The illusion of individuality

The death of personal style.

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Welcome, welcome everyone. On this sombre day, when we bury our personal style, I want to thank everyone who stayed true to themselves. It’s what she would’ve wanted. I see TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest sitting at the back, and just know, her death was caused by you, but we’re still glad you could join us. Now, let’s take a deep dive into the life and death of personal style…

Personal style

Do we really need a definition? No, but it helps set the tone and I, for one, am trying to be a journalist here. So, personal style is very self-explanatory. Like, it’s in the name. But if the definition is still blurry, let me explain. Literally, it can be defined as your personal brand. The way you express yourself through clothes. Your style is NOT defined by the price tag of the clothes you wear or what’s trending. It’s more about how you carry yourself.

What led me to talk about this? First, it was Mina Le’s video on the same topic. Mina and Emma Chamberlain have recently changed their personal styles to ‘something basic’. However, the problem is how EVERYONE’S changing their style to ‘something basic’. An X (Twitter) post outlines this by saying that all they’re doing is following yet another trend of being minimal. So it begs the question…

Is it really dead?

So, is personal style dead? That’s a loaded question that needs nuance, so let’s look at it together. Two sub-questions plague the big question: Why do people think it’s dead, and is following trends ruining personal style?

To answer the first question, people think personal style is dead mainly because everyone on social media looks and dresses the same. The key word is social media, and that is what makes it the popular opinion as well. However, what we fail to realise is that on social media, you do what gets you engagement. Obviously, that’s not true across the board because I follow trends to get engagement, and I’m still stuck in the 200-view jail (😔☝🏻).

One TikTok that led users to this realisation was of a woman who thought that wearing a grey skirt and sweater with maroon tights to a museum would be a good idea (it was), but to her dismay, A LOT of people thought the same thing. 😭 Obviously, it started a discussion on X (Twitter) and a lot of people were talking about how your only source of inspiration shouldn’t be social media. You make what you consume; the same goes for you wear what you consume.

This entire situation DOES outline the problem that following trends IS ruining personal style. But again, personal style doesn’t need to be unique. It’s okay to wear looks straight off Pinterest as long as it’s true to who you are.

And so, to finally answer the question: Is personal style really dead? The answer is no. Personal style will never be dead because it isn’t defined by the uniqueness of an outfit. It’s like food; you and I could be cooking the same thing, but it would taste entirely different. The same goes for outfits.

But how did we get here?

Okay, just because I said personal style isn’t dead, it doesn’t mean other people agree. Let me explain why it’s still a popular opinion. The main reason? Because individuality seems to be slowly decreasing. And, to me, that’s what people usually mean when they say ‘personal style is dead.’

Clothes are now seen as a commodity rather than a tool that aids your self-expression. One of the prime examples of this was the ‘Jane Birkin-ification’ of your bags. People only started adding trinkets to their bags after this became a trend. Instead of collecting these over the years, people mass-bought these knick-knacks, which rubbed people the wrong way because if the next big thing was a no-trinket bag, people would be quick to discard their decorations in no time.

The only major criticism, for me at least, of the uniformity we’ve been seeing lately is that we’re too chronically online. You know how bad it has to be if I’M saying it? We just care too much about what’s trending instead of what we really, truly like and it’s killing individuality.

Of course, this gives rise to the fitting in VS standing out debate. On the one hand, we really want to fit in and have community; on the other, we’re scared of standing out lest we lose community. But in true (fake) Carrie Bradshaw, I wondered. I wondered if we’re afraid to stand out because we’ll lose community or won’t feel accepted? The highly niche-ified and aestheticised trends we’ve been seeing have been causing a paradox.

We want to keep up with what’s happening to maintain a community, yet we’re losing our authenticity, so the community we’re building is superficial. And as a side note, community is a shell of a word now. It’s lost all meaning since corporate got its hands on it, so now EVERYONE wants to “build an authentic community” but does nothing to actually sustain it. Not me though, I’m built different.

How do you build a personal style?

This is a question a lot of people have been wondering about a lot lately. Honestly, I’ve struggled with it, too, and I went to fashion school. You’d think I’d have all this figured out, but nope. But here we are anyway. So, my first tip would be exactly what I just said. Remind yourself it’s okay to not have it all figured out because even fashion students don’t have it all figured out. It’s okay to experiment and figure out what you like.

And what do you think is the best way to do that? HOBBIES‼️🗣️ But no, seriously. Hobbies make you interact with other people, give you a new perspective and a lot of the time? Influences fashion too. I know you’d ask me for examples, so I came prepared. The best example is a ballerina or even just a dancer. A dancer and a skater do not dress the same. Your hobbies and your interests do dictate your style, and that’s beautiful, me finks. You take one look at me, and you know I’m an overworked creative; it’s amazing, really.

The next tip, although VERY nerdy, almost bordering pretentious, is to invest time in reading about fashion as a form of self-expression and art rather than as something that needs to be consumed. Look at the archives of your favourite fashion houses, see what stands out to you, and you’ll see a pattern emerge. That is likely what your personal style is at that moment, and you could replicate those runway looks with what you already own. This ties back to experimenting, as I said earlier.

So to conclude…

The potential demise of personal style is a paradox. We want community, but we’re not letting authenticity drive those connections. It’s all feeling a little superficial, and if there’s something that has died, it’s individuality. Do we need to be less chronically online? Not necessarily, but we do need to be mindful about who and what we engage with and how. On top of that, we need a reminder that it’s okay for us to take up space when we’re experimenting. We just really need to start being unapologetic because otherwise, we’re never going back to having individuality.

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— Brought to you by Shaurya, Trends Reporter at The Z Link