Finding your personal style can be a difficult task in an era where fast fashion and trends are taking over. Seeing influencers or paid advertisements promote a variety of fashion items can seem overwhelming due to the wide variety available. However, authentic self-expression is what people turn to over and over again due to personal needs such as confidence, self-awareness, and uniqueness.

In a previous article titled “Capsule Wardrobe: A Clearer and More Sustainable Sense of Style” we already learned that knowing your personal style helps declutter your closet, build your confidence, and shop more responsibly. It’s time to discover what are the steps to uncovering your personal style.

Why Personal Style Should Matter to You

Personal style relates to the way you express yourself through your clothes, accessories, and overall look. As explained in the article “Capsule Wardrobe: A Clearer and More Sustainable Sense of Style”, trends change quite frequently, while personal style is timeless and long-lasting. Personal style is a reflection of your own personality, which can organize your wardrobe, enhance confidence, help you dress faster and easier, and ensure that you feel confident when you dress in a way that resonates with who you truly are.

Key Step: Self-Reflection

The first step to finding your personal style is inner thought. You should think about what outfits make you feel confident, what pieces you wear most often, and what is the reason why you prefer them. With some reflection, you can start slowly building your personal style from these base items that you keep on rotation.

If you are passionate about journaling, you can align your thoughts and reflect on your fashion preferences by answering to questions you ask yourself that relate to the fashion icons you have, what styles you like on others, what style and items best reflect your personality, and more.

By doing this, you also ensure that you don’t fall prey to trends and external influences, and you will be more in touch with your inner voice that can be outwardly expressed through fashion.

Find Relevant Sources for Inspiration

Once you are starting to shape an idea of what you like, you can find inspiration from many sources such as social media, movies, fashion icons, and even friends. Finding inspiration from various sources does not mean copying others’ styles but exploring more possibilities to find the style concept that speaks to you and that you can build upon.

Creating a mood board can also be useful, whether it be digital or physical, because it can make you see and visualize better the items that would look good on you and that go with each other. You can add pictures, fabrics, colors, and mix a variety of elements to see what you like. To do it faster, you can replace scrolling on social media with scrolling on Pinterest for 5-10 minutes to build and refine your mood board.

Don’t Be Afraid to Experiment

Finding your style is all about experimenting and not expecting perfection, at least not at first. To truly know what you like, you should not be afraid of what others will think. Remember that you are doing it for yourself and that you will thank yourself for having the courage to explore and showcase your personality.

Before buying anything new you can take a look into your wardrobe and try different outfits to see if you have pairs of colors, fabrics, or styles that you like. You can try something totally unexpected to test limits and opportunities. Some outfits might not look the best, but each experiment is valuable because they teach you more about what you like and don’t like.

Steps You Can Take to Discover Your Style

Discovering your style can be quite intuitive, but here are some techniques to help you speed up the process, save time, and make up your mind easier:

• The Three-Word Method

This method involves using three adjectives to define your style. You can choose a mix of words that describes both how you currently dress and how you would like to dress in the future, or that describes only one option. These words can serve as reference when editing your wardrobe, helping you decide more accurately on future purchases.

• Look into More Styles

According to your preferences in fashion items and lifestyle, you can think about more generic styles that you fit into, such as romantic, high fashion, natural, elegant, etc. These can serve as a way to figure out what tendencies you turn to when it comes to personal style.

• Outfit Tracking

You can make a habit of frequently taking pictures of what you wear, keeping track of your daily outfits. Note which ones you liked best and what pieces usually miss from outfits. In time, your style will become more consistent as you regularly evaluate your past fashion choices and think about what to keep and what to change.

Make an Inventory of Your Wardrobe

When you feel ready and more confident in your personal style, you can start decluttering your wardrobe and organize what you already have.

Here are some actions you can do to help you reorganize your wardrobe centered on your newly discovered personal style:

• Keep the items that fit your current style and donate, sell, or recycle items that don’t resonate with you anymore. You don’t need to throw out your whole collection to make room for new pieces: just responsibly decide what to do with pieces that you don’t find yourself wearing.
• Identify missing items and shop for key pieces that you need such as pants, T-shirts, blouses, etc. You can integrate more statement pieces if you find that they fit with your new style and outfits.
• Editing your closet is about keeping pieces that are true to you and that you will wear. Shopping according to your style and needs ensures that you will not quickly run out of outfits, you won’t spend so much time thinking about what you can wear, and that you will have a sustainable wardrobe.

Asking for Opinions While Fostering Authenticity

Sometimes opinions from the outside can be the clarity you need. Even though your personal style should be authentic to your inner world, you can ask trusted friends or family to describe the outfits and pieces that look best on you. Their perspective might open your eyes to aspects you never noticed. Just remember that you always know best what you like and that your wardrobe should speak to you, not to others.

Authenticity is the definition of personal style. It’s okay to be inspired by others, but your style should be a reflection of you. What is important is the connection you feel between your inner world and outer appearance, a harmony which boosts your confidence and makes you rock the outfits you put together.

You can even consider working with a stylist for a short while until you are sure of what looks best on you and what you like most. They can help you bring your vision to life and organize your wardrobe without too much hassle.

How Chic AI Can Help You Find Your Personal Style

Finding and working with a stylist can be very helpful when figuring out your personal style, although it is quite costly. However, Chic AI can help you in identifying and building your style without needing a big budget or a lot of time. It provides expert AI advice at your fingertips, quick and easy.

The process is simple, just upload photos of your wardrobe, set your preferences in terms of style such as styles, colors, occasions, and be ready to receive personalized advice tailored to your taste and your wardrobe.

Here are some features that can help you in your journey to finding your personal style:

• Outfit Suggestions

You can receive personalized advice on building outfits according to your style. The most courageous thing to do when experimenting with fashion is building outfits. Chic AI can suggest various outfits that can serve as a starting point for you to figure out what goes together and what does not.

• Virtual Wardrobe

You can visualize your wardrobe better when uploading pictures of it in the app, which makes it easier to see what is missing, what you should repurpose, and what outfits you can make with the available options. Outfit creation has never been smoother.

• Outfit Planning

You can use this feature when experimenting with different materials and colors. It can save you a lot of time because you can quickly rearrange items and mix and match them until you find combinations that you like.

• Style Analysis

Finding your personal style is much easier when you have an expert AI assistant to give you insights into color coordination and style compatibility. This can help you skip some steps by having the AI give you professional-level advice on what works best for you.

• Shopping Recommendations

To avoid buying what you don’t need or what does not fit with the items already existing in your wardrobe, Chic AI can offer you suggestions for new pieces that perfectly integrate in your wardrobe. You can also use the app to make outfit combinations with it.

When drawing the line, finding your personal style is about authenticity, finding and embracing who you are in terms of taste and personality, and reflecting it in your style choices. In time, by constantly experimenting, you’ll find that your outfits become more and more true to yourself and that your confidence will only rise more and more. The process is totally worth the effort, and tools like Chic AI can even make it faster and more efficient for you.