Finding Your Personal Style
By: Shabana Feroze
Tags: Style, Style Tips, Outfit, Personal Style, Fashion

Personal style is so important. It makes an impact on anyone that meets you, not just the first time but every time, but more than that, it makes you feel amazing. You know who you are and you’re not afraid to show it to the world. It’s such a strong statement to make, just through what you wear. And of course, as I always say, it’s the best and easiest way of loving yourself. In this post, I want to show you how you can find your personal style, or simply define it even more, through mine and Amy’s style.

Although Amy and I are besties, of the same age and work in the field of marketing, {I run a creative agency, Amy is a director of a PR firm} we both have a very different personal style. I’m more of a professional, elegant and sophisticated look, and Amy is more rock chic/ rebellious badass. I prefer feminine and formal clothes like pencil and A-line dresses, flowy blouses paired with skirts and trousers in bright and pastel colours, and lots and lots of floral. I’m going to let Amy talk about her style in her own words but what I’ve seen of it so far is very edgy, rebellious, rock ’n’ roll, with lots of sequins and bling, badass boots, crop tops worn under jackets, rich colours, and lots and lots of snakeskin print. I adore Amy’s style because it is SO unique and makes her stand out. One unique trait about her style is that she ALWAYS has real jewellery on. Amy comes from a gold jeweller family and is always wearing accessories in real gold. She also has lots of diamond jewellery which she rocks with her casual rock chic outfits, which makes for a very unique look.

I’m going to explain my style and why I wear what I wear now, my life changes, and how my style changed as my personality developed. Amy will do the same, and at the end, I’ll list a few pointers on how to find your own unique personal style.

Shabana’s Style

My style has come a long way. If you’ve been following my blog from the beginning, you’ll notice that although I wore professional wear {I was working in a big company when I started the blog}, it had an element of quirkiness and rebelliousness in it. It was similar to Amy’s style with lots of boots and funky jewellery. I was also not making a lot of money back then {or let’s just say I didn’t have the heightened sense of quality-over-quantity that I have now}, so I had a lot of cheap accessories. My style was very badass because I was in a fragile place at the time and I wanted my clothes to make me feel strong. I always wanted to project an image of a badass rebel. And it worked because it at least put me in that mindset.

As time passed and I became stronger from within, I started to realize that I didn’t need to show it through my outfits anymore. So my ensembles became non-rock chic and lost their edginess. There was a period where I was working in a managerial position and I was giving a lot of fitness classes as well. I had suddenly become very, very busy. Thus I chose standard officewear like button-downs, pencil skirts and trousers. And blazers. Lots and lots of blazers. This gave me more time to focus on my life instead of my outfits. I could pick any button-down and pair it with any bottom, throw on a blazer, and it would look good. Good, but not super-stylish or great.

I got bored with the button-downs and blazers after some time and I was trying to change up my style. Again my life went through a big change where I started my own company. Now I was the boss and had to not only dress like one but loved dressing like one. Which is how I dress now. I try to emulate powerful lady-bosses and love wearing flamboyant but sophisticated professional outfits. I’m 34 years old now {I started the blog when I was 25}, and I feel like my dressing sense reflects not only who I am, but WHERE I am in life, or rather, where I’d like to be. I’ve lost the taste for cheap accessories, standard workwear, and fast fashion. I prefer having unique clothes made from scratch to suit my body type and personality, hence you see me wearing so much of Saji’s Couture. I’m willing to spend more money on fewer pieces as long as they’re unique, great quality and very me.

Throughout my style journey, one thing has remained constant is that I always dressed for comfort. There is no point in being super stylish if you are not comfortable. Sure, I’ve worn my share of tight dresses and painful heels, but always learned the lesson that it’s not worth it. Dressing for comfort {without sacrificing your style, of course}, adds so much to you feeling happy and less stressful in your day-to-day life. It’s something we don’t even think about, but it matters so much.

Amy’s Style

I think my personal style has been through a few distinct phases. When I was in my early twenties, I worked as a flight attendant for Gulf Air and wore a uniform to work. This meant that there were only a couple of days in a week that I could dress how I wanted, and I had access to shopping markets all over the world to assemble my wardrobe. Very quickly I figured out that I liked dresses. My style was very feminine, very girly, and I could always be seen in a dress. I had dresses for every occasion, from formal to casual, with accessories to match. I had loads of pretty handbags, heels and hair accessories.

After four years, I quit my job and moved to Cape Town for university and dressed pretty much like any typical student… jeans and t-shirts with sandals and no makeup. Sometimes I even went bare feet, which was very much a part of the Capetonian vibe. It felt good to feel so free and I don’t think I ever thought much about what I was wearing.

When I came back to Bahrain I was so depressed about it for a while that I lost all interest in how I looked. Coupled with harassment at work, this meant that I stopped wearing my pretty dresses from earlier and started dressing every day like I was going to a funeral. I hated shopping, I didn’t even like going out. I went to the tailor with one of my favourite dresses and asked him to make five copies of it, which I wore to work every damn day. Let me tell you, it is NOT the same as wearing a uniform, and it got depressing very, very quickly. One of my friends was very concerned and asked me why I was doing this to myself. I had no real answer, but I knew I had to take an interest in my life and my appearance again.

Finally, I went on two major shopping sprees in Dubai over the course of a year, and I discovered a new style. No longer did I want to look ‘girly’. Instead, I felt the need to express a rebellious streak. I started wearing blue, black, and purple lipstick and I got many, many compliments on it. To me, it was a way of expressing my power, a way to say I really don’t care what anyone else thinks, this is how I want to look. I started going out barefoot again (yes, in Bahrain) whenever I felt like it. I bought ridiculously over-the-top sequinned outfits and faux leather skirts. I LOVE bright colours! I am currently rocking the crop top trend pretty hard! And you know what, these clothes make me happy.

I don’t know quite how to sum up my current style, but I think this is what it comes down to: I am in my thirties and the way I dress is a conscious rejection of what was ‘expected’ of me by this age. Many of the people I know already look dead and burned out, and I don’t want that for myself. I don’t set rules for myself as such, I choose pieces that evoke the same kind of excitement I felt about many things when I was younger. Even as we mature, it is important that we not lose our innocence and our joie de vivre.

*****

As you can see, our lives and what we went through really made an impact on our style, as well as where we’re living and our lifestyle.

Here are a few quick pointers if you are looking to find or simply fine-tune your personal style:

Learn your body shape. Your clothes should flatter your body, making it look the best it can look, according to you. I have a straight figure so I wear clothes that give me a waist. Amy has an hourglass figure so she shows it off through her clothes.

Get to know your personality and what traits dominate. then translate that into clothes. And you can always dress to reinforce feeling a certain way like I did by dressing like a badass when I was trying very hard to feel like one.

If you’re really struggling to define your personal style, you can always get basic pieces like a white tee, white button-down, blue jeans, black skirt, etc., and show then let your personality shine through unique and funky accessories {hats, jewellery, shoes, bags}. Over time, you’ll be able to pick clothes that are like your accessories.

Study a few celebrities, style mavens and fashion bloggers and find a few whose style you absolutely adore. {They can also be a fictional character. I LOVE Jessica Pearson’s style, from SUITS.} Break down their outfits into separate pieces and notice how they put it together and notice what you like about it. Shamelessly copy.

Make sure your clothes are comfortable. This is key.

Choose colours that compliment your complexion. You’ll only know this by trying on a lot of clothes in fitting rooms.

Lastly, pick pieces that spark joy {yes, the KonMari way. I’ll write a blog post on why you need to KonMari your wardrobe}.

Remember, you need to feel three key things when you dress up-

1) Comfortable,

2) Gorgeous and

3) POWERFUL. Like you can take over the world.

So do whatever it takes to feel that way because you’ll be showing yourself so much love when you look and feel your best every goddamn day.

Let me know if you have any questions or anything to add. Leave me a comment below!

There are lots of style tips in my book, Loving Yourself In Style, and more on finding your personal style in clothes, jewellery, shoes and bags, and how to declutter your wardrobe. Unfortunately, I hadn’t read Marie Kondo’s books when I wrote mine, or I would have definitely written about why KonMari is the perfect way to declutter and make your wardrobe. More on that later.

Until next time,

xoxo