Finding Your Personal Fashion Style

"How to Find Your Clothing Personality"

Find your personal fashion style and feel good

Developing your personal fashion style is a way to express your individuality and feel empowered. Instead of blending in - you want people to know who you are and what you stand for.

Instead of brainlessly following the crowd, you're not afraid to be yourself and show people what you're about. You can think for yourself and you're comfortable in your own skin.

Expressing yourself through clothes, accessories and colors is an important aspect of feeling and looking good. The good-feelings you get from the freedom of putting together your piece art boosts your self-confidence!

Staying true to your clothing personality can:

Attract people who are similar to you
Create admiration from people around you and boost your confidence
Make you appear interesting

Creating your own personal fashion style is like building your own brand. The clothes you wear say a lot about your personality and lifestyle - and you want to express yourself in a way that is true about you to attract the people and circumstances you want, and also create an image of how you want them to perceive you.

If you've already taken the Fashion Style Quiz but want to explore your own personal style in-depth, here are some tips on how to really hone your personal style:

Determine Your True Personality

You need to find yourself, to understand what you really want.

When trying to find your personal fashion style, think of the ideal you. Combine your taste, lifestyle, interests, desires, inspirations, aspirations and history together. What clothes will you wear? What will you act like? The best way to find your style is to understand your inner world.

You can start off by writing down words that describe your personality and characteristics and you will often see a pattern in those traits. Are you traditional? Outgoing? Direct? Fashion forward? And so on.

Take a look at the way you dress. Do your clothes match with your personality? If so you've found yourself. If not, then you must be suffering from a 'clothing personality disorder' which is by image consultants described as 'a confusion created when you're strongly influenced by others (parents, family, friends, work, etc.) to wear clothes not fitting with your inborn personality.

With me, my primary style is Classy but I definitely love the relaxed Bohemian (it accentuates my 'exotic' look), sweet Romantic (I'm a daydreamer and have an eye for how things look), a pinch of Sporty (I love my relaxed boyfriend jeans and canvas slip on Keds!) and sometimes High Fashion (I feel like I'm slowly growing out of it though. I'm in my 20s).

But Classic is my core clothing personality because it shows through whatever outfit I wear, both casual and formal. I can never see myself as Eclectic or Dramatic because it looks way too much on me. I can not quite see myself as Urban but I can take bits and pieces from Urban like a pair of Converse shoes, Wayfarer sunglasses and perhaps a relaxed jersey t-shirt and create something Classy out of it.

Use Magazines

You need to use (purchase or use the ones you've already got) major fashion magazines such as Elle, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and Harper's Bazaar.

The first step is to circle colors, shapes, clothes and outfits that appeal to you.

Now using the descriptions from the fashion style quiz, count up all the different styles you have circled and place the totals in the chart below:

Basically, you take the results from the chart and the quiz and take note of the styles with the most items circled. For example:

My personal style from style quiz: (.....)

My personal style from chart: (.....)

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Create Your Own Lookbook Diary

This is one of my favorite ways to let your personal fashion style evolve and help you stay focused on your inborn personal fashion style. It might sound a lot of work but believe me, once you've set it up you won't even treat it as a chore because you're having a lot of fun writing in it!

Finding your personal fashion style is a fluid process that constantly needs reevaluation and updates. So this is for the serious fashionistas!

Buy a Moleskine notebook and start adding things like:

How to find your personal style with a diary

Models, clothes, makeup and colors that appeal to you (you can for example collect pictures on one page and put a date on when you found them)
Fashion quotes that inspire you. For example: Chanel's "Fashion fades but style is eternal"
Ever had someone say you looked good in an outfit? Then take a Polaroid picture if you can of yourself wearing the outfit and stick it to your Moleskin. Write a commentary for each photo and describe what you wore and why you think you looked good in it. You can also do this for outfits that make you feel good about yourself.
Do some research about fashion icons and style trends and take notes on which ones you feel greatly reflect the image you want to create.
Write an entry about someone's style you liked who you saw on the street the other day. Write down why you thought they looked great. Take notes of what they wore and how they wore it.
Take notes of some of the latest trends that appeal to you

I want to remind you that there are no right and wrong answers here. This is your personal style diary. You're not writing a book to please someone else other than yourself!

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Borrow clothes from your friends, family, boyfriend, etc.

In your journey to finding your personal fashion style and honing down your true clothing personality, try to open to various styles and have fun with it! Follow your instinct - go for whatever that makes you feel inspired and empowered.

Do a short-term loan by borrowing garments and accessories from different fashion styles within your circle of friends and family, so you can experiment on pieces that appeal and resonate with you. Or just head to clothing stores and try on the pieces you like but aren't sure suit you.

Try Vintage: Vintage and thrift store items are an excellent way to experiment with new styles. You'll find lots of unique and on-of-a-kind clothes and accessories that may spark your inner creativity.