In a world full of fast fashion trends, a myriad of aesthetics, and personality quizzes, it’s easy to sometimes feel like we need to fit our style into one particular box. Whether it is directly or indirectly, I think we are pushed to identify as a certain thing, to be able to reduce our personality down to a trendy aesthetic. As someone who has loved clothes and fashion for as long as I can remember, I myself have been stuck in a vicious cycle of buying new clothes and discarding old ones in order to fit inside of a “signature style” or an aesthetic. In this article I’d like to unpack this whole “find your style” dilemma, and why it sucks the joy out of dressing up.
It all started when I was very young. Growing up on the Internet, I always leaned into the fashion and lifestyle realm of content. I grew up admiring a lot of people for their sense of style and wanted to replicate them more than anything. I have vivid memories of going through my closet, and tossing out anything that wouldn’t fit with whatever new style I thought would be the one I was going to stick to. Although at that time I didn’t have the money or accessibility to get the clothes I wanted, I lived with the dream of reinventing myself completely, inside of one particular box.
The thing about these types of boxes, like aesthetics, is that they encourage us to purchase the objects that will secure our place inside a particular fashion community, feeding into a rapidly growing consumerist lifestyle along the way. Apart from this, it also leads us to rule out other items as not pertaining to our new lifestyle. When a piece of clothing we thoroughly enjoyed stops fitting in with a certain aesthetic that we want to project, it is suddenly then destined for the garbage bin. I think a lot of what I call “closet unhappiness” can stem from this.
So, when I say that you should probably stop chasing a signature style, I don’t by any means want to say that we shouldn’t further explore our preferences, or look to distinguish ourselves from others through our outfits. Quite the contrary, I mean that we should stop looking at these new trends and aesthetics as part of our personalities and wanting to fit into a box at the expense of our budgets or the environment. I mean that we should try to find a signature style in our already existing closet, with our unique clothing items that all have their own interesting histories. I also think that building outfits is much more fun when we realize that we can ultimately rebuild personalities everytime we dress, that it doesn’t have to be linear or consistent.
As I grow older I realize there’s a lot of joy to be found in each one of our belongings. Clothing items are more than just trendy or not, they are part of our stories; souvenirs, gifts, and first purchases. They all say something about who we are and who we were. That way, I think it’s much more exciting to build outfits when the past is used to build the present that we want. I hope this helps give you a new perspective on clothes.