You’ve got an event coming up, a party perhaps, so you take yourself to get a new outfit. After trawling the shops, you settle for something you’re totally in love with. You can’t wait to rock your new garms.
The day of the event arrives and within minutes of turning up you spy someone else working the exact same outfit. Suddenly, you’re not as convinced by your outfit as you were 5 minutes earlier. She’s totally slaying it and looks way better than you but you’re just not sure why…
OK, it’s a bit of an extreme example, I know!
There could be a variety of reasons why you felt the way you did…
But in this situation sometimes you just have to hand it to the other person, they rocked it better than you.
Assuming we’re working with that assumption how can one person ‘wear’ an outfit better than another?
Easy, there’s a difference between what you wear and how you wear it.
‘Styling’ is used to refer to what pieces someone picks and how they combine them. It’s also used to describe the way someone wears a number of different pieces. In this post, I’m focusing on the later.
Why style?
So you can pick out an amazing outfit and feel that you can take on the world. However, styling it puts your own stamp on an outfit, making it personal to you and your aesthetic.
Ever copied an outfit you saw online, only to put it on and feel a bit ‘meh’ about it?
You’ll rarely find these people have just ‘put on’ the clothes they’be picked out. They’ve done something else with them. Something extra.
It’s one attribute that helps you look ‘finished’ or ‘put together’ – terms you’ll hear thrown about when reading about personal style that are a bit ambiguous.
So how do you actually do it?
Taking time to consider your styling can add some much-needed attitude and sass so make sure you follow these steps…
! | Make time – If you’re used to just throwing on your clothes and walking out the door you’re going to need to set aside a little bit of extra time to spend putting the finishing touches to your outfit. It’s important you do this! To start off with, it might take you a little longer than you expect to roll sleeves or cuff trousers or jeans. Take it from me, I’ve been late many a time because I’ve left myself 5 minutes to tweak my styling.
! | Think about how you’re wearing items – As you might have expected, this is the most important one! Consider how you’re wearing each item in your outfit.
Think about each individual piece and how you can tweak it.
- If it’s got buttons, experiment with the number of buttons you have open/closed?
- If it’s got sleeves, try rolling them, folding them or pushing them up to the elbow or forearm
- The same goes for trousers, can you roll the leg?
- If it’s a top can you tuck it in?
- How about just tucking in the front and leaving it out at the back or tying it at the front?
- What about your jacket?
- Try draping it over shoulders instead of putting your arms in the sleeves
- Can you change or add accessories?
- Can you be even bolder with your accessories, make them bigger, double up or stack them?
It’s these tweaks to an outfit that determine how you wear something…
Which brings me on to my next point… experiment!
The list above may have grabbed your attention and you may have been able to instantly visualise how an outfit would look with say a jacket draped over your shoulders or a shirt buttoned up. But for many, you won’t know whether something works until you actually experiment and try it. So set aside some time and work through different outfits changing how you wear each individual item to make it look unique and different each time.
! | Rock it!
So you’ve styled the hell out of your outfit now it’s time to work it! You have to absolutely own your outfit. Styling your outfit is all about standing out, so be confident with the choices you’ve made!
Styling outfits in different ways is how you can get more out of your wardrobe, reducing the number of pieces you need. It also forces you to be creative and think about how you wear different pieces which in the long will increase your style IQ and help you visualise and put together interesting and creative combinations with ease.
So you now you know everything there is to styling, why not challenge yourself?
Go get your favourite outfit and style it in three unique ways and let me know in the comments section below how you get on. Even better still, why not tag me on Instagram?
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