You open a magazine or a website, and there it is. “The only five pieces a woman over 40 needs.” “Never wear this after 50.” “The one rule every stylish woman follows.”
By the third rule, you have already broken two. You may have already bought the pieces recommended but you don’t wear them and so you wonder what’s wrong with you.
I would like to offer you a different thought. You are not doing it wrong. The idea of one right way to look is what’s wrong. Research on personality and flexible thinking points the same way, and I find it rather comforting.
Your Style Follows Your Personality, Not a Rulebook
Let me start with a study of 792 women in Israel, aged 19 to 74, published in 2021 in Frontiers in Psychology. The researcher,Tali Stolovy, asked about their clothing habits and measured their personality using the well-known “Big Five” traits.
Here is what she found. Women who scored higher on openness and who cared about fashion and individuality were more likely to choose an urban, eclectic style than a casual one. Women who dressed in a classic style tended to score higher on conscientiousness. Women who chose a dramatic style tended to score lower on agreeableness. And one more result I love: body size (BMI) did not predict which style a woman chose.
So the women were not dressing by a single rulebook. They were dressing in line with who they are.
A fair note on the limits. The women chose their own style label from a short list made for the study. They were mostly well-educated, and they joined online, so this is not a picture of all women. The study also shows a link, not a cause. But it fits what I have seen with clients for years. Style is not a ladder with one top rung. It is more like a map with many good places to live.
In this post you’ll see me wearing the same skirt, but styled two ways, one bolder and more dramatic, the other softer and more feminine. It makes for a more interesting style and wardrobe, so I don’t get bored or stuck in a style rut (which is a very common lament I hear from women).
Many Right Answers Is How Creative Minds Work
Now to the thinking side. Psychologists describe creative thinking as “divergent”: coming up with many possible answers, not hunting for the one correct one. A mind that believes there is only one right outfit is stuck in the opposite mode.
Some early research suggests this flexible way of thinking might spread beyond clothes. In 2013, Małgorzata Gocłowska, Richard Crisp and Kirsty Labuschagne published two experiments in Group Processes and Intergroup Relations. In the first, thinking about a person who broke a gender stereotype made people more flexible in their thinking afterwards. In the second, thinking about a range of people who broke social stereotypes improved their performance on creative tasks. Their idea was simple. Stereotypes are rigid mental boxes, and stepping out of one loosens the others.
Relaxed dramatic, feminine
A 2022 review in Brain Sciences by Nardine Fahoum and colleagues goes a step further. It suggests that creative thinking may help people let go of biased, fixed views of others. I want to be careful here, because the authors are. This is a narrative review, which means a thoughtful overview, not a test. They say themselves that there is no direct proof yet.
So here is my honest take. No one has tested whether trying many styles makes you less biased. That would be a stretch. But “there is only one right look” is a kind of stereotype about how a woman should appear. Practising the idea that several looks can all be right is good exercise for the same mental muscle. That’s my reasoning, not a research result.
What Goes Wrong When You Chase One “Right” Way
When you believe in one right answer, you start dressing for someone else’s test. You wear the thing the article said to wear. You skip the thing you love because a rule said no. Then you feel oddly flat and cannot work out why.
Feminine, relaxed creative
A wardrobe built on other people’s answers is hard to love, because none of it was your idea and may not be your taste either.
How 7 Steps to Style Builds Your Own Right Answer
This is why Step 1 of 7 Steps to Style does not hand you a type and send you off. It introduces seven Personality Dressing Styles: Classic, Relaxed, Dramatic, Creative, Rebellious, Feminine and Elegant Chic. Then it tells you something that surprises many women. Take only the elements you love from each style, and leave the rest. You are a combination of these. You will not fit neatly into one. You will be a blend, and how you put the blend together is unique to you.
For example, a crisp, tailored shirt (Classic) with soft mid-denim jeans (Relaxed) and an asymmetrical haircut (Creative) is a different recipe from those same denim jeans with a bright red oversized flower-trimmed top (Relaxed, Dramatic and Feminine) with curly hair. Neither is wrong. They are two different people.
From there you build your Style Recipe, a list of up to six words (though ideally three) that become your filter for every outfit and every purchase. Mine are Glamorous, Practical, Individualist. Yours will be different, and that is the whole point.
The rest of the program follows the same idea. In Step 3, you find the colour properties that suit your own colouring. In Step 5, you learn how line, shape and pattern communicate, and you choose whether you want to look more approachable or more authoritative for each moment. My wider work is built the same way: the Absolute Colour System has 18 palettes, because 18 different colourings need different answers, and the 16 Style Types link personality to style because 16 personality types do not all want the same wardrobe.
One system, many right answers. That is the opposite of a rulebook.
Seven Ways to Test “More Than One Right Answer” This Week
One idea a day. None needs shopping.
- Find three right answers. Pick one type of day, such as a work day or a coffee with friends. Dress for it three different ways across the week. All three can be right.
- Re-style one piece two ways. Take one favourite item. Dress it once in a Classic way and once in a Creative way. Notice what changes.
- Question one rule. Pick one style rule you follow without knowing why. Ask yourself, “Who told me that?” Then wear the opposite once and see if the sky falls in.
- Admire someone unlike you. Pick a woman whose style is nothing like yours. Find one thing you like about it, and borrow the idea (not the item) for your own outfit.
- Add the opposite word. Think of the word people use for your age or role. Maybe “sensible” or “safe”. Add one small piece that says the opposite, such as a bold earring or an unexpected colour.
- Ask three people. Ask three friends to describe your style in three words each. Compare their words with yours. You will see that one outfit can be read in several valid ways.
- Write your own rules. At the end of the week, finish this sentence three times: “For me, the right way is…” Keep the list somewhere you get dressed.
Your Next Step
If you want to stop dressing for other people’s rules and build a style that is right for you, 7 Steps to Style takes you from your personality to your Style Recipe to a wardrobe you love.
