you will begin to mix them all together to create your own personal style.

Personal style is the basis of all fashion. That’s why two designers can look at the same inspiration and come up with two totally different ideas. The colour orange may take an interpretation in the eyes of an Erin Fetherston and she may come up with an orange pumpkin skirt- which because her style tends to be girly which would make sense for her to do something to accentuate the female figure and yet be playful. A Ralph Lauren whose style is far more classic may come up with something like an orange sweater for a fall collection because it reminds him of fall leaves, and a sweater would be perfect because of the drop in the temperatures.

I hope you see where I’m going…

Part Two...in a few hours....