YOUR FASCINATING STYLE EXPRESSION
Curating Your Fascinating Style Expression
The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. - Pablo Picasso
The final step in the Fascinating Individual Style™ framework is where you discover how to curate your fascinating style expression with clarity, consistency, and creativity. Understanding your intention and purpose will make the difference between a superficially pretty expression of your style and one with grit, grace, and traction. One that shows on the outside what you feel on the inside. One that looks and feels natural to you and others. One that helps you accomplish your goals.
Clarity, consistency, and creativity.
Great style comes from expressing your fascinating aesthetic with clarity, consistency, and creativity. Does your style expression clearly demonstrate who you are, what you value, and how your personality facets connect with your physical assets? Do others associate you with a consistent vibe? Does your creativity ensure you show up as unique, original, and memorable?
Working with clarity, consistency, and creativity, you’ll not only strengthen your confidence but also create a valuable skill set for dressing your desire and developing an individual style on purpose. You can use the same principles to intentionally craft a personal brand style, create exceptional and original work, decorate your creative workspace and home. It’s endless.
Intentionally and on purpose.
It costs you nothing, other than your time, to really consider how you want to feel, be perceived, and accomplish your goals. And yet in my experience, most individuals just don’t take the time and skip over this crucial step.
We do best when we express what is truest to our values, mission, and vision. But how do you make sure that the time spent on curating your style expression is well spent? How do you, each and every day, make sure it’ll be an accurate reflection of you, what you value, your goals and overall vision of who you are and what you want to be known for?
It doesn’t have to be a monumental task. It’s just a matter of being intentional and on purpose. It’s simply knowing the outcome you want and why you want it.
Simply ask yourself a few questions — At the start of your day, before every occasion, at the beginning of a task or project.
What can happen when you intentionally and purposefully curate your style expression?
- You feel more present and aligned with what brings you joy, lights you up, and fuels your fire.
- You have happier and healthier relationships by taking responsibility for the things you can control when connecting with others.
- You are aligned with your values. When you know your North Star and see what’s important to you in life, you find peace because you make decisions that align with who you are at your core.
- You create healthy boundaries. Intentional choices based on your values make it much easier to say no to things that no longer serve you and say yes to things that light you up.
- You communicate more confidently. As you hone your skills, you begin to take responsibility for your responses and reactions, and you will find yourself more aware of how you show up and communicate who you are and what you want.
- You shine the spotlight on your emotional well-being. You begin to recognize the importance, the need, the NECESSITY of caring for you and how you show up in the world, which trickles into every aspect of your life. You learn how to stop the band-aid solutions and create the lasting harmony you seek.
Intentional and purposeful choices are part of an all-encompassing holistic lifestyle that we all can begin to embrace.
Dress your desire.
…always dress for the life you desire. – Violet Grey
This is the art of expressing yourself. The art of turning your wardrobe into an adventure playground. The art of putting yourself first. Dive in, be inspired, get creative, indulge yourself, and have fun. Be who you want to be today.
The chosen facets and assets of your fascinating aesthetic become touchstones for playful and insightful inspiration and decision-making for voice and vibe when dressing your desire.
Do you want to be wild and unruly? Try the Outlaw. Feeling original and experimental? Then dress as a Creator. For your adventurous and sporty days, how about the Explorer.
Maybe your life seems a bit on the grey side, so try on the rose-tinted glasses of a sweet Innocent. The point is to find the courage and inspiration to give it a go.
The point is to find the courage and inspiration to give it a go. It is so tempting to find a formula that suits us and then play it safe, wearing the same look month in and month out until it feels like a uniform. And that works great for some.
However, most of us are happier to adopt an outfit that will enhance our day today.
Take a few preliminary steps to build your confidence. Make a mood board for your look. It’s the first thing the fashion houses do to establish the feel of their latest collection. Gather together:
- Photos of individuals who are style icons
- Pictures of inspirational works of art
- Images from periods in history
- Scraps of patterns
- Fabric swatches
Tear out magazine photos of garments that you would love to wear. Glue, pin, or tape them together onto an “inspiration board.”
In this day and age, Pinterest is an excellent tool for this. However, to be on the safe side in case your account goes missing, have a hard copy of the ideas nearest and dearest to your heart.
Don’t rush to invest in an entirely new wardrobe. Instead, see what you have in your closet already. Clever use of accessories is often all that’s needed to completely change the style of an outfit.
Develop an individual style - on purpose.
Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly. – Epictetus
Telling your story starts in your closet, because sometimes words are not enough. The most important thing to remember when choosing an outfit for any occasion is the story you want to tell and how you want to feel while telling that story.
Fashion is a valuable communication tool and a beautiful form of expression. The chosen facets and assets of your fascinating aesthetic become touchstones for playful and insightful decision-making. It can be the inspiration for voice and vibe when dressing your desire.
No matter what your aesthetic is, you can develop a style that can express who you are even more than your words can.
Being confident in our own style can speak for itself. However, at times, we may be apprehensive about expressing our opinions because of the responses that may come from doing so. With fashion, we can show who we indeed are.
You’ll never achieve the best expression of you or your individual style until you fail a couple of times while pushing past your comfort zone.
The best individual style always comes from repeated trial and error, mistakes, and failure, not instant perfection.
However, as you’ve learned, a little knowledge and the right tools can minimize trial and error, mistakes, and failures. That’s why we’re here together.
Intentionally craft a personal brand.
No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else. - P. T. Barnum
First impressions, as we’ve already acknowledged, are critical. As you’ve learned, what you wear can send immediate signals about how trustworthy, knowledgeable, and competent you are before you even utter a word.
We know that clothes don’t change the person’s core but support context. So, you may feel the classic paradox. How do you stay true to your fascinating aesthetic while adapting to the needs and wants of your audience, employer, or clients?
The keys to building a personal brand style are self-definition, transparency, authenticity, and accountability. Live your brand. Your personal brand style should follow you everywhere you go.
It needs to be an authentic manifestation of who you are and amplify what you believe.
As social networks continue to permeate our lives, what we share in our posts contributes to the perception of what is known as our personal brand.
Nowadays, employers and prospective clients are interested in the what, where, how, and why of who you are online.
So, what does your social media presence say about who you are and what you’re about? Are your voice and vibe consistent across your various social media channels yet still appropriate and tailored to your goals for each platform?
Do you understand, even if only instinctual, how the content you share and the interactions you have create a perception of who you are and the values you hold dear?
Are you aware with whom you’re interacting?
Using your aesthetic advantage can help you get intentional about how you present yourself.
Injecting your fascinating aesthetic into how you approach your social media communications can help you introduce yourself more intentionally and accurately. You can be memorable when showing up in the world no matter the occasion — online, on social media, on camera, and in person.
Who are you, and what do you want to be known for?
Create exceptional and original work.
Creativity is intelligence having fun. – Albert Einstein
Create exceptional and original work that is irresistible and attracts collectors. Produce original works of art with more depth and interest, giving them a unique feel that engages.
Differentiate your work. Create a distinctive body of work with the power to compel people to buy.
Your work is original because you are original. As the creator, the impact on your work cannot be understated. This means that originality is yours to claim.
Find your focus. Create a vision. Make your individual work or collection of works irresistible.
Use your fascinating aesthetic advantage to empower you in developing products, services, and original works. Trust the outcome by having a gut check at the conceptual level.
Before launching or releasing any new communication, product, service, or artwork, use your fascinating aesthetic advantage as a quick touchpoint for evaluation.
A compelling concept that I haven’t mentioned much until now — Since each individual is innately drawn to what looks like them, use your fascinating aesthetic as a proxy for the motivations and aesthetics of the target audience you wish to attract.
Choose the facets and assets of your fascinating aesthetic that best represent the target market for a particular piece of creative work. This can be a surprising portal that reveals a more robust understanding of your end user’s needs and wants and can add layers of depth, specificity, and description.
Identify characteristics and qualities from your fascinating aesthetic advantage to establish an integrated identity for your creative work and clarify the audience it’s designed for in the following categories:
- Essence
- Motivation
- Strengths
- Challenges
- Colour/Style/Mood
This can help make your creative work more human, engaging, and irresistible. The chosen facets and assets of your fascinating aesthetic become touchstones for decision-making.
It can be the inspiration for style guidelines (including voice and vibe) for individual work or a collection of works.
Establish an engaging creative workspace and make your home an oasis.
Behind every attractive room there should be a very good reason. – Sister Parrish
Once you’re in tune with your fascinating aesthetic, you gain a new perspective on everything in life, including how you decorate your creative workspace and home without sacrificing your individuality.
Ensuring you maintain high levels of satisfaction and engagement can directly impact your company’s bottom line. Using your fascinating aesthetic advantage, you can design a better and more productive creative space, whether you’re remote, hybrid, or in full-time office mode.
Whether you’re in a nook off the kitchen, an artist shed in production mode, or a storefront with walk-in traffic, small changes in your creative space can significantly impact your productivity and happiness levels.
Using your aesthetic advantage, you can create a joy-filled home that is a refreshing oasis for you and your family. (With family members, look for ways to incorporate and honor everyone’s aesthetics.)
Suppose you’re decorating your creative space and home to have it show up on your website or social media. In that case, I invite you to view the familiar with fresh eyes and capture the dynamics of your environment.
Observe colour, line, texture, level of refinement, style archetype, the light and shadow, the flow of spaces, and how people move, feel, and express themselves in these spaces to capture meaningful and lasting impressions.
When decorating, it’s not about finding your style type — French Country, Urban Modern, Organic Minimalism, Eclectic, or Industrial.
Instead, you want to work with the small truths about you that correlate to things you can do as you decorate or unique ways to make the work and living areas feel like deeply personal spaces.
Trust those instincts! Make decorating decisions for yourself, not according to any advice or rule book.
You might not understand why you feel the way you do about choosing a paint colour or where to hang a picture, but it’s got to be a great choice.
Feel free to indulge in things just because you like them.
Pare down. If you find that you’re burdened by things, consider form over function when you’re buying for your space. Choose only what you love.
Without all the clutter in your life, you’ll find that you’re more relaxing and less stressed. With fewer things competing for your attention, you’ll appreciate more and better use what you have.
You’ll be able to focus more on the people and activities in your life that bring you joy.
You’ll have more time and energy for dreaming and planning for the future.
With supportive environments, you’ll be better prepared to go out into the world for a day’s work or a life-changing adventure.
For maximum harmony, make the innate parts of you a part of your life. First, figure out what that means for you. Then, make sure your living and workspaces support that.
