Study the Thematics of your Wardrobe
If you want to build a strong and unique style, you need to study the themes that run through your wardrobe. Gaining a grasp of what you convey and represent when you get dressed, and what you are intending to represent will help to expand and refine your fashion.
Once you learn what themes you exude, you can then magnify and tweak it. This is when you start to take your clothes to the next level.
Doing this is also super helpful for anybody developing a brand.
Let me talk you through how you can do this.
Disclaimer– this will be a deeply self-indulgent article, drawing on examples from my own style.
What is a Theme?
In its simplest terms, a theme is a recurring idea. This can take the form of a particular colour scheme, a recurring image, an ideological concept, or a mixture of all of these. Usually, a theme is an idea that is charged or underlined with some meaning behind it.
In the context of this discussion, a theme would be an idea that exists within your wardrobe, or which comes out within your outfits already. Don’t worry if you can’t think of any right now…
How do I Find an Underlying Meaning?
Doing this can take some introspection. Most high-end, designer, and generally artsy clothes contain some meaning running through them. Sometimes this comes directly from the designer, who might have a powerful idea that represents their entire collection (or even their whole fashion house), and sometimes meaning can be derived from the historical context behind the clothes– such as when they were created and what trends were popular at that time.
BUT… we do not necessarily care about what the fashion designer says the meaning is. We care exclusively about what meaning YOU derive from your clothes.
To give an example, the designer Matthew Williams (creative director of Alyx) once explained in an interview that the meaning behind the rollercoaster buckle design that he uses throughout his work is to signify “a place of transition, of being a child in your teen[s]”, where you overcome…
