Developing a Personal Style: A Prolegomena to the Real Deal

“In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different.”
- Coco Chanel

I have this dress that I love. It’s a 1970s halter dress in a checked pattern, with psychedelic flowers on top of the checks. Select members of the English department at my alma mater began to identify it as “The Picnic Dress.” I wore this little number on my boyfriend’s and my first date, and I give it all the credit for bringing us together. It enchanted him. It’s magnetic. Strangers run at me and try to rip it off my body. I’ve sewed a little pocket into it for carrying mace. Everyone loves it so much because it reflects my personality. This dress was $5.

A few years back, I purchased a book entitled, Secrets of Style: The Complete Guide to Dressing Your Best Every Day, published by InStyle magazine. Inside, the book features a section called “Finding Your Figure” and offers several different types of bodies, with lists by them of what one should wear if one fits into any of the categories.

What really humored me about this book is that after they explain the essentials to dressing for each of these body types, they feature a two-page spread of photographs. Not of real people who actually have these body types. Of celebrities. Celebrities who offer none of the unsightlies that real people have. Real people eat pizza.

The problem with us women is that we think style is something that stylists create, when really, style has everything to do with what we make it.

Now, I don’t mean that everyone has be a trend-setter. Certain people are just more comfortable wearing something no one would have thought of. One such item that comes to mind is that tree-like thing Carrie Bradshaw wore as a hat in Sex and the City. Ann could not wear a tree-like thing on her head. It would feel awkward and kind of mythological, like that story of that girl who turns into a tree to escape her lover. I do, however, have a green beret, and I’m not even in the military. I love my green beret. We have picnics together in the spring. I bought this green beret for $1.50 at a second hand store. I hesitated before purchasing it because of a principle I have learned: If it’s just going to sit in my closet, it’s really not a good deal.

What I do mean is that you have every right to wear what you want to wear. As I was debating whether or not to buy said green beret - let’s call the beret Bert, shall we? - I thought about my personal style and if I’d be able to pull it off. Gwen Stefani could probably pull it off, but she is known to wear high-heeled tennis shoes with tapered pants. Some might even call her style b-a-n-a-n-a-s. Gwen could wear Bert, but could Ann wear Bert? Would Ann wear Bert?

What really sold me on the idea of purchasing Bert is my fashion book. No, I didn’t write a book on fashion, and I’m not throwing in a shameless promotion here. About a year ago, I started putting together a book of fashion inspiration. I had stacks of fashion magazines that were taking up too much space, so I decided to keep what I liked from each of them and recycle the rest. My obsession with plastic page protectors found its niche in my fashion book, as well as my love for tabbed dividers. My fashion book is a little piece of office supply ecstasy. And it has also helped me figure out what I want from clothes. I repeat, not what fashion magazines tell me I should want, but what I want.

Included are pictures of girls in magazines, true, and interesting color combinations. Included also are a doses of reality, reminders to not be discouraged if I’m not tree branch thin: I have included photographs of women who have bodies shaped like mine and are rocking them like a saxaphone in spite of their imperfections. I mostly rely on old Hollywood for this type of inspiration… women like Marilyn Monroe, who had a cute little stomach pooch, or Rita Hayworth, who had cellulite. 

Before I could find good deals on clothing, I had to identify what I was looking for. If I didn’t, I would walk into thrift stores or clearance stores and buy a lot of inexpensive things that I would, in actuality, never wear, thus diminishing that particular piece of clothing’s value.

So, this is your assignment: Make your own personal fashion book. Opening mine is like opening the Book of Ann. What I like reflects who I am. It would be a fun project to work on with friends. You could all bring your fashion magazines to a party and go through them together. Then you could trade - your style is probably different from your friends’.

You don’t even have to buy magazines in order to get inspiration for your book. You can sign up for catalogs, which companies send out for free. A few of my absolute favorites are Anthropologie, Free People, Urban Outfitters, J. Crew, and Saks Fifth Avenue. Look up vintage clothing on ebay and study the photographs. Watch films like Funny Face, Roman Holiday, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Check out a book on the history of fashion from your local library. You can also visit the website for the Museum of Costume in Bath, England. They have tons of fantastic photographs, as well as a quiz where you can test your knowledge of fashion through the decades. Checking out the way others have put outfits together may inspire you to create new outfits out of what you already have. Find what you truly like. It’s that simple.

Ann Clipperton is a twenty-four-year-old Minnesota-native who lives in Arkansas with her kitten, Francis. She has a BSE in English Composition and Rhetoric and hopes to go back to school for fashion design. Pictured above, Ann is wearing a dress she purchased for $5 at the local Good Will.