why you'll never find your style
For the past few weeks, I’ve been trying my absolute hardest to find my personal style. I’ve been online shopping, trying things on in-person, and spending way more time than I should watching menswear YouTube videos.
I’m definitely not alone in this though. Finding our style is a pursuit that a lot of us have. Just look how many fashion bloggers there are online, or how large the fashion industry has become (it's valued at $1.7 trillion btw).
It’s easy to look at the statistics and sigh. But I never questioned why we as people spend so much time, money, and energy researching and buying clothes.
My theory is: Personal style is a form of self-expression. And anything related to self-expression is a never ending topic, because we are always growing and changing.
The reason we tweak and refine our wardrobe is to ‘find’ ourselves. To help us make sense of who we are and how we fit into the world. It’s ultimately a search for meaning.
This pursuit isn’t useless or bad - it’s what makes us human.
And it’s also helpful to remind ourselves that we will probably never find ourselves, or our style. We’re constantly evolving and growing (look back at photos of yourself from 5 years ago and you’ll see what I mean).
No item of clothing or type of style will ever perfectly represent who we are as people - no matter how much time and money we spend on the topic.
Clothes are one of the many, many ways we use to find meaning in our lives.
A question to ask yourself: Is tweaking your wardrobe the best way to find your identity and meaning in life?
For me, it’s not. I don’t know what the answer is exactly, but I’m trying out a bunch of things to see if I can find the answer.