How to Create a Signature Style And Always Know What to Wear

Wait, What’s the Difference Between Signature Style and Personal Style?

Both personal style and signature style are related concepts in fashion, but they differ in their approach and application. The way that I see it is that personal style is a broader reflection of your personality, lifestyle, and preferences. Whereas signature style (or a uniform) is a specific, consistent look or set of clothing items that you turn to regularly. Essentially, it’s a more streamlined approach to getting dressed every day.

Both approaches have their merits and they can absolutely coexist. In fact, I think they should! Someone can have a distinct personal style but still choose to wear a more uniform look on a day-to-day basis.

To give you an example: my personal style is how I express myself. It encompasses my fashion preferences that I’ve developed over time. But I’m not wearing this stuff every day. Like, I’m not wearing this to Trader Joe’s, y’all. On the other hand, my signature style or daily uniform still has elements of my personal style, but I repeat this outfit and similar constructions on a daily basis so that I’m not exhausted by decision fatigue every single day.

Step One: Understanding Your Personal Taste

The first thing you need to do when learning how to create a signature style is identify what you love and what resonates with your personality. There are a couple of reasons why this is important.

Number one: You want to be empowered by what you’re wearing. When you wear something that feels right to you, it gives you a natural confidence boost. There is no greater feeling than wearing an outfit that I know I look good in. Asia in a good outfit? I feel on top of the world. That’s exactly what your wardrobe should be doing for you.

Number two: What you wear can reflect your personality and interests. By understanding what you love and what resonates with you, your clothing becomes more than just attire—it becomes a way to express your identity. In a world where trends are constantly coming and going, staying true to what you love ensures authenticity.

Number three: It saves you time and money, girl. Understanding what you like and dislike will help you make more informed and efficient decisions so that you don’t go out to the mall and just start buying stuff even if it doesn’t suit you or you don’t like it. I’ve bought stuff in the past that I didn’t really like but it was an impulse purchase. I used to be a huge impulse buyer. I’m very happy to say that I’ve curbed a lot of those habits these days.

Step Two: Understanding Your Body Type

Understanding your body type is key to elevating your wardrobe and creating a signature style. Different styles, cuts, and even fabric density can flatter different body types in very unique ways. Fashion trends are diverse, and not every single trend is suitable for every body type.

Your signature style should flatter and accentuate your best features as opposed to chasing trend after trend that might not even look good on you. This is about finding what works for YOUR body, not what works on the runway or on Instagram.

Step Three: Choosing Your Colors

Color theory in fashion involves understanding how colors interact with each other and how they look on you, particularly in relation to your skin tone. Choosing colors that suit your skin tone can actually enhance your overall appearance and make you look more vibrant, healthy, and stylish.

To give you an example: pastel colors can often make a lot of Black and brown people look ashy, but if you were to put them in a similar hue with more vibrance or a different undertone, it might make that person look like they’re glowing.

Here’s a quick guideline: determine your skin’s undertone. Skin tones can have an undertone that is cool, warm, or neutral. A quick way to determine this is to look at your veins in natural light. If your veins appear bluish or purplish, you probably have a cool undertone. If they appear greenish (like mine are very green), you probably have a warm undertone. If it’s hard to tell, you probably have a neutral undertone.

If you have cool undertones, opt for colors like blue, green, pink, purple, and blue-based reds. Silver jewelry typically compliments cool undertones. If you have warm undertones like me, earth tones like reds, oranges, yellows, olives, and warm browns tend to look really great. Gold jewelry often compliments warm skin tones very well. You will not catch me in any type of jewelry that is not gold. I love gold.

Honestly, the best way to figure out what colors look best on you is to just experiment. I have warm undertones, and within the past year I’ve been incorporating more earthy tones into my wardrobe and I look GOOD. Like I used to exclusively wear neutral colors, but once I started incorporating the right colors into my outfits, I actually started glowing.

Step Four: Accessorize Your Look

Accessories play a pivotal role in signature style. They can complete an outfit, give you some personality, and transform a simple look into something more polished or interesting. They can also change the look of an outfit without needing to buy more clothes.

Some people even use a particular accessory as their signature piece. Think a pearl necklace, a special watch, or a specific type of hat. This can actually become part of your identity or personal brand. For example, I am always in my gold jewelry. More particularly, I’m always wearing my jade pendant and gold necklace. It’s become part of my personal brand.

I also consider nails to be an accessory. I get the same manicure every single time I get my nails done—it’s just this really pretty French manicure and it makes me look really polished no matter what I’m wearing. Like even if I’m wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt, when you see my nails I just look a little bit more polished and put together.

So accessories can extend beyond things you wear. Your hair can be an accessory. Your makeup style can be an accessory. Your nails can be an accessory. These are just little add-ons that you curate for yourself.

Now Let’s Create Your Uniform

Now that you’ve identified your personal taste, understand your body, chosen colors that complement your skin tone, and learned how to accessorize, it’s time to create a uniform.

What are uniforms? These are basically combinations of outfits that you know you look good in. You will always look good in these outfit combinations no matter what, and they are meant to be repeated.

What I love about the idea of a daily fashion uniform is that it helps you simplify your morning routine. You know, you wake up in the morning and you have pre-selected combinations of outfits that you can just put on. They ensure that you always feel confident and look stylish because you’ve already done the work beforehand. There’s no thinking involved.

The idea is similar to a capsule wardrobe, but signature style or uniforms should really simplify your life. They should reduce decision fatigue and ensure that you always look polished and put together. It’s really about finding a balance between style, comfort, and functionality that works uniquely for you.

Take a look at your personal style, look at pictures you’ve taken of yourself or even look at your Pinterest boards, and identify what pieces are the most realistic to wear day-to-day.

There are a lot of pieces in my closet that I absolutely adore, but I’m not going to wear them every day. It’s just not realistic. Make sure those pieces are able to go with all the other pieces that you select because you really want to create versatility with your uniform.

And that’s how to create a signature style! Now you can stop being late every morning because you spent 45 minutes staring into your closet. You’re welcome.