I’m about to sound like a real hater, but many of those “how to find your personal style” guides make the whole pursuit way too complicated. It’s really much easier than most people think.
First of all, there is a difference between “being fashionable” and “having style.” Being fashionable means looking presentable/well-kept and wearing trendy enough items so that people know you didn’t peak in high school (but of course not too trendy or people will think you’ve got TikTok brain rot and a shopping problem). You can get away with not wearing any relevant trends if your clothes are basic enough to be “timeless,” or if you lean fully into a vintage look. But unfortunately, if you hold onto too many style cues from the 2010s, or even early 2020s, it comes across as being just a touch “outdated.”
Style, on the other hand, is based on your own personal expression. There’s a reason why someone who is wearing a crazy, disproportionate, ‘unflattering’ outfit will still be considered “stylish,” and it’s because they carry themself with the confidence needed to accompany their outfit. The opposite is true too: it’s why even certain models get panned for their walk and get told the clothes are wearing them. They have the same build as every other model on that runway, but it’s the personal expression that’s lacking.
If you wear your clothes with confidence — even if it’s not conventionally flattering — people will start to wonder, “Is this purposeful?” And then they psy-op themselves into agreeing that yes, you know what you’re doing!
Style is ultimately about purpose. It’s about knowing what you’re giving out. And knowing what to give out comes from your own personal references: the imagery, symbols, and meanings that resonate with you specifically. Not TikTok. Not Pinterest. In a sense, a personal style is cohesive, but what makes it cohesive is the fact that it is authentically you. You: a complex, nuanced individual. This might sound contradictory: how do you be cohesive, while also being complex (having varying interests)? The solution is that you need a framework.
So here’s a personal example. These are three outfit photos, taken in 2020, 2023, and 2025, respectively.
They’re all different, but they all embody the sort of playful, flirty, and whimsical framework I like in an outfit. I also like to play with textures and mix/match vintage with new. I participate in trends from time to time (ballet flats for instance), but the overall effect is that they have to follow the framework of what my style is: playful, flirty, & whimsical. This means that I avoid trends that can’t really be styled in my own way (the House of Sunny Hockney dress from 2021 for example).
Okay, now let’s take a look at these two outfits. This is Level 2:
Outfit on the left has a yee-haw sensibility, but let’s break it down: it’s playful (the cowboy hat), flirty (the lace), and whimsical (the pastel colors). The second photo is harder to see (this was not a good photo-taking night for me). But let’s squint. It’s a sportier take than most things I wear, but still playful (backwards baseball cap), still flirty (mini skirt with knee socks), and still whimsical (heavy cool-toned pink blush that’s hard to see). While the sensibilities of the outfits are different (yeehaw vs. sporty), it’s the added fact that both are references to my own authentic personal tastes that make the outfits feel like me. This is why I could never see myself participating in the ‘old money’/Lake Como vacation- inspired outfits (despite them trending), because those are references that don’t and never have appealed to me. More on this in a second.
If it helps, you can interpret your own personal style like a couture house. Miu Miu is all about blending the playful with the sophisticated, the messy with the chic. There are differences between the collections from the 90s to the ones now, but they are ultimately all still adhering to the brand’s framework.
So, think of what your style framework is. What is the vibe that you gravitate towards? Then, as a creative exercise, I challenge you to write a list of everything that you love, anything that can be a reference to you. These references are the different ways of telling your story that you will layer onto the framework. To take my above two photos as an example, the first photo references my horse girl tendencies, and the second one references my Tomboy aspirations.1
I’ve included my reference list below:
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