the secret to cool-girl dressing

The secret to “cool girl” dressing is that it isn’t really a secret. Similar to the true identity of the famous anonymous artist Banksy, a simple Google will give you an answer. Still, the mythology of the cool girl keeps the keys to her castle shrouded in mystery. You see, the secret to “cool girl” style is evident in any article ever written about it - after the writer’s thesis is carefully laid out, it all usually boils down to…confidence. A bit of a boring answer, perhaps. We’d love a formula, a recipe, a step-by-step system that outlines how we too can buy six specific pieces that when worn together will give us that coveted cool girl edge. Such recipes have certainly been written, but the problem with their effectiveness is that because the idea of “cool” is both ambiguous and entirely subjective, what truly makes a girl “cool” isn’t what she’s wearing, but how she’s wearing it. Furthermore, what’s cool to one person can be entirely uncool to the next, so what is it exactly that we’re aiming for when we find ourselves aspiring to “cool-girl-style”? 

What we are actually drawn to is the person wearing the clothes. Or, to quote Joan Didion entirely out of context “the girl in the plaid silk dress”…or the girl in sports jersey paired with silk flares…or the girl in the skinny jeans with the Khaite twinset sliding carelessly off one shoulder (Katie Holmes…that last cool girl was Katie Holmes). Of course, we often admire individual clothing items on people (“I love your pleated silk skirt, where did you get that??”)  but when we are trying to draw out the essence of what gives someone that “cool girl” je ne sais quoi that’s so often written and spoken about, what we’re actually finding ourselves drawn to is her. You can flip this picture by imagining the least confident person you know wearing the same outfit, and observing the difference you notice in the energy the look gives off. The person may still look objectively great in the look, but there is something that’s changed, something that goes beyond aesthetic and is instead rooted in the idea that when we wear something we don’t feel comfortable in, we are essentially wearing a costume. Cosplaying the person we’d like to be, rather than taking elements of that invisible spirit inside of us, known only to us, and making it visible through the clothes we wear. 

This is why a more valuable use of your time and money is finding your personal style, another topic that much has been written on, but unlike the concept of  “Cool Girl Style'', a method can be provided for achieving it that allows the nuance of who you are and the intricacies of the kind of life you live to take centre stage. Once you nail your personal style, the je ne sais quois that is what we are essentially trying to adopt from the cool girl will naturally come. I challenge you to make finding your personal style (using the three key steps I’ve provided below) your side quest for the next month and see what happens. These three exercises are designed to help you reflect and discover a deeper understanding of who you are in relation to your style, and where you want to go with it. Also, they’re super fun.

STEP 1 - MAKE A MUSE LIST

I want you to take a moment and list 5 people you are drawn to in terms of style. At this early stage, you don’t need to know necessarily what it is about their style that draws you, and perhaps the list you write down will differ from the list you’d make if I asked you to specifically name your fashion inspirations. They can be people living or dead, of either gender. 

Try to edit the list to be only 5, this will make more sense in the next step. Write this list down, and for added points, create a Pinterest board with images saved of each person - make them images you’re drawn to, not just any random image. I’m going to be using my own answers as an illustration throughout this exercise. My muse list looks like this:

Leandra Medine

The Olsen Twins

Maja Weyhe

Katie Holmes

Joan Didion

STEP 2 - MAKE A VISION BOARD

Now, if you don’t already have one, I want you to start a Pinterest board purely for fashion inspiration. You may ask, “Can I make a vision board using another app or my corkboard?”. I’m not your mother, so you can do whatever you want. But my method utilises a feature unique to Pinterest, so you may need to adjust the method if you’re using a different app. So, on Pinterest, you’re going to search for each person you wrote down on your Muse List and save at least 5 looks (or more!) that you love from each of them to your board. 

To level up, spend some time clicking on each look you saved and scrolling down to see the recommended pins for each look - Pinterest will suggest additional pins with similar vibes to what you saved, which means you can extend your inspiration source within a similar vibe. Diversity is the key to good inspiration in all creative mediums, not just fashion. The smaller your inspiration pool is, the more you’ll likely just end up looking like every second fashion influencer on Instagram. Diversify, and you’ll be adding elements from all over the place, which allows you to find a visual language for many different elements of your personality that you can then insert into your looks. Keep saving, keep scrolling until you have a nice, hefty inspiration library. To level up even more, search the names of designers you like and save runway looks you like the styling of to your board as well. Some of my best styling ideas have come from runway shows.

Now, I want you to look over your inspiration board and note down any links, commonalities or through-lines you find in the images. Again, I’ve provided mine for a visual reference for this step: 

STEP 3 - FIND YOUR “3 WORDS”

Now that we’ve taken time to reflect on our style aspirations, we are going to utilise Alison Bornstein’s brilliant 3-word method to build a picture of what our current wardrobe looks like, and what distance there is between where we are and where we want to go. The method employs the help of 3 words, each with a specific purpose, to give you the language to describe your personal style. This will help you with both editing your existing closet and in any future shopping you do, moving you closer to nailing the practical expression of your personal style. Using Bornstein’s adjective wheel, choose a word for each category below:

WORD ONE - Practical - This word describes what already exists in your closet, the things you wear the most. To figure this out, Bornstein advises “Take the things out of your closet that you wear all the time – not necessarily the things that you love, but the things that you wear the most often. What words can you use to describe these things? It’s a shorthand to establish your baseline.” (Source - British Vogue).

WORD TWO - Aspirational - To find your aspirational word, Bornstein told British Vogue “I usually tell clients to find this word by either looking at their Pinterest board or their saves on Instagram. Or even just thinking about a celebrity or [influencer] whose style they really love, then asking yourself what words you would use to describe that style.”

WORD THREE - EMOTIONAL - this word “prescribes a feeling”. How do you want to feel in your clothes when you wear them?

My words are 1. Oversized 2. Arty  3. Effortless. What are yours? Comment on this post and let me know!

So, in this post, we’ve covered the basics of finding your personal style. Have fun with it, spend some time working through these exercises and playing with your wardrobe and see what happens! Cool girl energy flows out of a strong sense of self, and discovering your style is key to that. Find out how to wear your wardrobe in a way that brings what’s on the inside of you, outside, and that energy will naturally start to flow more and more, but the bonus will be that you will look like you, and not every other person on the internet ;)

Pariss xx