(No. 7) The allure and the myth of personal style:
On the profitability of conflating personhood with personal style, or, that one week I briefly lost my mind and decided to tell you about it anyway
Hi friends. Today’s newsletter comes from Surrey. Here’s a picture of the adorable teddy bear cat I’m currently looking after. How will I ever say goodbye to this cute face?
Anyway, here’s my latest essay. Writing this piece was so cathartic, and I’m really proud of it. It’s long but worth it. Hope you enjoy!
Somewhere in Waterloo station, I realized I’ve lost the plot. Cradling my sickly-sweet and instant-regret Starbucks under the arm that isn’t rolling my suitcase, I manage to shove my phone in my boyfriend’s face, whose eyes are occupied locating the platform that our train will soon depart from. I know we need to get a move on, but it’s urgent. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that a monster has been awoken inside of me, and she needs to be fed now.
Do you like this version with the pale yellow? I swipe on my phone to reveal an alternate design with a slightly more saturated yellow. Or is the brighter one more me?
He tells me he likes the pale version, which I don’t know what to do with, because my mom likes the brighter version.
Are you sure? It’s not too sickly? Should I abandon the yellow and just go back to the peach? Am I more of a peach?
You know that look in someone’s eyes, the look of someone who loves you deeply and is trying to be supportive, but also is on the verge of losing their mind?
We scan our tickets at the platform gate (which I inadvertently tap on the wrong sensor, because my mind is cycling through Yellow? Bright yellow? Peach? Maybe a blue instead?). I shield my phone screen from my boyfriend and pretend I’m scrolling through the news. Instead, I send a few more designs to my mom, including a brand-new teal version and an orange version with funky script, instead of the cleaner, modern font I’ve tried with the others.
So, which one do you think is more me?
This past week (okay, maybe more), my mom and my boyfriend have been on the receiving end of a Canva design attack, launched by none other than darling little me. I figured that since I’m back to writing on my Substack, it’s a good time to give Re:Culture a little makeover. You know, like refresh my landing page, banner, and logo—nothing major. What should have been a fun little exercise in graphic design that occupied a lazy afternoon, however, turned into an obsession, probably more accurately described as some kind of possession. I couldn’t stop making designs, tweaking them ever so slightly, and pleading with my loved ones if they thought it ‘looked like me.’ It was imperative, I said, that it was me.
I could discern what looked visually appealing—that was pretty easy—but determining what visually represented the deepest essence of me was proving a complicated task. And not just complicated, but something that, which each design, made me grow increasingly desperate to land on The One. The one that sings Rachel! Afternoons turned into late nights which turned into early mornings, until all design and no win makes Rach a crazed girl, and boarding the train from Waterloo station, realizing that I’m beyond help but cannot stop myself, try to act normal so my boyfriend doesn’t realize that Rachel has left the building, so to speak.
Somewhere on the platform, opening my Canva app to test out a few more ideas, I realize I’ve become something of a hungry. For those of you who aren’t familiar with The Girl with All the Gifts, that’s what the zombies in the story are called: ‘hungries.’ They basically don’t have any cognition left, and they’re docile until they detect sound or smell. Once they do, however, they’re set into a blood-thirsty frenzy, and pretty much anyone in their way will get consumed. For me, each design triggered that insatiable appetite, turning me into a hungry frothing for a feast that I couldn’t find. My mind was totally consumed by this sole purpose of creating the right graphic. Anyone near me? Watch out.
Listen, I know it’s a gross metaphor, but if you’d seen my repeated tapping my ticket on the wrong gate sensor, you’d call me a zombie, too. Now, there is a part of me embarrassed to be sharing with you just how out of control I felt creating this design. It’s just my fucking Substack! I know, okay? But we’re not here to judge. Instead, I’ve been thinking about what prompted my feeling this way.
The first clue, I think, can be found where this obsessive and unhinged behavior has been set off before: attempting fashion stylist Allison Bornstein’s three-word method to encapsulate your personal style. Bornstein has been called TikTok’s favorite influencer by Harper’s Bazaar, and she’s been featured on Vogue, The Cut, Who What Wear, and a bunch of the most influential fashion publications. The idea behind her three-word method is simple: once you have three words that describe your personal style, you can use them to get dressed, shop more sustainably, and have a look that’s uniquely you. If you’re stuck, she recommends that the first word can act as your baseline, which encapsulates the things you wear most often. The second word should be aspirational, something you want your wardrobe to be but maybe currently isn’t. And finally, the third word should be an emotion, something you want to feel or want others to feel when they see you.
Sounds easy, right?
Rachel from Friends, Bornstein says, is sleek, fitted, sporty, whereas Monica is minimal, casual, classic. Emma Chamberlain is casual, unexpected, cartoonish, Princess Diana is sporty, demure, opulent, and Amal Clooney is sophisticated, bold, soft.
The message is: Wow, these babes are total icons. They’re unlike anyone else. No wonder they have such identifiable style.
It's safe to say that we live in the era of personal style. By that I mean, it’s no longer cool for us all to show up in our graphic Abercrombie t-shirts, denim minis, and Uggs like it was back in my high school years (unless your personal style is ironic noughties throwbacks ‘because I’m hot enough to wear unflattering clothing’ à la Devon Lee Carlson), but instead to find the formula that is uniquely you. Clothing should be more than just something you put on your body but an expression of your values, personality, quirks—an exterior representation of your one and only interior self. Something that is unique to you, because after all, there’s only one of you.
Bornstein more or less says this herself:
‘Who am I? What do I like? Why do I like it? And how can I cultivate a style that feels uniquely me?’
It’s easy to see the allure of personal style, as well as why—at least on the surface—it seems like a less damaging ethos than others that have been perpetuated within the fashion and beauty industries. For one, there’s something appealing about the individualism of personal style (I want to be unique—and seen as unique—don’t you?). In the age of personal style, we’re not expected to dress the same; there’s room for difference, and difference is even celebrated (supposedly). Superficially, it also seems like a healthy departure from the days of ‘are you an apple or a pear’ or ‘are you a cool summer or a warm autumn,’ which had a touch of personalization, but was more about achieving standardized beauty based on your starting point, rather than embracing differences as an end point.
Why, then, has the pursuit of identifying my personal style sent me so downhill instead of bringing me a sense of fulfillment? Why has each failed attempt to pin down my style only increased my sense of urgency to do so?
Am I 90s, tailored, sporty? Or casual, minimalist, oversized? Or perhaps I’m classic, detailed, and comfortable?
My list of 96 (and counting) three-word combos in my Notes app would suggest that I don’t know, but I sure as hell want to know.
Embarrassing though it is to admit that these exercises have completely derailed me (I’ve spared you some details, mind you), I’m clearly not the only one harboring this anxiety. Paid-for masterclasses devoted to helping you find your personal style have thousands of students. Bornstein once shared that a client of hers made a chart of possible adjectives, tried on her entire wardrobe, put a tick next to the adjectives that matched each outfit, and took a final tally to land on her three words. (I considered doing this myself until I remembered how long it takes me to pick out a single outfit.) A blogger I followed back in the day used to lament that she didn’t have a ten-item closet. (Said blogger was from the Upper East Side of Manhattan, wore designer labels, regularly received free items, had a wardrobe most people could only dream of, and was therefore, incredibly annoying on this point.) Despite her extreme lack of self-awareness, her inability to parse her wardrobe into ten items spoke to the same anxiety I was having, too.
The anxiety, I believe, is this: if the idea behind personal style is that you can externalize what makes you uniquely you, what does it say about you when you cannot identify your personal style?
The answer we tell ourselves—the answer that explains why you might spiral if you can’t land on your three words—is that if you cannot identify your unique style, you’re probably not that unique of a person. And living in Western culture, where individualism is the most prized value of them all, this means that you’re failing to embody the one thing that truly matters. Without personal style, you’re nothing.
In other words, we’ve conflated being an individual with being able to express that individualism aesthetically. What you wear (or what social media banner you display) is who you are.
This is both the myth and allure of personal style.
A consequence of this myth is that knowing who you are as an individual—and being able to demonstrate that truth visually—becomes something of a moral imperative, at least if you want to be seen, heard, valued, and adored in this society. Which, of course, I do. Hence the never-ending list of three words, and my hundreds of Canva designs for Substack.
This is no accident.
Conflating personhood with personal style is profitable.
Take this style quiz. We have the perfect wardrobe waiting for you! Which shoe are you? Take our running shoe quiz and find out! Which balm are you? Buy, buy, buy! Perform your authenticity through our products selected just for you!
So even if you haven’t landed on your personal style (let alone identity), if you buy a product, you can be momentarily convinced that you have. Personhood becomes something you can buy. (How convenient.)
Oh, and even if you have defined your personal style, don’t be fooled into thinking you’re safe. You still need the item of the moment. Think it doesn’t go with your style? Nah. It’s just about wearing it your way. Show us how unique you are by your new take our fugly and expensive jacket (that you don’t really want anyway)!
Perhaps I’m more sensitive to this kind of messaging because of where I am in my life right now. Maybe I’m vulnerable because I’m at a turning point, where I’m trying to redefine who I am outside of academia, where I’ve spent most of my adult life. The question of who I am (not just, how do I show who I am to others?) is a live one.
Or maybe I am consumed by this myth of personhood as style so that I consume. I’m infected by consumerism, so to speak. And much like the hungries who play host to a brain-rotting fungus, I’m the one being eaten alive. (Blech.)
Now, I’m not saying there’s no value in communicating who you are through style—be that your clothing, your hair, your online branding, or whatever it may be. We can communicate all sorts of things about ourselves through collective visuals and symbols, from our sexuality to our political affiliations to our music preferences to our moral values. I also believe many people trying to help us find personal style (Bornstein, for instance) are good eggs with good intentions, and that there are other people for whom the pursuit of personal style doesn’t spark the same kind of anxiety it rouses in me. There is also something to be said about exploring who you are by experimenting with different looks and characters, too.
But maybe, just maybe, not being able to identify your personal style doesn’t mean you’re not a fully actualized individual. (Identifying personal style is a skillset, not a ‘given’ to people who are unique and original. Maybe that’s why being a graphic designer or stylist is a professional job, and why so many celebrities—who can hire them—appear to be more unique than the rest of us. Style is a choreographed performance rather than a seamless, externalized display of your originality.)
Maybe you can’t identify which color or font or shoe you are because you’re an expansive human being, not an object or a hue. (It’s more profitable for brands to convince you that you are a product than let you believe your individualism can be expressed in other ways.)
Maybe trying to locate your personal style won’t fix your self-identity crisis, just exacerbate it. (Brands are contributing a problem they’re purporting to solve because it benefits them.)
And maybe … you’re not fully actualized yet, because you’re a growing and changing human being, because you’re trying to sift through what’s your true self and the influences and trauma you’ve endured throughout your lifetime, and because you’re discovering the universes contained within yourself. Is that such a bad thing?
Besides, individualism isn’t the end all be all anyway. What about community? Comradery? Solidarity? Maybe our time is better spent helping each other disentangle our worth from performed individuality (which, I think, is different from actual individuality).
I wonder what happens when we remove the pressure to perform our individuality and simply allow ourselves to live.
Somewhere between Waterloo and our destination, after sending my mom a half dozen more versions of my new Substack banner, I sense that my loved ones are about to collude for an intervention. I sigh, upload one of the designs to my Substack, and call it a day, even though I’m not sure it’s the expression of me.
Perhaps it would’ve been better to have told you nothing about the process behind my new Re:Culture logos. To have uploaded the new designs and let you think I’ve got it together. She knows what color she is! She knows what font she is! She knows herself. What an individual! I see her!
How much less cool to share that I’m trying not to resurrect my graveyard of designs. To not awaken the hungry patiently waiting for a signal to feed. That maybe, I’m more like the hungries in the story who survive with their cognition intact, but are nevertheless still infected by the disease. Weirdo! Zombie girl! D-e-s-p-e-r-a-t-e.
But how much more me.
So, what do you think of the yellow?
Just kidding. But I hope you like it! You can also read my new about page. No matter what impression I give off, just remember that I have zero chill.
I would, however, love to know if you relate to anything I’ve written in this essay (or if I’m off my rocker). Comments are on! If you think my essay would resonate with someone you know, it would mean a lot to me if you shared it with them. :)
Also, if this is the kind of topic you like reading about, you might enjoy Jessica Defino’s Substack, the Unpublishable, which takes a critical look at the beauty industry. I’ve been reading her work, and her insights have undoubtedly influenced me.
X Rachie
P.S. If you didn’t catch my latest cultural listicle (the 5-4-3-2-1), you can find it here!
Um, are we the same person? 😂 Fwiw I've tried to circumvent the "What's my style OMG WHO AM I" meltdowns by making it less of an absolute and instead just asking myself, "How do I want to feel today? What message do I want to send to others? Which clothes are functionally appropriate (for my planned activities/contexts/weather/etc)?" And then try to approach fulfilling those needs with what I already have as a creative challenge. But I also drive Martin to the point of despair asking for feedback about the results. :)
I do really like the yellow! And if it makes you feel better, I have literally conducted surveys (for work!) with thousands of respondents to identify the most appealing shade of dark grey and whether matching icons to it make it feel more harmonious. Your loved ones should be grateful you didn't break out the eye tracker ;).
(I like the yellow!) I can definitely relate to what you've written about, even though I'm in a different demographic. While people like to say that once you reach a certain age, you can do whatever you want and look however, the actual message coming through via the media is quite different. Is it OK to have gray hair, or not? Is it OK to put on some weight, or not? Is it OK to not always "dress to impress," or not? Personal style has definitely been turned into a business, and it affects people (women more than men, in my opinion) of all ages.