Feeling like you need a wardrobe overhaul? Here are my top tips for how to find your personal style without throwing away your entire closet.
The white slit tee above was gifted, but not in exchange for this post. This post is not sponsored.
We’ve all had moments when we look at our closets and feel like we have nothing to wear. This can quickly lead to us thinking that we need to do a complete wardrobe overhaul, but even this often doesn’t solve our problems because we don’t know our personal style and continue to make bad decisions while shopping.
In the past year or so, I have really come into my personal style, and now, I almost never feel like I have nothing to wear. Loving your closet starts with knowing your personal style and what you love to wear. Once you have identified these key factors, the next most important step is making good decisions while shopping (this post may help with that: Mindful Shopping Tips | How to Shop Intentionally)
In this post, I will be sharing my top tips to help you find your personal style without doing a complete wardrobe overhaul.
How to Find Your Personal Style
1. Stop shopping for a while
If you feel like you hate everything in your wardrobe, take a minute before purchasing anything new. Clearly, at one point you liked the pieces you purchased. If you feel like you hate them now, you either made bad decisions, are in a funk (probably fueled by the feeling of needing to be ‘in’) or are truly going through a shift in your style. Either way, you’re in no place to make snap decisions shopping. Trust me, I’ve been in your shoes.
2. See which pieces in your wardrobe you wear the most
Which pieces in your closet are your absolute favorites? Are there any overlapping elements or styles among them, such as ruffles, structural design or an edgy aesthetic (for me, the structure and fit of the garment are also HUGE factors)? Your stylistic elements don’t have to correspond (feel free to mix tailored pieces with baggy, casual pieces) – in fact, it’s more interesting and personal to you if they don’t. No matter the elements or style, these are the key pillars for your personal style.
3. Style these favorite pieces as many times and ways as possible
These pieces are the foundation of your personal style, and styling them as many ways as possible will open your mind to how to get more wear out of the pieces in your wardrobe while also building a personal relationship with those pieces.
4. Rewear your favorite outfits
It’s 2023, don’t be afraid to re-wear your favorite items and outfits. When you find an outfit or piece that feels true to you, wear it as many times as possible. You should look forward to opportunities to re-wear it rather than thinking you always need a new outfit. And re-wearing your favorite pieces will help you actually embody your personal style.
5. Create a Pinterest board and identify overlapping elements
If you aren’t seeing many overlapping elements in your current wardrobe, create a Pinterest board of all the looks you are drawn to and see if you can identify elements of your personal style that way. However, I wouldn’t recommend trying to purchase the exact items or copy the exact outfits you pin. In my experience, copy and paste never feels authentic to me. Instead, I like to use Pinterest as inspiration for how to style pieces I already have in my wardrobe.
6. Give up on sticking to one aesthetic
If you’re not consistently aligning with an aesthetic, stop trying to mold yourself to fit perfectly with one. Most of our personal styles will consist of elements from multiple aesthetics rather than just one. So when you are documenting the elements you are drawn to, don’t force yourself to give up feminine pieces or more masculine pieces if you love both, for example. Actually, styling two contrasting elements that you love will make your outfits more true to you.
For example, I have a sweater with pearls on it that I haven’t worn in at least a year because I felt it was too preppy or polished for my current style. However, I recently thrifted a pair of baggy denim cargo pants and had the idea to style them with the sweater. Because the pants added a bit of edge and a casual, undone aspect to the look, I was able to style the sweater in a way that felt true to my personal style. So before throwing out everything in your wardrobe…
7. Try styling the pieces you aren’t as drawn in new ways
As described in the example above, how you style the pieces in your wardrobe can completely change your perspective on the item. So before throwing out everything you don’t feel as drawn to, try styling the pieces in a new way.
8. Use thrifting to experiment
When discovering your personal style (or shopping at any point, really), thrifting is a great option because it takes you out of the traditional store or online shopping setting, away from sales associates, marketing advertisements or influencers trying to convince you to purchase items, and forces you to pick items all on your own.
I used to struggle with thrift shopping (and it even negatively impacted my personal style in the past) because despite being away from those influences, I was still picking items just because they were by a brand I was surprised to see at the thrift or an item someone else would have considered a “good thrift find.” So try to keep yourself from being influenced by the affordability, brand or what others would pick up while thrifting, and try to focus solely on if you truly love the item. These tips and questions to ask yourself may help: 13 Thrifting Tips for Shopping Intentionally
Thrifting is also great because it allows you to try out new styles in a sustainable and affordable way. Who knows, maybe all those poor decisions I made when I first started thrifting were the exact stepping stones I needed to become aligned with my personal style.
9. Stop trying to match what other people are wearing
As I mentioned before, the copy and paste of an outfit from my favorite Pinterest photo or influencer to myself never felt like me. But when I say stop trying to match what other people are wearing, I also mean your friends or family when socializing with others.
We’ve all asked our girlfriends what they’re wearing on a night out in an attempt to match the vibes with our own outfits, but I challenge you to match your own style rather than the style of your friends.
When I was in college, everyone wore shorts and tees or leggings and sweatshirts to class. And I even studied fashion in college. You would think everyone would have been showing their personal style at all times, but that was almost never the case at my school. Anyways, I went from ‘dressing up’ every day in high school, to almost never wearing my wardrobe or feeling my best because I was influenced by the others around me.
Now, even though I am just sitting at coffee shops most days, I “dress up” and actually wear the outfits I imagine myself wearing.
However, I do personally still struggle with this when hanging out with friends. I have to consciously remind myself to dress in a way that feels true to me instead of being influenced by others. And I challenge you to do the same!
10. When the time comes to start shopping, only buy pieces you truly love and know will work with your wardrobe
When adding an item to your wardrobe, you should be excited about all the ways you can style it with the pieces you already have in your closet, not thinking that you’ll have to buy other pieces to make it work. The pieces you purchase should make styling outfits easier, not harder. Check out this post for more tips on how to make mindful decisions while shopping: Mindful Shopping Tips | How to Shop Intentionally
Bonus tip: Try to only buy work clothes that align with your personal style so much that you would be willing to style them outside of the office.
When I started working in an office, feeling like I was dressing true to my personal style was very difficult. I am lucky that now I work from home full time and can dress true to myself every day. But while I was working in an office, I realized that I felt like a character wearing what I thought I should be wearing to an office and really only felt myself when I was wearing office-appropriate pieces that I would also wear during my own time.
Since we spend most of our time working, what we wear can largely impact our personal style. So if you work in an office that allows flexibility with the dress code, try to only wear pieces you would wear outside of the office, and style them in an office-appropriate way. For example, the outfit below is one I would wear to work, but I would also wear these pieces separately outside of work.
@olivia.noles early spring wfh ootd🌸 #ootd #earlyspringootd #earlyspringoutfit #earlyspringoutfits #springfashion2023 #springoutfitideas