“Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person’s skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding.”
– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
When it comes to personal style many fall into the mind trap of “either-or” – either this person has a great style or not, either “the sense of style is naturally given” or it’s lacking. Style is often seen as presence, lack, or absence – is often attributed to the person, rather than an outfit, situation or period of life. Style/no style becomes a tag. A tag that we sometimes tend to embrace without any consideration.
You may ask – what’s wrong with that? The case of “I’ve got style!” seems more favorable. Fashion designers from Channel on have been creating the myth of style and good taste over ever-changing fashion claiming that garments that they offer will fall into the category of sacred timeless style (so, how did we end up with fast fashion?!). The entire world of fashion media including the up-rising cast of the street-stylers has been striving on the illusion that style is something you can get, like a pass to an elite club. With such an approach I can see at least two possible pitfalls. Let’s say you’ve got it – THE STYLE. Does it automatically make you better, cooler, and more advanced than those who don’t? Sounds slightly snobbish to me, yet, throughout my life I’ve seen such attitude too many times. Another pitfall is, perhaps, the rigidity of such attitude. What if your life changes? Your scenery, environment, family, or work status. Would you stick to the changes or your style? If fashion changes would you still be true to your style? Ridiculous as it may seem, this devotion to a certain style often makes even fashion designers go out of fashion.
To my mind, the second type of tag – “lack of/no style” seems even worse. Especially when it comes to women of all ages (boys are catching up, seems like). Many of us way too early learn that we lack it. We learn it from our parents (who often seem to know better) and, most painfully, we learn it from our peers and playmates. This often leads to horrible misconceptions about one’s own appearance and abilities. I find these tags unfair and debilitating.
Once style is seen as character trait or person’s feature that you don’t have, it gets really hard to motivate oneself. Why should I bother if that’s not who I am? How can I compensate? How can I live without it? Sounds like a loss of a body part or an organ. Unfortunately, I have seen such attitudes as well. The ugliest side-effect of such attitude is another type of snobbishness and anxiety – when people who consider themselves lacking style get rather aggressive to those who they consider as possessing this “magical feature”. Nothing new. We all read the fairy tales – characters who are obsessed with their looks are shallow, mean or stupid. With some Narcistic flavor. Mirror, mirror on the wall…
I’ve started this post with a quote of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who is rather far from issues of style and fashion. He describes the state of flow, which to my mind can be seen as a perfect metaphor and a healthy attitude to personal style. Flow is very “verby” noun – a flow it needs to move on, otherwise it stagnates. In order to possess it one needs to at least get into and somehow go along with it. The same is fair for the personal style. I see it not as what you owe, not a personal feature, it’s a process of acquisition – of habits and manners, things, skills, adornments and experiences. Style is also an adjustment – to our peers and requirements, to our changing body and perception of body within current culture, to our personal ups, downs and transitions.
An important part of the flow is our ability to create it through one’s own efforts and enjoy being absorbed by the process itself. Style also requires effort – choosing, trying applying, re-considering, maintaining, saying god buy to what no longer serves a purpose… But these efforts can become fun once you start developing them playfully and enjoying yourself.
Imagine that you’ve got an amazing personal style. You are still yourself, with your current body, job, family, and surrounding, but somehow your style is brilliant and breath-taking. What do you feel when you look at yourself in the mirror? What emotions are feeling your heart? What routines do you have? What do you enjoy the most? How do you walk? What is your posture? What do you see when you look in the mirror? What things have you got?