Is "Personal Style" even real?

 Thanks to Laura J., I read Constance Grady's essay published on Vox, "I tried to find my personal style and all I got was an existential crisis".  (Paywalled, but a one-week subscription is $5.)

The new freedom from rules has whipsawed Grady, who notes that where there once were prescriptions, now there are mashups of every look from milkmaid to mountaineer, and who's to know what to buy or wear?  Remember the magnetic bitchery of "What Not to Wear"? Stacy London and Clinton Kelly launched a new show on Amazon Prime, "Wear Whatever the F You Want!" at the end of April. 

I watched the first episode and had two immediate impressions: London looks utterly the same, and though she says this show is helping people operationalize their "inner voice", the diverse Episode 1 participants look like they already are saying plenty, and amping that up edged into strenuous wackyland. I missed the old show. 

Grady describes trying tries various stylists' systems, landing on David Kibbe's Power of Style, and discovers she's a Soft Natural. For a good while, Kibbe delivers; but then: "Even after all that deep diving into style systems...  I couldn't get away from the sense that every time I got dressed, I was still being pushed and buffeted by something outside of myself."

Boom. This is the equivalent of being coiffed at a salon, marvelling at the new you, and then going home and standing under the shower, because that's someone else in the mirror.

Kibbe is a completist, assembling various approaches (body type; colour seasons; personae) under one multicoloured umbrella. What would be a more efficient route? 

A decent shortcut is to find at least one exemplar, a woman in the public eye (so you have photos) who in a way reminds you of yourself, and you like the overall effect. For  my girlfriend Iris, it's Brigitte Macron, and she has the legs to match. Other popular exemplars are Judi Dench,  Michelle Obama, and for an artist friend, a fantasy character she calls "Rihanna's Mother". 

Sometimes the exemplar is a character, not a real person. Some women adopted the Costal Grandma look Meryl Streep wore on screen, wafting contentedly for years. Marilyn sent a photo of Merle at the 2024 Emmys in a sharp pink suit (Parisienne Grandma?) which prompted her to rethink her stack of flowy neutral sweaters and drawstring-waist trousers. 

Mar did not want that suit, but when she found a Frank and Eileen "Dublin" blazer in a consignment store, she pounced. 

Photo: Frank and Eileen

"Personal Style" is not unique style

Personal style delimits a unified, coherent wardrobe that serves the one's life (and may be extended to living space and other possessions). You feel content and satisfied. Unique style is the effort to look utterly individual amid the eight billion souls on the planet. It's a fool's errand unless you are age fourteen, or an habituée of music festivals in the desert. 

My French tutor has a term for this, "M'as-tu vu?" which means "poser". This fake originality explains why I wasn't drawn to the new Kelly/London show. 

Unpacking an 'existential crisis'

Constance Brody has landed in the aesthetic equivalent of signing on to six kinds of fitness training: lots of activity, not many results. She could use some release from the pressure of perfection.  

Two possibilities: She might hire a stylist or consultant who lets her relax and enjoy her choices by starting with what she already owns and loves. 

The second approach leads inward, not toward the racks. Perhaps her feelings of dissatisfaction reach deeper than this style business. The soul needs tending that does not arrive wrapped in tissue paper. When I look in my closet and don't like any of the options, I'm usually out of sorts with myself, someone else, the world. I wanted to hug her. 

And what about you? Do you see a benefit to identifying your Personal Style? Have you done so? What have you learned?