A project I’ve been working on this summer is finding more clothes that I actually like to wear. You know, clothes that can be easily thrown together into a decent outfit when I’m tired and only have 20 minutes to get ready. I’m still experimenting with my own personal style, but here are a few tips that have helped me so far!

#0.5: Love yourself and your body!

Alright, before you find your personal style, there’s something we all need to address: confidence. For years, I would wear similar outfits to people who’s style I admired, but I always thought it looked AMAZING on them and completely meh on me. It can be so easy to compare your appearance to those of others.

I’ll share something with you that helped me: beauty is completely subjective, like any other social construct. So why do we even put beauty on such a high pedestal! Is beauty more important than kindness, compassion, empathy? Nope. I am a wonderful, kind, intelligent human being that deserves to feel confident in herself. That’s what you need to realize about yourself as well! So, though I’m sure that you’re completely GORGEOUS, you don’t have to feel or be “beautiful” to be confident.

It’s also important to remember that everyone has insecurities and things they wish they could change about themselves. We are our harshest critic! So take stock of what you’re working with and learn to love it! Confidence isn’t learned overnight, and once you find it, you’ll always have to work at keeping it. But once you do, it’ll be so much easier to feel amazing in your clothes, whether you’re wearing sweatpants or a dress. Alright, back to finding your personal style.

#1: Find inspiration online

Now that you’re (hopefully!) committed to loving yourself, you are now ready to look at inspiration online! This step can be both really fun and kind of intensive, so give yourself a couple of days to just explore! My recommended platform for making image collections is Pinterest (though search results on Pinterest can tend to lack diversity, that’s a whole other problem *sips tea*).

If you have no idea where to start, look up a few of your favorite celebrities or just “fashion” if you really want to go broad. From there, save a couple of outfits that interest you, and then narrow in on what exactly you like about the images. Is it the color? The fit? A specific item of clothing? Look at how other people have styled these pieces and save any photo you like or that you think you can try and style yourself.

Instagram and YouTube is also a great source of inspiration for fashion. Keep one of your saved collections specifically for fashion inspiration. For YouTube, you can save all your favorite fashion videos in a playlist (if you’re looking for a great fashion channel, try checking out bestdressed). Again, you’re not looking at these photos to compare yourself to them or their body shape. You’re looking at their clothing, the way they style it.

#2: Find patterns

The point of building your collection of inspiration is to find patterns, so you can hone in on what you really like!

Once you have your collection of photos for inspiration, now’s the time to analyze what exactly you like about each photo. Do you see a specific article of clothing pop up frequently, like high waisted jeans or converse? That’s a pattern! Also, take note of what colors appear most because those are the colors you are most drawn to! Write all of your observations down on your phone or in a notebook, something you can have easy access to while you’re shopping.

This is a quick look at what my Pinterest inspiration board looks like! You can see that I am more attracted to looser fits and lots of neutrals with pops of color.

#3: Assess what you already have in your closet

We all tend to have way more clothes than we actually need or like. So go through your closet and pick out the clothes that you tend to gravitate to and actually like wearing. Or if you’re not sure which of the clothes in your closet you actually wear, just take note of the clothes you find in your laundry basket at the end of the week.

After observing what you are and aren’t wearing in your closet, consider donating the clothes you don’t like that much. Obviously, you don’t want to get rid of all of your clothes at once, but any excess you see in your closet can definitely go. Do you really need 30 T-shirts in your draw when you see that you only consistently pick 15 of them to wear? Probably not.

#4: Go shopping!

Make a list of clothing items that you’d really love to add to your closet. First, start with a list of more basic, general pieces of clothing like a button-down or a pair of white sneakers.

Personally, a great pair of pants that fit really well and are comfortable makes me feel more confident in any outfit. When building your wardrobe, consider starting from the bottom up! Compared to shirts, we wear pants over and over; they basically serve as the base of our wardrobe. So make sure to invest in pants that you love to wear because you’ll be mixing and matching them with a bunch of different shirts!

Once you have a list of basics that serve as the building blocks of your new wardrobe, look for essentials that give your style some personality, like a pair of colorful Nike Air Max 97’s (ahhh, dream shoes). Think of these “essential” items as your statement pieces that make your wardrobe more you.

Another important thing to remember when buying a new set of clothes is to not buy everything at once. Allow yourself to truly consider what you buy, so you don’t waste money and regret a purchase when you realize it doesn’t quite fit your style. Also, when buying any piece, think about three outfits you could make with it, using items you already own (or five outfits if you want to really maximize your closet).

And there you go! Good luck; play around withing mixing different styles and trends. Most of all have, have fun wearing what you want to wear!

Hi! I’m Lindsey, a computer science student at Princeton University.  Welcome to my blog! I wanted a space to capture my thoughts online about school, fashion, and anything else that might interest me in life. I hope you learn a little something while you’re here. Enjoy!