Written by: Sophia Corning, Sustainable Fashion Week Chicago Co-Executive Director
A Closet Full of Clothes but Nothing to Wear
You’ve got a dinner party tonight and need to get dressed, but for some reason, nothing you try on in your bedroom is working. Clothes are scattered across the floor and you stare at your closet, full to the brim with items you’ve accumulated over the years, with a grimace on your face.
The matching sets you bought are too casual, you’ve already worn all your cocktail dresses with this particular group of friends already, so can’t repeat. Your array of dressy tops and skirts are cute for the most part, but none of them seem to go together.
You’ve got work slacks and blouses but do you really want to look like you came straight from the office? You decide you can do better, so you grab your car keys off the kitchen counter and make an emergency trip to Zara.
What Does It Mean to Dress Well?
A difficult question to answer when you really think about it. Does it mean adhering to dress codes? Following the latest trends? Wearing something abnormal and unexpected that turns heads? Something that flatters your body type?
It’s a question deeply linked with the concept of personal style. You hear it all the time: “Find your style,” “I love your style!”, “Their style is so great.” But again, what does style really mean?
Sustainable Fashion Week Chicago explored exactly that question during its virtual panel with local style experts André Wilson, Stylist & Founder of the Black Garment Bag; Maggie Gillette, Partner at the Curio; and Hannah Linksy, Stylist & Owner of GoGo Studio.
The discussion began with the million dollar question: What is personal style? While each panelist had their own unique take on the concept, a common thread shone through all their answers: Knowing your style means knowing yourself first. In Andre’s words, personal style is the “intentional visual expression of who you are and how you move through the world.” For Hannah, big pieces of that identity work include understanding your relationship both to your own body and the people around you. Style then takes that self understanding and communicates it to the world externally.
So How Do You Find Your Personal Style?
First of all, finding your personal style is a process that’s never truly finished. Because individual identity is constantly evolving, so is its intentional visual expression through clothing. Yet there are concrete steps and strategies people can take to better align their internal landscape with what they communicate to the external world through fashion.
Maggie suggests to first find an item or outfit in your closet that makes you feel best and ask yourself why that is. Is it the color, shape, style, pattern, sentimental value, or something else? When you find an answer, build from there and try to understand how you can emulate that aspect or that feeling in other areas of your wardrobe.
Exploring vintage stores can be a valuable part of the process as well, according to Hannah, because the pressure of fitting current trends falls away, and you can explore individual pieces and styles without seeing complete outfits laid out in front of you where all of the styling decisions have already been made for you.
She notes that while social media can be a great place to find inspiration for experimentation, emulating another person’s look has to go hand-in-hand with iteration; did that outfit or that piece make you feel good? Why or why not? Then use that newfound knowledge to help you make more informed purchasing decisions moving forward.
Building your style means doing research, finding inspiration, experimenting, iterating, and learning as you go. And most importantly, it means doing the internal work to better understand your own identity, values, and how you want to express those to the world.
Why Bother with Finding Your Style at All?
At the end of the day, not everyone cares about having a personalized taste in fashion, but there are more practical reasons to crystallize your sense of what kinds of clothes work for you vs. which do not.
Cost Savings
The first is economical. A more specific sense of what you like and don’t like makes it easier to filter out options that don’t work for you. That means purchases you don’t make and money you get to save.
Stress Reduction
The second is mental. Remember the stress of finding that dinner outfit? The bloated, overflowing dresser and closet you swore you’d go through but never do? Often, when you cultivate a sense of personal style, you gain a greater understanding of how to mix, match, and rewear (yes, rewear!) your clothing in a way that unlocks dozens of outfits from a much smaller wardrobe.
Pairing pieces becomes easier because they are all part of the same visual language(s) that you have built for yourself. Those looks represent your identity or even your mood that day, which can provide a boost of confidence. After all, many of us understand how amazing it feels to wear something that truly feels like it was meant for us.
Sustainability
The third is both social and ecological. Human rights violations across the fashion supply chain, including both low pay and exploitative working conditions, are ubiquitous. The manufacturing and transportation of new clothing items rely heavily on fossil fuels, while clothing waste has become a global concern, contributing to microplastic pollution and often ending up exported en masse to developing regions, far from where the items were originally purchased and worn. The global fashion industry produces roughly 92 million tons of clothing waste each year (UNEP).
It’s Not Always Easy
Developing style takes time, patience, and financial resources, which someone may or may not have at any given time based on their current economic status, geographical location, or other factors. The object is not to shame those who haven’t had the opportunity to explore this creative process, but to offer resources and strategies that can support them should they choose to embark on that journey.
For example, if feasible, consulting a stylist can be a massive support, as these professionals will contribute their expertise and experience to help guide clients through the process, saving time and potential frustration.
For those located far from thrift stores or other retail outlets, online secondhand platforms like Depop, Ebay, or Vinted offer lower-cost avenues to experimenting with clothing that already exists.
Social media — when used mindfully — can be a very helpful resource for learning and inspiration, as can books and resources published by seasoned stylists.
Personal style is a journey, and not always easy, but it does not have to feel either vague or at worst impossible. You’ll feel the payoff in your wallet, your closet, and your mind.
