I think this entry is going to be very conceptual and won’t necessarily follow a common thread. You could see it more as a brainstorm put into structure. What do I want to deal with? The foundation of the style of a great many people – maybe even everyone: inspiration.
Everyone has probably drawn inspiration from a certain area at some point in their life and put it into practice in their own life. Since my main focus here is fashion, that’s primarily what I’ll be looking at. The basic idea I want to explore is the sources we draw our inspiration from today. While it used to be common to gather it by watching people on the street, there has been a clear shift. Most ideas today are collected on social media – Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest. As everything gets faster and faster, I can even imagine the focus shifting further towards TikTok. But what problems come with that?
The algorithms of these platforms are now so sophisticated that they know very precisely which trends or pieces of clothing to wash into your timeline next. That does allow you to develop your own style very precisely, and the chances of discovering pieces that suit you are correspondingly high. On the other hand, this concept limits how much you actually broaden your horizons. If you only move within your own bubble, you might miss the chance to discover new and unexpected influences and work them into your own style. This raises the question of whether you’d rather stay within your own aesthetic and keep refining it – while possibly missing new impulses – or experiment more broadly, which takes much more time and may never lead to a clear goal. But is there even such a goal?
That brings me to the second concept I want to share a few thoughts on: the principle of personal style. Whether it even exists and – if so – what defines it is an exciting question. Can a look really define a person? In the end, everyone can be assigned to some style in which they resemble many others. So it depends a lot on the perspective you look at it from. While within a group of fashion-minded people it’s harder to stand out with a truly individual style, among friends or family – which don’t necessarily overlap – it can come across completely differently. In a mixed group, everyone seems to have more of a style of their own. From this you can conclude that the question is hard to answer definitively and that everyone probably has to settle it for themselves – my post is only meant as food for thought.
In the end, what matters is expressing your own personality, which fashion can make possible in a special way. Authenticity is the key word here. You can often tell at first glance whether someone wears their clothes out of conviction or is just following trends presented to them on a screen. Clothing that is worn honestly is ultimately the most convincing. Forcing things on yourself just to fit in ain’t it.
That’s it from my short brainstorm. You can probably apply this text, or these thoughts, to all kinds of areas of life, but everyone can interpret that for themselves.