I’m not one of those people that can say ‘If x didn’t wear it (or something similar), you probably won’t find it in my wardrobe’, since I’ve never been much of a single-icon kinda girl. Although Blair Waldorf has taught me that living by that rule is an almost foolproof way to stay effortlessly stylish. 

This past week has had me seriously clearing out my wardrobe – a feat that hasn’t been achieved, despite being very much needed, for the last 9 years – and it got me thinking about what inspires my personal style these days. I mean, it has changed since I was 12… regardless of the fact I haven’t grown much taller. 

At the most basic of descriptive levels, I’d say that most of my inspiration for the way I dress comes from a ‘typically girly’ silhouette, or: I like cute clothes with cute shoes. It’s a pretty wide base to build on, so I tend to look to lots of different places to work out what I like to add to ‘cute + cute’. 

American Apparel flatlays:

Nooot a massive fan of the company ethics/campaigns/exploitation/etc, am a massive fan of the instagram flatlay’s. Especially the Korean teams styling, which is probably a surprise to absolutely no one. I find the preppy vibe adorable and really quite versatile. Most of the AA stuff you can find elsewhere for cheaper, or at least variations on a theme, which is nice. 

Fashion Subcultures:

img from mydarlingrainbow

I’ve talked about fashion on the unconventional side of things before, and I’ve noticed that, probably, the two I draw most inspiration from are gyaru (onee style) and larme kei. Larme is a fairly new stlye stemming from the magazine by the same name, originally a makeup look that has evolved to encompass the fashion aspect too. It’s main aesthetics are dreamy/girly/ethereal, and the most popular brand catering to this style is Swankiss, I do believe. There are also crossovers with some of the gyaru brands too, like Liz Lisa. It’s all so cute.  Some of the subcultures can be a bit OTT for me, but they’re great to pull inspiration from.

Streetstyle:

I can spend hours browsing streetstyle tags/hashtags/boards, and have. Multiple times. Most of the photos I hoard are from other bloggers, or people who like to upload multiple ootd’s just for funsies, but there are increasing numbers of brand shoots creeping in to my collection, as they move far, far away from the traditional ‘catalogue’ promotional pictures. Which, by the way, I am such a fan of.  Though a lot of what I reblog or repin is something I could see myself wearing, sometimes it’s just an aesthetically pleasing outfit that I don’t think would make it to my wardrobe. But I like having the images there for reference because style is fluid and I do enjoy change. 

Another absolute no-surprise will be the amount of Korean street fashion I look to for inspiration. Living there for a year and seeing it both done very very well and very very badly has probably influenced the way I dress the most in recent years. There’s just something about their abilities to make even the most crazy printed item and clashing colour schemes still look simple. H o w. 

You can also follow my style inspiration board if you wish!

So, without mentioning people specifically, since that is another post for another (not too distant) time, I think those are the three main places I pull my inspiration from. Since the idea pool from these, plus the other random ones I get when I stare at my closet for prolonged periods of time, is really quite massive I feel quite comfortable knowing that my sense of style won’t become stale. Or at least I hope it won’t. I’ll try very hard to make sure it won’t. I’m also pretty sure that in a few years my style will have evolved, as personal fashion tends to, so this will be a nice sort of archive for that time!

Where do you get your outfit inspiration from? A multitude of sources or one particular place? Do you share any with me? (please tell me if you do we can have all the conversations!!!!) 

You can also check out my favourite fashion bloggers now, too 🙂

♥

connect with me: bloglovin | instagram | twitter