Is Personal Style Dying?
By Lila-Rose Cantrill
When did we all start dressing the same?
Scroll through TikTok for five minutes and you’ll probably see it: the same pair of shoes, the same bag, the same sunglasses, the same “must-have” piece that apparently everyone needs.
One minute we’re obsessed with ballet flats. The next, it’s leopard print. Then suddenly everyone is wearing capri pants and dressing like it’s 2014 again.
Fashion has always been about trends, but social media has completely changed the speed at which they move. So, it got me thinking: is personal style dying?
The rise of the micro-trend
Fashion trends used to have time to breathe.
A trend could dominate a season, sometimes even several years, before something new came along. Now, thanks to TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest, a new aesthetic can appear almost overnight.
We’ve gone from seasonal trends to micro-trends — trends that can become huge in a matter of days and disappear just as quickly.
And there is something exciting about that.
We have more fashion inspiration available to us than ever before. We can see what people are wearing in London, Paris, New York or Seoul without leaving our bedrooms. We can discover independent designers, vintage shops and completely new ways of styling clothes with a simple scroll.
But there is a downside.
When everyone is being shown the same trends, it becomes increasingly difficult to know whether we actually like something or whether we’ve simply been told that we should.
Are we dressing for ourselves or the algorithm?
The algorithm knows what we like.
If you stop scrolling to look at a certain style, interact with a fashion video or search for a particular item, chances are you’ll soon see more of it.
Before long, your entire feed can become one big mood board.
And while that can be brilliant for finding inspiration, it can also create a strange cycle.
You see an outfit.
You like the outfit.
You buy the outfit.
Thousands of other people do the same.
Suddenly, something that originally felt unique becomes the next uniform.
There’s nothing wrong with buying into a trend. I love trends too. But I think there’s a difference between being inspired by fashion and feeling pressured by it.
But perhaps personal style isn't dying
Despite all of this, I don't think personal style is actually disappearing.
If anything, social media has given people more opportunities to discover it.
Someone might discover vintage fashion through TikTok. Someone else might find an independent designer on Instagram. Another person might see an outfit from a completely different culture and realise that it inspires them.
Fashion inspiration is everywhere.
The problem isn't necessarily the trends themselves. It’s what we do with them.
You can take a trend and make it your own.
You can wear ballet flats because you genuinely love them, not because your TikTok feed says they're the shoe of the season.
You can wear leopard print without suddenly turning your entire wardrobe into animal print.
You can buy something second-hand rather than purchasing an entirely new outfit every time your favourite influencer posts a new “aesthetic”.
That's where personal style comes back into the picture.
Finding my own style
I think about this quite a lot because I'm still figuring out my own style.
Fashion wasn't always something I felt particularly confident with. It took me time to work out what I liked and, more importantly, what I felt comfortable wearing.
Eventually, I realised that experimenting with clothes was one of the ways I could express myself.
Sometimes that meant wearing something that wasn't necessarily “normal”. Sometimes it meant putting together pieces that probably shouldn't have worked but somehow did.
And that's the thing about personal style — it doesn't have to make sense to everyone else.
I'm still changing my style. I don't think I'll ever completely settle on one aesthetic, and I'm actually starting to think that's a good thing.
Why should we have to?
We're constantly changing as people. Why shouldn't our wardrobes change with us?
Maybe we just need to slow down
Perhaps the answer isn't to stop following trends completely.
Fashion is supposed to be fun. Trends give us inspiration, encourage us to experiment and sometimes introduce us to things we never would have considered before.
But maybe we need to stop feeling like we have to keep up.
You don't need the newest “it” bag.
You don't need to completely change your wardrobe every season.
And you definitely don't need to fit into one particular aesthetic.
Wear the trend if you love it. Ignore it if you don't. Mix something new with something you've owned for years. Shop vintage. Rewear your favourite pieces. Experiment.
Because ultimately, the best dressed person isn't necessarily the one wearing the latest trend.
It's the person who looks comfortable being themselves.
So, is personal style dying?
I don't think so.
I think we're simply being given more inspiration than ever before.
And perhaps the challenge now isn't finding inspiration — it's learning when to put the phone down, look inside our own wardrobes and ask ourselves:
“Do I actually like this?”
Because fashion should be about more than looking like everyone else.
It should be about finding something that makes you feel like you.
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