Fashion: My Opinions and Advice

Fashion is something I have been interested in for a while now. Like most people, I have had some choice outfits in the past, but as of now, I make a conscious effort to buy and dress in outfits that make me feel confident. In this post, I will discuss my journey towards finding my style and share some of my ideas on how you can do the same. I will also include a section from a friend who has shared their style in case you were looking for inspiration for different aesthetics.

To begin I will outline the reason why I have an interest in clothes and accessories. For me, spending money on these things is a way to present myself to the world. Recently I have begun posting many more images onto Instagram to showcase my style and what I am up to, not to showboat or gain approval, but because I am at a point where I am happy with the way I present myself. I encourage everyone to post photos of themselves and not care about likes or comments, and just post them to make yourself feel better about the way you look or dress. I feel that this has helped me to improve my self-confidence over the recent months.

On the topic of Instagram, I often find myself choosing clothes based on what I have and have not worn in photos previously, which limits the number of times I wear certain pieces. Whilst some may see this as a negative, I see it as a way to explore different aesthetics as I am constantly attempting to piece looks together that no one has ever seen me in. In short, I just enjoy trying on and wearing different clothes, so I implement that into my daily life.

My current style inspirations come from places such as streetwear, the ’80s for their grunge, and darker elements and sometimes I just find pieces that make me feel great and so I buy them. What I try to do the majority of the time is go shopping without having the faintest of ideas about what I am going to buy. This means I am not looking for something specific, so I can spend more time looking at everything that a shop has to offer, instead of ignoring anything that does not fit my “criteria.” I then attempt to style these new pieces with a variety of different colours, styles, and silhouettes. I am at a point now where I am content with the selection of clothes that I own, so I feel excited to put outfits together and feel great when I leave the house in a look that I love.

Whilst my outfits may differ from day to day, the process behind putting them together remains the same. First, I decide which piece I will choose the outfit around (e.g. the blue bomber jacket). Then, I will choose other items that complement the main piece. For example, if the main piece is a pair of brown cargo trousers, I would style them with a black top and black shoes. However, sometimes I choose a base outfit, e.g. a black t-shirt and black trousers, and then decide which pieces I am going to layer on top. Once the outfit is decided, I will decide upon the jewellery I am going to wear based on where I plan to go in the outfit. This allows me to dress the outfit up or down depending on whether I want to appear casual or formal.

Below I have shared images of some of my recent outfits to give you a clearer picture of how I dress because I have no idea whether my description conveyed my style.

I feel that another reason I have become more interested in different types of fashion is that I now work in a high-fashion clothing store. Having seen numerous look books and watched videos explaining the creative process of designing prints and pieces, I feel that I have developed a better eye for how to dress different people. This was clarified to me yesterday in fact when I was styling customers, who commented that I had chosen successful looks for them. If I could choose my GCSEs again I would probably choose Textiles instead of Photography and follow a career in fashion, but my liking towards fashion is a recent thing so Photography seemed more interesting at the time.

This post is a general insight into my thoughts on fashion, but I have plans to explore specific styles and trends in the future and dedicate other posts to these more specific areas. This will both allow me to share my findings and potentially discover new designers and brands.

As I mentioned, my friend would also be writing a section within this post so below she has shared her style and has given some additional advice on how you can work towards discovering your own. Prior to this section, Ruby has inserted a collage of some of her recent outfits:

Hello, my name is Ruby. I am one of Joe’s friends and I am very excited to write for his blog. Fashion is a big part of me. Clothes help me express my personality, and make me feel more confident within myself. When I have the opportunity to go out with either friends or family, I will always try different outfits and plan what I am going to wear the night before.

My style is kind of complicated, mainly because there is not a label for it. If you had to put my style into a category I guess it would be alternative or grunge, mainly because I am not the type of person to wear bright colours. I wear darker colours like black jackets, grey shirts, etc. One thing is that I always wear skirts; there is no particular reason other than I think they are just more comfortable and look better; I also like to wear more baggy clothes because similarly to skirts, they are more comfortable. When I go out, I match the colours of my clothes and shoes; this is very important because I think matching clothes makes more sense than wearing a green top and yellow trousers. I could not go outside without my shoes matching my outfit.

There are many things to do to find the clothes you like. It can be difficult because you may not know what stores to go to or what style you even like. My advice would be to go to multiple stores that have clothes you may like as this can widen your variety of different types of clothes. I also recommend picking up any clothes you like and trying them on in the store; this can give you a look into whether you think they suit you.

Whether you learned something new or are simply reading out of interest, I hope you enjoyed this post! Feel free to read my other pieces and stay tuned for many more in the future! Thank you.