on the steps in brooklyn

Finding your personal style can seem like the obvious solution to not feeling stylish. But the secret is, you already have a personal style.

When I was a kid, there was a period of years when I would only wear dresses.
But not just any dresses – dresses. with skirts. that twirled.
Skirts that – with some imagination – elevated playgrounds to ballrooms, and turned dresses of every color into yellow ballgowns.

The point is, I wore dresses everywhere.
Sun, rain, snow? Whatever.
Playing, dancing, building, skiing? Didn’t matter.
I knew what I wanted to wear. I would wear it. And practicality would bend itself to my 5 year old will.

This got me thinking.

At some point or other, I bet you knew exactly what you wanted to wear – maybe for some period of time, or to a specific event – but you knew what you wanted to wear and you were going to wear it, dammit.

What to do instead of finding your personal style? Remember it.

Not (necessarily) to recreate the look.
I’ve definitely worn looks that I don’t want to remember, let alone recreate. (But then again, the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 00s have all come back around at some point or another – so maybe let’s keep our options open.)

But what if we remembered the feelings of clarity, of confidence, of delighting in what we were wearing.

What if instead of searching to find our style, we remember what it felt like to know our personal style.

|| photography by Madison Neugebauer ||

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