Create a personal style that reflects your unique personality
Visualizing Your Signature Style
Imagine standing at your closet each morning already knowing that you’re going to love your day’s outfit. Any day. Any outfit. imagine that you will look put together, stylish, ready for the day, even in something as simple as jeans and a top. It may sound like a fantasy, but it can be your reality. It’s become mine.
The first step in creating a wardrobe that is perfectly you is understanding the various elements of your signature style. Creating your signature style is a very personal thing. By definition, every signature style is unique. So many things factor into it, but once you nail it, it’s like second skin.
We’ve been talking about creating your own signature style and what that means, and now we are in the midst of our Style Twist Challenge. We do a Shop Your Closet challenge every season and it’s one of our favorite things because it’s so much fun. This season we are putting a new twist on it by incorporating our Classic Style Twists and playing grown up dress up, figuring out what details we love, which ones suit us and getting a start on creating our signature styles.
This article and the video below are taken from the Stunning Style Weekly Style Snack! Join us Wednesdays at 1pm ET on the Stunning Style Facebook page or the FREE Capsule Wardrobes for Classic Style Facebook Group.
Be Honest with Yourself
Who are you? Really? Versus who do you want to be? Some parts of our lives and behavior are very much a choice. You can choose to be positive, a hard worker, kind, generous, or helpful. But there are core parts of you that are just who you are. I am an introvert. I always have been, always will be. I have my social, extroverted moments, and they require a recovery period afterward. These Style Snacks are a fun part of my week, but I have to retreat when the camera turns off.
I am driven, sharp, a doer, I get things done, busy-brained, a thinker, cautious, practical, intimidating, but I am not what others would call fun, light-hearted, giggly, soft-spoken, tender, a hugger. I didn’t want to be me for a long time. I wanted to be all those things I’m not. I thought if I dressed that way I could be that way. It doesn’t work. By accepting who I am and being the best version of myself, I am demonstrating true self love. Dressing in a way that tells everyone else who I am, I’m showing them love.
Pick 3 words
Now that you are being honest about who you are, if you had to pick 3 words that would describe your ideal style to represent who you are, what would they be? I found a worksheet I filled out years ago, during the lost years, and my top words were classic, timeless, chic. I was so far down my lost path I didn’t even recognize that is how I had dressed for most of my life. Looking back, now that I’m out of the woods, it’s as clear as day.
Once you pick your words, do they connect to any of the Classic Style Twists? Do you see yourself in there? It’s ok if you don’t! These aren’t the only Style Twists out there, and you should never force yourself to fit into a space that wasn’t cut for you. But if you do, they can give you a direction to start on.
Trend With Caution
One thing that will derail you faster than anything else is trends. The fashion industry’s number one job SHOULD BE to make us look and feel amazing, but it’s not. Their job is to make money, and they do that by changing the styles, convincing us that we are out of style, and offering to resolve that problem with…more stuff!
You know what’s truly in style? Your style. If it suits you, makes you look and feel amazing, it’s in style. When you can love and accept yourself and your style, it’s so freeing! That doesn’t mean you can never evolve, adapt, add or change anything about your style ever again! Incorporating trends that work with your style is how you stay modern and updated and possibly find new things to love! The key is to be selective in which trends you adopt.
Give It Time
As possibly the world’s least patient person, once I decide I want something, I want it yesterday. Second choice is right now. When I decided to find my signature style, I wanted to nail it immediately. I expected perfection, clarity, wisdom, and knowledge to infuse my being, and I wanted my wardrobe to be perfect…today.
That…didn’t happen. Instead, I tried too hard, trying to force it, trying to be super awesome and stylish, made a lot of mistakes for a long time, and finally calmed down, gave myself the space and grace to be…myself. I stopped trying to be super awesome and stylish and started being myself. Wearing what I love, not what I thought others would love, what I loved on others, or what I thought I should love.
It takes time, experimentation, patience, honesty, and space. It’s a process and a journey, and it can be fun process if you allow it to be! I know I’m not the only one who has this unreasonable expectation of personal perfection and beating myself up over not doing something right. Instead of viewing it as “I made a mistake,” I now view it as “I just learned something!” So, give it time, and give yourself grace.Â
Do the Work
Your signature style is so unique to you, no one else can hand it to you. I wish I could pull out a wand and be your fairy godmother, bippity-boppity-boo all of you just like Cinderella. It’s what I wanted. Is that really too much to ask? Apparently because, she hasn’t appeared yet.
It will require work, thought, experimentation, trial, and error. No one can define you, and while that’s frustrating, it’s also comforting because it confirms that you are a unique individual.
Spring is one of my favorite seasons because I love to garden. Watching the earth come to life is magical. Every year I start my seedlings…and then I wait. I want to see those plants now! But they grow and bloom in their own time. The tomatoes I start in February don’t yield fruit until August or September, but it’s always worth the wait.
It’s the same with finding your Signature Style. You start planting those seeds, and you water them and nurture them, you fertilize them, you protect them if some bad weather comes along. And then, they start to grow and develop, and bloom and blossom, and they yield fruit for you. It takes time, it’s a process, but it’s always worth it.
Find a Guide
Just because no one can bippity-boppity-boo you, that doesn’t mean you have to do it alone. While I can’t tell you who you are or what your signature style is, if you love classic style, I can guide you down that path to help you put it together. This year in the Stunning Style Society we are doing the year of the Twist. In addition to the Seasonal Wardrobe Guides, the curated shopping portal, and the inspiration outfit calendars, we are going to have a weekly lesson on incorporating your classic style twist.
Members of the Society get to choose one twist and each week they will get a lesson on incorporating that twist for the entire year. Slowly, consistently, a little at a time, we’ll be planting those seeds, watering them, fertilizing them, tending to them as they grow, and getting the fruit at the end.Â
This is going to be such an important part of creating your Signature Classic Style. This week, the doors to the Society opened for spring. They only open four times a year for a week at a time. They close again on Tuesday March 2nd, and won’t be open again until summer comes. I promise you, you do not want to miss this. By the end of the year you could have come so far in developing your own signature style, in addition to getting the Wardrobe Guide.
1 thought on “5 Helpful Tips For Creating Your Signature Style”
Thanks, April, for the tips and tricks, I have my classic style nailed down now. I’m a soft minimal classic with a cutesy/boho edge, and I always have been when I look back on the clothes and looks I liked best over the years. I don’t do Facebook at all, but I will see you around Pinterest now and then, take care…