At a certain point, most of us stop experimenting with our personal style. We have a defined mindset for our identity and our fashion, and we don’t move very far beyond those constraints. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this – you’re not going to sabotage your career or ruin your relationships by doing this. But it could pay to keep experimenting with your personal style.
How to Experiment With Your Style
What does it mean to experiment with your personal style? How can you actually do it?
Personal style applies to you many different areas of your life and many of your regular habits. Accordingly, it’s hard to concisely capture the full definition. As long as you’re trying new things, and you’re presenting different versions of yourself, your approach to experimentation will work.
These are just a few ideas for how you can get started:
- Try new clothes. The easiest way to experiment with your style is to try wearing different types of clothes. If you always wear pants, consider wearing a skirt or a pair of shorts. If you’re used to wearing black or simple, minimalistic colors, try more bright colors or patterns.
- Experiment with new accessories. You could also experiment with your style by trying new types of accessories. For example, you could start wearing a leather bucket bag everywhere you go, showcasing your unique taste (and providing some practical benefits at the same time).
- Blend in with new crowds. Another easy way to experiment is to try to blend in with new crowds of people in different locations with which you’re currently unfamiliar. For example, you could try dressing like a metalhead when attending a metal concert, or dress like an old blacksmith at a Renaissance fair. Your personal style experiment doesn’t have to last a long time to be meaningful.
The Value of Ongoing Experimentation
Why should you be experimenting with your style in the first place?
These are just some of the benefits you could enjoy by doing so:
- Exposure to new ideas and opportunities. For starters, experimenting with your personal style requires you to expose yourself to new ideas and new opportunities. If you’re searching for reasons to get dressed up, or if you’re trying to work with a new crowd, you’re going to end up meeting new people and introducing yourself to new experiences.
- Creative inspiration. Tinkering with your personal style is also a great way to find creative inspiration. If you’re thinking of putting together new outfits, or if you just need to change up how you look at work, moving to the extremes and trying something novel could be exactly what you need to get that creative spark.
- Confidence and self-esteem. Personal experimentation could also be a great way to build more confidence and self-esteem. When you wear something new, you may not feel exactly like yourself, but you’ll feel bolder and, in a way, more comfortable with your own identity. Over time, as you experiment with more personal styles and interact with more types of people, you’re going to build more internal confidence that can sustain you in a variety of different endeavors.
- Staying interesting. Trying out new styles makes you feel more interesting and could potentially make you more interesting in the eyes of others. Switching up your fashion approach could make more people notice you at work, or turn some heads at your local hangouts. Obviously, experimenting with your personal style isn’t just about getting attention, but it’s a nice fringe benefit.
- Openness to new experiences. Trying new styles could help you foster more openness to experience, making you more adaptable and more willing to try new things throughout your life. Initially, you may be reluctant to try a new color or experiment with a new type of fashion accessory, but once you do it, you’ll be glad you did. This mentality can follow you in a variety of other contexts, making you feel more comfortable with branching out and trying new things.
- Ongoing growth and improvement. Personal style experimentation is one path to ongoing growth and improvement. You’re not remaining complacent with your existing familiarity; Instead, you’re challenging yourself to set new direction and improve.
Experimenting with your personal style isn’t always comfortable, but it’s not supposed to be. This is your chance to break out of your comfort zone and try something dramatically new. At the end of your personal style experimentation journey, you’re going to be much more open to new ideas, your fashion sense will evolve, and you’ll likely end up being much more satisfied with your personal choices. It’s hard to precisely calculate the value of these benefits, but you’ll almost certainly be glad you did this.
