Robyn's Top Ten Personal Style Tips
1. Understand Your Body Shape
The most important thing about dressing is understanding your body shape and knowing the silhouettes that show your body at its best. Seek out the opinion of honest friends or family and find the ‘hero’ items in your wardrobe. Taking pictures, as well as looking in the mirror, will help spot the silhouettes you should rely on. If you pay close attention to celebrities with similar shapes to you, you'll be able to spot the silhouettes that always work for them.
2. Find Your Signature Pieces
Most of our ultimate style icons have signatures you can spot a mile off. This can be an accessory, a colour or a print or even a beauty trick.
3. Invest in Items You Know You'll Wear Over and Over
A successful signature style is one you'll love for years and years, so your focus should be on wearing the things you truly adore. One of my favourite wardrobe-editing tricks is to have a separate rail, and for one month, place everything you wear on it. You will quickly realise the items that are the building blocks of your wardrobe. For example, if jeans are your thing, go with it (Vogue's Sarah Harris famously has 80 pairs and wears them on rotation almost every single day!).
4. Create a Mood Board
A trick for working out your signature style is to create a detailed ‘mood board’ with all of the looks you love. Before you head for the scissors and glue, it's best to create your mood boards on Pinterest, or even to use the bookmark tag on Instagram so you can constantly add new outfits you'd like to copy.
5. Recognise the Things You Dislike
When editing your wardrobe, it's just as important to pay attention to the items that don't make you feel good. It goes without saying that just because every ‘influencer’ you can think of is wearing a Gucci T-shirt doesn't mean you should too if tees just don't make your heart sing!
6. Find the Colours That Suit You
As well as finding the silhouettes that suit you, also think about colour. Read up on expert tips and the colours that suit your skin tone, and then test different hues to find those that don't make you look washed out (also, a strong lipstick goes a long way to making so many shades seem easier to wear).
7. Make Your Own Style
Look past the usual celebrity style ‘icons’ and find inspiration everywhere (whether it's your stylish boss, a friend you admire or an online ‘influencer’ you haven't heard of).
8. Do an Audit of Your Wardrobe
The key to nailing personal style is all about having an efficient, organised wardrobe. When creating a wardrobe ‘capsule’, you should aim for 50 pieces or less.
9. Don't Rule Out a Uniform
The word ‘uniform’ might sound terribly boring, but many of the most stylish women we know have one! Whether that's for weekends, work or every single day if you have a formula you know you can rely on doesn't mean it always has to look the same. You can play with variations, unlikely accessories or just use this as an outfit to fall back on when you have "nothing to wear”!
10. Stay Loyal to the Brands That Make You Feel Your Best
Once you find the brands that seem like they're made for your shape, stay loyal to them. Labels will often create similar versions of key pieces season after season, so it's worth reinvesting in the items that work for you.
