How To Find Your Personal Style, According to Six Aussie Creatives

Style: is it instinct, influence or both? We take a look.
Published December 31, 2024

For the entire year I was nine, I wore a turquoise hoodie with a cartoon monster splayed on the front. Paired with black leggings or folded denim shorts (sometimes both), it was the epitome of fashion to me. I look back and know my style was concerned with comfort, fun and cheekiness.

While it’s long been a concept, the sartorial world has become fixated on personal style again—who has it, who wants it, what is it, how do you hone it? TikTok users clamour for trends like the ‘75 hard style challenge’ and stylist Allison Bornstein’s ‘three-word method’ to pin down their elusive style. In the midst of rampant micro trends, overconsumption fatigue and our collective tightening of purse strings, the allure of embodying your personal style is tantalising. 

“A truly personal style is one that acts as a communicative tool of self-expression, allowing us to transmit information about identity, beliefs, group membership, mood and personality,” says Erin Skinner, a University of South Australia researcher specialising in the psychology of fashion. “Our clothing acts as a visual representation of the self.” 

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This theory goes way back. Belle, a fashion history researcher and host of the Silhouettes podcast, believes the concept of personal styling has been around since ancient times. “Individuals of high social status had personal attendants or advisers responsible for assisting with their clothing choices and with their general appearance,” she says, adding that their role was to help people adhere to social norms and ensure their status was reflected in their clothing.

Getting personal...

Not much has changed for us nowadays. Instead of personal advisers, most of us wade through this personal style query by ourselves, the internet and our peers as our guiding lights. Elle Hioe, 26, is a Sydney-based stylist and content creator whose eclectic style is characterised by her use of accessories. 

When asked what her most ‘Elle’ outfit is, she envisions herself in “a little skirt, a tiny top, two belts [and] lots of bangles” paired with leather boots. Her personal style is the result of her teenage years spent coveting runways and fashion weeks. In her late teen years, she developed a love of K-pop and her style became influenced by anime and Japanese subcultures like Lolita and gyaru.

“When I was younger, I would try and copy a lot of people I saw online … as I’ve gotten older, I feel more comfortable and more picky about what I choose to bring into my wardrobe,” she says. Taking inspiration from the world and art around her, Elle’s personal style naturally developed into what it is today. 

Ginger and Carman are two of Melbourne’s most iconic fashion influencers holding seniors’ cards. Almost always donning sunglasses, the pair are known for their maximalist outfits and playful videos. When I ask them to describe their personal style, Ginger begins by answering, “Street style, slightly edgy.” Carman chips in, “With a bit of glam,” before Ginger follows up with, “Spicy sugar on top.” 

“Depending, always, on the mood,” Carman rounds out for the both of them. The pair point to comfort as another consideration; not how physically comfortable clothing pieces are, but whether they allow you to feel at ease in your body. “If you’re feeling a bit weird in the clothes that you’ve put on, then you can’t possibly enjoy the moment because you’re constantly checking things and feeling awkward,” Carman says.

They deliver their insights with breezy effortlessness. “When you’ve hit your 60s, you’ve tried so many different things and just tend to gravitate to what makes you feel the best,” Carman adds. Her self-assuredness has been moulded by time. Carman can’t live without a blazer and knows she prefers a tailored look. “I can’t be anyone else, and I just feel awkward if I’m trying to be anything else.”

Melbourne artist and Melbourne Fashion Festival programmer Sai-Wai Foo’s sense of style is led by her not wanting to look like anyone else. The 49-yearold gravitates to matching loungewear sets with a duster coat thrown on top—Matičevski is preferable—to create balanced high-low ensembles. Or “covert pyjamas,” as she calls them. 

As a Malaysian-born Chinese woman, her desire to not look like anyone else was spawned from her experience growing up in ’80s Australia. “There was no point blending in ever because I was going to stand out anyway. I wasn’t going to use clothing as some sort of camouflage for pretending to be something I’m not,” she shares with Cosmo. “I think it’s probably developed as I’ve gotten older and become more confident [and] comfortable with myself … there’s a benefit of age and just not giving a shit.” 

Erin echoes this, saying that confidence and creativity can come with developing a personal style. “Within psychology, many people believe that self expression is a fundamental human need, and fashion as our “second skin” plays an important role in this,” she says.

From dopamine hits to conscious 'fits...

But what happens when your values shift—will it subsequently change your style? Liz Sunshine, 38, is a Melbourne-based street style photographer who’s several months into a year off of clothes shopping. It’s been a gradual process getting to this stage; Liz began by reducing how many items she bought a year—first to 26, then to 12, and now to zero. Most pieces she’s added to her wardrobe in the last couple of years have been made in Australia, made from natural fibres or thrifted.

made from natural fibres or thrifted. “I wear them because of what they stand for, not just their aesthetic value and how they make me feel,” she says. “Questioning fashion has been the greatest gift in building my confidence with how I dress.” While Liz says her personal style has largely been unaffected by her shopping ban, she admits she’s becoming restless, a feeling she’s trying to lean into. “I think it will help me clarify what clothes actually make me feel good, outliving the initial dopamine hit of owning something new. I know that when I shop again it will be from a very different place.”

Media personality Lillian Ahenkan, also known as Flex Mami, describes her current personal style as a “uniform of colour-clashing eclecticism”. The 30-year-old tells Cosmo she’s always been very fashion focused, though the outputs of that style have varied dramatically, from dressing emo and scene in high school to being drawn to block colour outfits.

“I used to spend a lot of time trying to say a lot with my outfits, making sure every element of the look was done—from the hair to the full face of makeup, [to the] 16 layers of accessories,” she says. “It made me feel like finding myself was a constant practice of swapping things in and out based on eras, as opposed to lifestyle, comfort and function.” 

For Lillian, personal style is not only a matter of wearing clothing she likes; her relationship with fashion is dictated by her size. “Finding my personal style has always felt like a really conscious choice because being plus-sized makes curating at least 100 times harder.” She shares how fast fashion used to be her “bread and butter” but how it “really flattens personal style”. 

Lately, Lillian’s taken to sewing herself clothes that are “comfortable, vibrant, rare and identifiably Flex. The more I make, the more I learn; the more I learn, the less I have to pander to an industry that isn’t interested in bodies and aesthetics like mine.”

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Owning it...

Of their own accord, many of the women I spoke with brought up times when they neglected their personal style. Bouts of self-consciousness affected Elle’s ability to dress as her full self. “The way we feel emotionally also translates to the way we feel in the world,” she shares. “A lack of confidence can translate into not feeling the joy of dressing up.” 

Sai-Wai backs this up, saying, “The times when I have been feeling less like myself or not dressing like myself are probably times I’ve been the most miserable.” 

Style is always linked to what’s going on inside and how you’re feeling about yourself, Ginger believes. “Some days you just don’t want to look good … you have to own that too. Fashion can be a terrible pressure, can’t it?” Carman adds.

Finding your personal style is, dare I say, a form of self-actualisation. “Embracing your personal style is an active, not passive, process. It takes time and reflection; you must get to know and understand yourself to a certain degree,” Erin says. 

It’s also an evolving relationship—some aspects of personal style are innate, but others are built over time and through life experiences and influences. “Fashion is a reflection of character, not just a visual,” Elle says. Time and patience are imperative in forming personal style, as is the courage to try (and inevitably fail). “I look back at some of my outfits and a lot of them are still really good, but some of them are kind of awful,” Elle says. 

Despite popular belief, she shares that there’s no need to overly experiment with styles outside of your comfort zone to figure out your personal style. Rather, take stock of what you already have and what you gravitate towards. The tools to work out your personal style are already in front of you; you might even be wearing them now.

This article originally appeared in Issue 03 of Cosmopolitan Australia. Get your copy and subscribe to get future issues delivered to your doorstep here.

Maggie Zhou
Maggie Zhou is a Melbourne-based freelance writer, a slow fashion advocate and co-host of the Culture Club podcast.
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