Shaping Your Personal Fashion Style

What is personal style?

For me, clothing is not intended to express personality or ego. Because when using clothes to shape a certain image or image of myself, I feel it is unnecessary, even quite dangerous, because I will be easily swayed by other people's assessments of myself. I look at the outfit. Furthermore, each person's perception of each object and event is completely different, based on that person's own experience. So certainly no one can 100% control their own image in the minds of others.

And, why should we do that?

I like to define personal style simply as clothes that make me feel truly comfortable being myself (and also consider cultural factors). At that time, I was completely confident and relaxed. No need to worry about other people's eyes, no need to worry about what the current trend is. The important thing is, I can wear what I love every day. That makes me feel relieved and at peace.

Personal experience

To be honest, I was inherently confident about my personal aesthetic, about how to coordinate clothes, how to choose clothes that suit my body shape... But for a while, I became obsessed with it.

First is the feeling of opening the closet and 'having nothing to wear' that I'm sure most women experience every day. Why do I have a mountain of clothes but don't know what to wear? Perhaps too much choice turns into no choice at all. Maybe, I never wear the same outfit within a week, and I can count the items I really like on the fingers of one hand. Partly because of buying discounted items, partly because of buying according to trends. In the end, I spent thirty minutes just to put on my favorite dress that I was afraid to wear because I had worn it too much!

I used to spend most of my time hanging around online stores, exiting, then being followed by ads, clicking again, then buying again. A cycle that never ends. I'm really tired.

Although I'm confident in my ability to coordinate outfits, I only stay indoors. Going out on the street, I feel insecure, wondering if I'm okay, whether wearing this is appropriate for this space. My mind is still busy worrying, I don't have any thoughts to experience anything anymore.

The feeling of guilt, which I don't know if many people experience, when throwing away a large amount of clothes after each season. Selling is both embarrassing and lazy, but who knows who will buy it? You don't know who to give to. Donating to charity seems to be the best solution, but it's just a situation. There are some items that are not safe to wear, so I can't bear to throw them away. They take up a large amount of space in the closet and take up the time I spend every morning looking for things.

That's it. Not simply having one less worry and feeling relieved, since becoming more aware of my personal wardrobe, I have eliminated a large amount of waste. Waste of resources when constantly bringing in and throwing away large amounts of clothes, shoes, and bags; a waste of space (you may think they don't take up much space, but you probably need a wardrobe or two, a shoe rack and a storage box to hold all that stuff); Waste of money, of course, and waste of time and effort.

Steps to slowly build your favorite wardrobe

Below are some of my own experiences that I feel you may find useful. However, the experience of creating a 'uniform' wardrobe for yourself is quite interesting and I think you should experiment and create your own formula.

1. List and classify the occasions when you need clothes to wear out. For example, work, exercise, going out, traveling, etc. and rank the frequency (or %) of each group.

2. Open your wardrobe and choose 10-15 items that you wear often and that make you feel most comfortable (it's important to be really comfortable).

3. Go to Pinterest, create a new board and search for keywords about outfits. You should start with broad keywords like women outfit, smart casual, spring outfit first. Save the images you think will suit you to the created board. Pinterest's suggestion feature is quite good, so gradually you will have a board of outfits that suit your liking.

4. Gradually update your wardrobe according to the style you have created. Gradually eliminate items that you have never worn or haven't touched in 6 months. From future purchases, be careful to ask questions: "Will I feel comfortable wearing it?", "If this item is lost or damaged, will I spend money to buy an identical one?" ”. And the advice here is, quality is better than quantity, and if possible, you should learn about the business behind the production of that outfit, about the source of materials... You will feel more appreciative of the item you wear.

My life has changed quite a bit since I simplified my wardrobe, condensing it to only the clothes I want to wear every day. At least, it only takes me a minute to choose something for that day.

I want to hear your experiences about shaping your wardrobe according to your personal style, or minimizing your clothes. Please leave a comment below!