Dress: Topshop, Mac: Vintage Burberry, boots: By Far, basket bag: Fonott, beret: Depop
To me, personal style is dressing for yourself and feeling comfortable, confident and happy in your appearance and what you wear. Personal style is something unique to you. Personal style differentiates you from everyone else walking past you in the street. Personal style forms your identity and most importantly I think, it makes you feel good.
So, I thought it about time I talked you through my own personal style, where I get my inspiration, how it has developed (or not since I've seemingly been wearing variations of the same thing since 1994...) and what goes through my mind when getting dressed in the morning.
First up - #styleinspo
I am literally inspired by anything and everything. Very non-specific and maybe a tad cliche, but true. I definitely go through different phases and moods with my style although ultimately always come back to the classic pieces that define my wardrobe - i.e. dungarees, vintage Levi’s, stripes, navy jumpers and basket bags. Of course, I get a lot of inspo from social media and magazines, as well as my all time faves Alexa Chung and Jane Birkin, but I also take inspiration from films (Wes, I’m looking at you), my teeny tiny niece (because I will never not enjoy dressing like a small child), my Mama (her style back in the day is basically me rn), packaging, interiors and most recently a Revels packet (but how good are the colours and stripe situation?!) I find Villoid super great for mood-boarding outfits and inspiration too, even if I can only dream about owning the majority of the items I feature...
Alexa and Jane aside, other style inspo faves include:
- Chloe Sevigny: Queen of androgyny, cooler than cool, and will she EVER age?
- Francoise Hardy: I could never tire of looking at snaps/ trying to recreate looks of this French sixties dream babe
- Jeanne Damas: Ultimate French babe with the dreamiest fashion line too
- Margot Tenenbaum: Always
- Pretty Woman ( post prostitution, obvs): The brown polka dot dress...The blazer, jeans, loafers and a white tee combos... the linen suits...she's everything
- Seventies Mick Jagger: That. check. suit....enough.
What were you thinking?!
So, the daily dressing of oneself, the though process I go through and how I come to the finished piece (I’m really making dressing sound like a fine art here, I’m an artistttt) Who says you can't wear dungarees to a fancy event? or a jazzy heel on a bleak Monday in the office? It always seems to work out that when I should dress 'nice' all I feel like wearing are jeans and converse, I usually combat this by meeting in the middle and pairing some dungas with a snazzy shoe or Connies with a dressier outfit. I believe in wearing exactly what you fancy, when you fancy wearing it (within reason). I love a theme or being a character in my head (y'know Pocahontas, Inspector Gadget, Andy Pandy...) and when I'm getting dressed in the morning I usually have one piece of the outfit in my head and plan the rest of the look around that. Most of the time I'm thinking about it in bed the night before (mainly so I can have longer in bed the next morning, obvs) and I love it when you have an outfit in your head and it actually works really well when you put it into action, as so many times I'll concoct a get up in my mind that looks great, but then got to put it on and in reality it just looks, well, shit.
Dressing for you
I'm very much an everything dresser, like I'm not someone who only wears jeans, doesn't wear long dresses etc. I'll pretty much give anything a go if I like the look of it. My only restriction really is I don't wear heels (as I'm 5ft 11) but I do have a few middies in my collection to be fair. Now i'm not saying dont dress for your figure, but dont let that stop you from dabbling in whatever you fancy. I am a pear shape with a large bottom. There is no two ways about it. I'd like to be straight up and down if I could pick because my style is basically a sixties child and they dont have hips but hey, this absolutely doesnt stop me from wearing a-line mini dresses and the like.
For me, comfort is key, in all aspects of the word. You could be wearing the most amazing jazzy expensive outfit but if you dont feel comfortable in it, you might as well be wearing a bin bag. This for me also changes day to day depending on my mood, some days I'm all for being half naked in a mini dress and others, well, pass me a (navy) jumper and some Connies. I probably feel most comfortable, most days in dungarees, a striped tee and a pair of converse, always my go-to failsafe outfit. I hate looking too 'done' (nothing too girly) and hate matching too much. I'm all about balance so if im wearing a bare leg then I need high neck and a coat, if its a warmish day and I have long trousers and arms then I feel the need to wear a strappy sandal. I don't like wearing my ACNE leather jacket with my Vivienne Westwood three staps for example, as they both have a lot of metal hardware and it's just all a bit much. I also think jewellery and red lippy can work wonders for a simple jeans and tee get up, taking it from day to night so easy. Red lipstick always makes me feel ‘dressy’ no matter what I’ve got on my bod.
Key ingredients to my style include dungarees, stripes, silky shirts, polka dots, the Rachael shoe (think Vivienne Westwood three straps), berets, basket bags, ankle boots, slogan tees and vintage Levi’s. If I had to sum my style up in three words I'd say not. a. clue. I ALWAYS find this question so difficult, three words just isn't enough! Let's just go with predictable but unexpected...
So I encourage you all to wear whatever you feel comfortable in, whenever you fancy wearing it, because style is personal, it's yours and you can make the rules up.
Rachael
x
Shop my style faves: