How friends can help develop your personal style
By Florenne Earle Ledger published 03/06/2024
Discovering your personal style is always thought of as a personal journey, but there’s so much we can learn about ourselves from people closest to us, like our friends.
A lot of us can be self deprecating and view ourselves more harshly than others. If there’s anyone who loves us for who we are and sees us without our bias against ourselves, it’s our friends. Fashion Expert, Marian Kwei, agrees that asking your friends about your style ‘will boost your self esteem and point out the strengths of your style experience that you were not even aware of!’
Our friends have spent so much time with us over the years and seen us happy, sad and everything in between, they’re more than qualified to give their two pence about their take on our fashion sense and how we’re actually perceived by others.
How else can friends help us pin point our personal style?
Giving us the confidence to try new things
The fear of what people might think of us often holds us back. Master Tailor, Sonny Grant, highlights that particularly when it comes to trying new styles we’re not sure we can pull off, a little push from our friends can be all we need: ‘The perspectives of friends can serve as a catalyst for experimentation and growth, encouraging us to step out of our comfort zones and try styles we might not have considered on our own’.
With this new found confidence and support from our friends, the possibilities of how our personal style can develop are expanded. We’re no longer confined to dress in a way we’re used to, we can explore other styles.
Sonny takes this even further: ‘Friends provide a safe space for feedback and exploration, allowing us to refine and evolve our style in a way that feels authentic to who we are. They can amplify our confidence by endorsing our fashion choices, or they can offer constructive criticism that guides us towards more flattering or expressive options’.
Reaffirming what we love about ourselves
As well as pushing us to try new things with our fashion, friends can also solidify what we know and love about our personal taste. As Marian says, ‘My best friends continue to enable me to solidify what I perceive my best style self but reiterating to me why they think my style is great, what they like most about it and they are the best for reminding me of who I am style-wise when the style dogma of others starts to overpower what I know to be true about my style experience.’
Having faith in your personal style makes it easier to know which clothes and aesthetics you actually enjoy, rather than what’s trending.
Clothes as community
Insight from friends doesn’t just affirm our personal style, but makes us feel at home in our circles of friends and communities. Sonny notes that fashion has social elements and when we dress in a way that’s accepted by our friends and people around us, we’re part of a support network that sees us for who we really are, and they love us for it.
It [fashion] is a language of belonging and expression, where the perspectives of friends can significantly influence how we see ourselves and, subsequently, how we present ourselves to the world. In essence, friends act as both sounding boards and inspiration sources, enriching our personal style narrative through their influence and insight’
Marian highlights the importance of which friends you go to to tell you more about yourself. She suggests asking ‘those who love you come rain or shine; they already root for you and have likely spotted all the confidence-boosting things about your style that you hadn't realized were there.’
Which friend are you asking for styling insight?
If you hadn’t thought about how your besties can level up your style, hopefully Marian and Sonny have convinced you otherwise. At Whering, we firmly believe that collaboration is always better- so go ask your friends what they think of your fashion sense today.
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