My 5 Tips To Find Your Personal Style
Victoria Binns
There was once a time that I believed that the key to feeling good in my style was buying new pieces. Anytime I felt like I had ‘nothing’ to wear, I’d put it down to the fact that my wardrobe needed an update, and off I’d go to my local high street stores for my weekly fix. That was, until the pandemic happened; and I was forced to analyse my relationship with my wardrobe.
With the stores closed, all I had left was my wardrobe to work with and over the following months I re-connected to my existing wardrobe in a way that I never had before. And guess what? I didn’t buy a single thing.
Working from home allowed me to explore my wardrobe, re-wear pieces, and experiment with styles I had overlooked before and also saw me delve into sustainable fashion, quickly making me realise it was time to transition my career. It was clear to me that style had absolutely nothing to do with my next purchase, and everything to do with how I could maximise what I already owned – because it pushed me to be more creative.
Fast forward 4 years and I am now a personal stylist and image consultant with a mission is to help women re-connect with their existing wardrobes; using fool proof methods to help them feel their most confident in their style than ever before.
Here are my 5 tips to finding your style sustainably:
FIND YOUR WARDROBE HEROES
Feeling strong in your style aesthetic starts with the wardrobe that you already have. It’s time to take a deep dive into your wardrobe and pull out all of the pieces that you love and make you feel like ‘you’. Look back at photos of yourself too, and remember what outfit combinations you loved, create a folder on your phone so you can easily look back at these style defining moments.
DEFINE YOUR CURRENT STYLE
Using your wardrobe heroes, it’s time to define your style pillars. This stage is *crucial* because it’s going to help guide you in creating your outfits, as well as helping you to stay focused when you want to add pieces into your wardrobe. It’s so much easier to say ‘no’ to new items when you have clarity on what works for you and only you. Looking at your wardrobe heroes, try and work out what it is you love about them – is it shape/ texture/ colour? And then ask yourself most importantly how do they make you feel? For example, my wardrobe heroes made me realise how much I love pattern in muted colours, but also how I want to feel relaxed, comfortable and confident at all times.
LEARN FROM YOUR WARDROBE FAILS
Armed with the knowledge of what is working for you, it’s also so important to look at what hasn’t worked in our wardrobe. Looking at the pieces that have ‘failed’ and figuring out why is so key to making less wardrobe mistakes. I found that a lot of the pieces I wasn’t wearing in my wardrobe or didn’t feel like ‘me’ often happened as impulse purchases that I hadn’t planned or considered prior. I then had nothing to wear with them in my existing wardrobe or felt like I needed to purchase multiple new pieces to make them work. An easy fix was spending time where possible to plan ahead, which gave me more time to look into sustainable options to fill my wardrobe gaps, such as buying pre-loved and hunting out sustainable brands.
SET YOUR STYLE GOALS
When you’re lacking connection to your style, goal setting is what is going to help you to evolve your authentic personal style that feels true to you. Defining how you want to feel in your clothes is the first step, followed by gathering inspiration of where you feel this is reflected so you have a visual representation of what this looks like. A great place to start is with any style inspirations that you have, analyse their style, is what they’re emulating something that’s missing from your own style pillars? It’s also keen to define what your goals mean, for example if you want to feel more ‘polished’ is it high quality fabrics? Is it tailored silhouettes? Is it adding accessories? Define this and then put together a moodboard of where you see your style going.
CHALLENGE YOURSELF TO RE-STYLE
With your style defined, and all of the knowledge, it’s time to start restyling any pieces you aren’t wearing. My top tip is to try these pieces with your wardrobe heroes as an easy place to start, experiment with outfit formulas, layering and challenge yourself to push yourself slightly, using the inspiration you’ve found and being inspired by the style icons that align with your style. Take pictures of any new outfits you create and save them to a folder on your phone for those days when you need some inspiration for what to wear. If you struggle to find pieces already in your wardrobe to connect these pieces, it’s time to write a list of the key pieces you’re looking for to fill your wardrobe gaps.
Using these 5 tips will get you well on your way to finding your style sustainably, because when we take time to reflect and connect with our authentic style, it helps to slow our shopping habits down as we no longer rely on newness to feel good about our style, and that is the ultimate wardrobe freedom.
Here are 5 items I’ll be on the hunt for to maximise my summer wardrobe…
Fisherman Sandals
These sandals have been around for a couple of seasons now, and are truly a classic. I’m looking to update my summer footwear and these will be the perfect addition and are quite an easy style to source pre-loved.
A Summer Midi Dress
I’m looking for the perfect summer dress that I can wear in multiple ways, and I’m really gravitating towards a Cecilie Bahnsen silhouette, this gorgeous pre-loved Stine Goya dress on Miller & Moore ticks those boxes.
A Summer Co-ord
There is nothing more versatile than a co-ord, I have one co-ord in my summer wardrobe and get so much wear out of it and so I’m on the hunt for another one. I love this made-to-order co-ord by Second Stories.
Longline Denim Shorts
I have been after the perfect pair of blue denim longline shorts, ever since I upcycled a black pair of jeans and got so much wear out of them. They align with my style pillars perfectly, and I’ll be using vintage denim sourcers Pin Denim to find my perfect pair
A Pop of Colour
I would love to add some form of colour to my summer wardrobe, because it has become very monochrome. I think this pre-loved Faithfull the brand top from Curate & Rotate is such an easy way to add colour into your summer wardrobe, style it under a blazer or wear it with jeans or a longline skirt and it will add a fun vibe to any outfit.
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