Best Way to Find Your Own Style

Take a vintage, tailored coat, a de-luxe cashmere top and a classic designer bag, add a pinch of creativity and lots of imagination – that’s style. Read on and – you never know – you might make it on to the international best-dressed list!

Vogue fashion writer Mark Holgate believes that people with innate style possess that special ‘X’ ingredient: a discerning eye for clothes and an instinctive knowledge as to which items ‘click’. ‘The essence of style is about creative freedom, which means not being afraid to mix clothes from different sources and having the confidence to carry it off’ says Mark.

Like a painting or photograph, style is subjective, which makes it pretty difficult to quantify. In simple terms, it can be summed up as good dress sense. But don’t be deceived into thinking that lavishing huge sums of money on designer gear will guarantee you a stylish appearance – someone could be stylish having spent a mere £1 in a thrift shop. So take some advice from Allure magazine’s creative director, Polly Mellen, and don’t think money. Putting cost aside for a moment, style is neither dependent on one item of clothing nor confined to any designer label. The stylish may mix Chanel with Gap, or high-street labels such as H&M with clothes found in a charity shop, for instance. It’s how they team the pieces together to create the total look that matters. The same applies to interiors: it’s not the individual chairs, curtains or colour of the walls that are stylish, it’s the overall effect.

For those of you who exist in a permanent sartorial dilemma, it helps to remember that personal style doesn’t happen overnight: it can, in fact, take years to cultivate. And don’t forget that it’s not just about getting the clothes right, but also about make-up, hair, jewellery, shoes and accessories. Mark points out that modern style has a great deal to do with juxtaposition. ‘It’s taking a dress and wearing it with the unexpected; it’s playing items off against each other and striking contrasts. For example, teaming an exquisite silk slip dress with a bare face as opposed to glossy make-up; scraping your hair back in an undisciplined way yet wearing dangly antique earrings; or teaming a denim jacket with a sequinned skirt.’

It may sound as though you can chuck on any old thing and – hey presto – style just happens (and we’ve all come across those sickeningly stylish folk who look resplendent in something they say they’ve just ‘thrown on’). But what the stylish have in common is firstly, a love of clothes and, secondly, an understanding of the cut, shape, texture, length and fit of the garments and, of course, what works well together.