How often in life have we heard people tell us “oh just be yourself”. And how often have we really taken that advice?
Something tells us, one too many times for the first question, but not enough, for the second. And we are not surprised.
Because, although everyone talks about “being yourself”, can anyone really define what it means? Can I, for instance, walk around in women’s hipster underwear just because I feel like that is “so me” – or would that be so frowned upon?
Yes it seems like we’ve begun with too many questions today, and while we don’t promise to answer all of them, we will try to answer the one we can: how does one go about identifying with their true self and style?
While simple, we assure you, this is not easy, yet completely worth it. After all, if there’s going to be only one of you in the world, there might as well be the best of you, even if it is in women’s hipster underwear that simply speaks to your soul.
To give you a little context, especially for those who feel like fashion is the ‘f’ word they’d rather not relate themselves with, identifying with your personal style has more to do with the mind than with the commonly mistaken notion of simply choosing what to wear for the day. It is a reflection of the kind of person you are. The tastes you have. The things you stand for. The things you find worth your time. The things you’d rather avoid. All of it can show through right from your shoes that are so visibly out there, to the women’s hipster underwear you’ve chosen to wear today because they’re just so comfortable you couldn’t care less about anything else.
Hoping to have convinced you on the fact that this is for you, here is an activity you could try out to help find your style. Better yet, if you don’t mind pictures of things like a pair of women’s hipster underwear on your wall, why not get creative and put together a visual moodboard to help guide you? After all, while we do believe that fashion is all about how things make you feel, it does begin first with the eyes.
So, here goes:
- Who do you think has a great sense of personal style? Try to think of at least three different people, and this is gender neutral – it could be anybody from anywhere, even people you know.
- Try to put together images of these people in various pieces of clothing. If you are looking at celebrities, models, or people from the public sphere, this will be easier to do for the internet is flooded with pictures of these people wearing everything from a red carpet dress to women’s hipster underwear and this includes even the men!
- Once you’ve put together these pictures, try to see if there is anything common between them. The one trick we use here is to objectify things. We try to forget that the image in front of us is a person wearing something. We try to put aside the fact that these things are dresses, t-shirts, shorts, or women’s hipster underwear, and try to focus on the characteristics instead. For instance, we try to look at the shapes, the textures, the colours. We try to see how tight or loose or light or heavy the fabrics appear. All of these help us find the underlying thread that gives us the personal style of that individual.
- Having done that, we urge you to pull out your absolute favourite pieces of clothing from your wardrobe. It doesn’t matter why it is your favourite, what is important is that you like it. Which means it is ok for you to put your most comfortable pair of women’s hipster underwear alongside your most bling-y party dress. It doesn’t matter.
- Now photograph these and repeat the exact same exercise you did with the people you chose previously, and you’ll suddenly begin to find patterns to your choice that bit by bit will help give you a better understanding of what your personal style is and how, being comfortable in your clothes is so much in sync with being comfortable in your own skin. ‘Being yourself’ feels like a more real thing now, doesn’t it?
