Fashion Today: How to develop a sense of style from scratch - Imitate, imitate, imitate

How do students in art school learn their craft? Correct: By studying and copying the styles of other artists.

I know, I know, I’m usually all about ‘developing your own unique style’ and ignoring other people’s rules. But: For a complete beginner, imitating others can be a super helpful creative technique, because it gives you a concrete blueprint that you can use as a starting point. Most fashion newbies that email me mention feeling overwhelmed and just plain confused. They know they need to experiment, but don’t know where to start.

My advice is always the same: Imitate! Pick one outfit and copy it. Then assess what you like/don’t like about it, rinse and repeat.

Find an outfit on Pinterest or on a fashion blog that you could imagine wearing for one of your regular day-to-day activities, for example to work or on the weekends. Then, use your own clothes to replicate that outfit as closely as possible, or go into a store and try stuff on.

Imitating helps you on two levels:
By trying to copy an outfit as perfectly as possible, you are forced to really pay attention to details, like the fit of the pieces and how they work together to create the overall silhouette of the outfit. When it comes to fashion, details like that matter. For example, the two outfits above both consist of a white t-shirt, jeans and a brown belt. But the cut and fit of those pieces, and therefore also the silhouette and overall vibe of the outfit, is completely different.

On top of that imitating is also simply a great way to experiment and hone in on your individual likes. In the best case scenario you love your copied look and have discovered a new favourite that you’ll want to wear all the time (go ahead, outfits aren’t copyrighted). And if you don’t like the outfit on yourself, you can use that as an opportunity to learn more about your style too, by trying to figure out exactly what it is you don’t like about it. 

The fit of the pieces, the colours, the materials? Can you think of a way to tweak it to make it better? Are there any aspects you do like about the look? How could you incorporate into your wardrobe?