Ask most women what counts as “being creative”, and you’ll get the same short list. Painting. Writing. Playing Music. Maybe baking, if we’re being generous. Getting dressed doesn’t make the cut. It sits filed away under admin or as a daily chore, somewhere between unloading the dishwasher and replying to emails you’ve been avoiding.
I’d like to make the case that this filing system is wrong.
What Actually Counts as Creative
Psychologists draw a distinction between what they call “Big-C” creativity, the kind that produces a novel, painting or invention someone puts a name to, and “little-c” creativity, the everyday kind that shows up in ordinary life. Little-c creativity has a fairly simple definition. It’s anything you do that’s original to you and useful in your life. It doesn’t need an audience. It doesn’t need to be good enough to hang on a wall.
Cooking a meal from whatever’s left in the fridge is little-c creativity. So is finding a new way to arrange the furniture. And so, whether you’ve ever thought of it this way or not, it’s standing in front of your wardrobe and combining colour, shape and texture into an outfit that didn’t exist in that particular form until you put it together this morning.
You are, quite literally, making something new. Every day. Before 8am, usually, and often without coffee.
The Research Bit (I’ll Keep It Short)
There’s a lovely study out of the University of Otago that I think about often. Psychologist Tamlin Conner and her colleagues had 658 people keep a daily diary for 13 days, recording what they did and how they felt. The things people logged were ordinary: cooking, doodling, playing music, and yes, putting together an outfit.
Here’s the part that surprised even the researchers. Doing something creative on one day predicted people feeling more enthusiastic and more “flourishing,” their word, not mine, the very next day. Feeling good on a Tuesday didn’t predict more creativity on Wednesday. It ran the other way. The creative act came first. The good feeling followed.
Which means the old idea of waiting until you feel inspired, put-together or in the mood before you make an effort has it backwards. You don’t need to feel good to get dressed with a bit of creative intention. Getting dressed with a bit of creative intention is one of the things that helps you feel good tomorrow, whether you meant it to or not.
You Already Have the Raw Materials
Here’s where I suspect some of you are thinking, “that’s easy for the artistic types to say.” I’d push back on that, gently but firmly.
My parents didn’t think much about what my brother or I wore, as long as it was presentable. In fact, I regularly had to wear my older brother’s hand-me-down clothes (which I did not enjoy). Here I am wearing his old skivvy (as we called it) and pants.
The one dress I remember loving as a small child was second-hand, handed down from family friends, smocked, with a tulle underskirt and a bow that tied at the back. I felt genuinely pretty in it. Everything else in my wardrobe left me cold, as it was all about practicality. That was my first, entirely unplanned lesson in what creative dressing actually feels like, and it had nothing to do with talent. It had to do with the outfit matching something true about me.
That’s the part I want you to take from this. You don’t need to become a creative person to do this well. You already have what I call a creative fingerprint, the particular mix of personality, colouring and values that makes you notice some colours, shapes and combinations and walk straight past others. Nobody else has quite the same one. In 7 Steps to Style, the very first step is understanding your personality so you can build your Style Recipe, a short list of words (mine is Glamorous, Functional, Individualist) that puts your own creative fingerprint into a form you can actually use when you’re standing in front of the wardrobe at 7am. It doesn’t manufacture creativity you don’t have. It just gives the creativity you already have somewhere to go.
Try Some Small Creative Outfit Experiments This Week
Little-c creativity works best in little-c doses. You don’t need a wardrobe overhaul or a shopping trip. You need one small, deliberate act of originality a day. Try one of these each day this week and notice, honestly, how it changes how the day feels.
- Pair two colours you own but have never put together. Not a colour you’ve been told is “safe,” a genuine new combination. Even a subtle one counts.
- Wear one item in a way it wasn’t designed for. A scarf as a belt, a brooch pinned to a bag instead of a lapel, a shirt worn backwards if that’s the effect you’re after.
- Build an outfit around a pattern or print, pick one or two colours from it and repeat them in your outfit. It might be a print scarf, or another garment (like my example below with a print top)
- Build an outfit around a word instead of an occasion. Pick one word from your own creative fingerprint (or just a mood, “cosy,” “bold,” “unbothered”) and dress to it, rather than to “work” or “errands.”
- Rescue one piece you’d almost written off. The thing shoved to the back because you only ever wore it one way. Style it completely differently and see what happens. Looking for inspiration? Head to Pinterest.
- Mix one formal piece with one deliberately casual one. A tailored blazer over a plain t-shirt, or your smartest trousers with the denim jacket you love. Let the contrast in level of refinement do the work.
- Add one texture that doesn’t usually appear in your outfits. Something soft against something structured, something shiny against something matte.
- Ask what your own style icon would do, then do it your way. Not a copy. A translation, filtered through your own creative fingerprint rather than theirs.
None of these needs to look “perfect.” That’s not the point, and if it feels uncomfortable to hear that, there’s a reason for it, one I’ll get into properly next week. For now, the only measure that matters is whether the choice was genuinely yours.
Here’s an example of an outfit I created around this print top – I’d never thought about wearing the pink skirt with the cobalt jacket before, but the print ties them nicely together.
Your Next Step
Before you can play with your creative fingerprint on purpose, it helps to know what it actually is. If you want a fun way to explore your style, figure out what you really do and don’t like, and create your style recipe, my Evolve Your Style program is designed to do that. Based on neuroscience, it helps you take one small daily prompt to create an outfit around, helping you to try all those garments in your wardrobe you’re not wearing frequently, or just looking and wearing your favourites in a new way. In only 1 month you’ll have elevated your style to a new level.
