Personal Style isn’t Difficult

F*ck it, I’m weighing in

The personal style discourse is played out, and thus this newsletter is immediately part of the problem that it wishes to address. Nevertheless, I have a take and this is my house, I get to decide what I write about.

We’re at least three layers deep into the personal style apocalypse now, we have the writing about personal style, the writing which rejects personal style, and the meta-commentary on the discourse itself. Never mind personal style being obscured and ephemeral, navigating the discourse alone is getting confusing and alienating. I’ve seen a couple comments which would allege that that is the point, that, given the wide adoption of personal style as a pursuit and topic, the gatekeepers and “tastemakers” (yuck), have sought to reclaim it’s exclusivity by declaring it better to cast fashion out consideration, engage with hobbies and art and forget about clothes. I think there’s at least a little bit of truth to those accusations, there’s always going to be a desire for contrarianism and we all have individuality complexes.

My personal gripe with the “live your life” take is that, for myself and many others, fashion is that life enrichment, that hobby. So, we circle back around to chasing down “personal style” again? Not really, I believe that if you are a fashion enthusiast, if it really is a hobby not a means to an end, then “finding your personal style” just isn’t that hard, and you really don’t need someone else to tell you how to do it.

Welcome to this week’s meeting of The Prep Club, check last week’s issue of THE RADAR here, for thoughts on boat shoes and cheap OCBDs, among other queries vaguely shoehorned into the world of collegiate fashion. Also make use of The Directory, new this week:

The Andover Shop - Cambridge, USA, E-Comm - Iconic Ivy League outfitters based in an iconic Ivy League town. Carrying in house exclusives produced by some of the finest: Laurence Odie knitwear, Seaward & Stearn Shirts.

Sunray Sportswear - Made in Japan sweatshirts and tees, traditional loopwheel techniques. One of many excellent loopwheel manufactures out of Japan but more widely stocked in the West than others.

Engineered Garments - New York based since 1999, known for excellent collaborations and technical reinterpretations of classic garments, yet, for the Ivy dresser the standout is their Workaday button down, an excellent classic OCBD.

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It’s just the sh*t you like

To say that one must “find” their personal style implies that it is somehow hidden, but if you wake up and choose what clothes to put on, that is to say if you do not wear a uniform dictated by someone else, then you have a personal style, you may not like it, but it is a personal style. For example, if you had a very trend informed wardrobe, you have a personal style which communicates an interest in being on trend. Personal style is just wearing things that you like, I’d suggest if someone feels they do not have a personal style it is simply a frustration that they do not have a good sense of what they like, or that they feel what they like does not fit into a certain definition of cool or fashionable.

In this lies the paradox of it all, not only do we desire personal styles which are unique and informed by our lives, but that also fit into a societal ideal of cool/ chic/ stylish. I keep wanting to just say out into the world, “your personal style is the sh*t you like, you’re just annoyed that the sh*t you like doesn’t make you look cool, unique, and esoteric”. That’s the sense I get from a lot of outcries for personal style anyway. Here’s where the enthusiast approach comes in though.

The Hobbyist Discovers Cool Things

If you are into fashion, if you are an enthusiast, if you read about fashion, watch runway shows, or investigate vintage catalogs; if you visit interesting stores with passionate proprietors, shop secondhand and vintage; if you talk to other people about fashion, you will find new and interesting things. You will probably like some of these new and interesting things and incorporate them into how you dress. Congratulations, you just achieved a personal style upgrade.

I suppose, in a way, I subscribe to the notion that one should let their life inform their clothes, but I think a love of fashion is one such part of that life, and thus I do not believe that being fashion obsessed impairs one’s ability to dress themselves, that’s just counterintuitive. It’s also the case that those instructing you to abscond from fashion have themselves spent years figuring out how they like to dress and now don’t have to think about it at all, Konsta from Vacations On has made it a point to draw attention this often.

Sidenote: The hot-take arms race

I also feel the need now to address the other issue I have with the Personal Style Discourse. I cannot shake the feeling that we’re all in a sort of competition to have the most cutting-edge take (once again, I am fully aware that I’m part of this problem). Each time personal style gets mentioned, the take needs to build on top off everything that’s already been said, needs to be more nuanced, more divisive.

This is sort of an innate problem with academia (how many times can we put “post” in front of the word “modern” to get different ways to describe just approaching everything on a case-by-case basis), and so it’s perhaps an issue with the academic approach that we’ve taken to personal style, again that it is something to be figured out.

You are a person, not a brand

There’s a linguistic quirk which I feel says a great deal about how we perceive people. I find that we often conflate identity and brand, it would not be unreasonable to hear of someone doing something which matched their character, and to describe that as being “on-brand” for that person. The immediate explanation for this phenomena, of believing people, however public their lives, to have a “brand” is that of Social Media, of course it is, influencer culture and the commodification of everyday life. I think it’s also symptomatic of the 21st century’s obsession with hyperindividualism, in a way this ‘personal style apocalypse’ comes from this too.

The thing with all of this though, is that you aren’t a brand, and you aren’t being watched. You owe no-one consistency in how you dress. You may want it for yourself at some point, but until you feel like you’re there, you can just try sh*t out. Identity is a process of becoming, not a matter of being (Stuart Hall). Find out who you are and then do it on purpose (Dolly Parton).

Personal Style isn’t Difficult

Identity will happen to you, whether you want it to or not, clothes are one tiny facet of an ecosystem. Personal style just happens too, if you want to figure out what you like to wear, the only way that’ll happen is if you start doing things, research fashion or don’t it doesn’t actually matter, you’ll still have a personal style, just one that communicates different things. It’s a system, you get out whatever you put in.

So, I don’t think the thing to do is to go looking for personal style, or to stop caring, it’s to enjoy fashion, to talk about it, make friends because of it, to call it fashion, not style, to go out and find unique things to wear, to find clothes that you love, just as you must go and find music, cinema, literature that you love, because there is joy to be found in doing so. We get but a quantum of solace in this weird life, don’t let a need for agency over your identity pollute something which offers respite. If you can explain to someone what your personal style is, I think you’ve failed yourself, backed yourself into a corner.

Personal style isn’t a problem to be solved, it’s just something that happens.

In publishing this, I wish to release the claws I’ve dug into this argument. I am done, I think I am done, I hope I am done. I’m off to enjoy this thing which makes me happy.

Prep Club Adjourned, see you soon.

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