How to actually find your personal style in 2026

By Rachel Tashjian, CNN

(CNN) — TikTok influencers no longer have us blindly following a dizzying slate of microtrends – cottagecore one week, dark academia the next, the mob wife aesthetic days later. In place of the churn of trends and overconsumption, a new mindset is emerging: the search for personal style. Finding your personal style, the thinking goes, allows you to shop more confidently and less frequently. By looking more skeptically at fast fashion and fancy labels, you can rise above the whims of brand marketing – and find contentment with pieces that speak, uniquely, to you.

But the search for personal style has become a complicated affair. Methods include distilling your entire being into three words, holding various colors up to your face and declaring yourself a “cool autumn,” or even quitting shopping for a year – should it all be so difficult?

Of course not! We asked stylish figures from in and out of the fashion world for the practices that have helped them figure out what to wear. Some of these people are maximalists, some committed minimalists, others wear nearly the same thing every day. But all have one thing in common: they always feel great in their clothes. Here’s 10 ways you can, too.

1. Go through every single thing hanging in your wardrobe and wear it

If you’re guilty of the classic “closet full of clothes and nothing to wear” feeling, start from the left side of your wardrobe and commit to wearing each item every day. Note how you feel in it: is it uncomfortable? Too stiff? Maybe you should save it for evening wear or chuck it altogether. Did you receive compliments you didn’t expect?

You’ll get a clearer view of what does and doesn’t work, as well as what you’re missing – maybe you’ll see you have zero white collared shirts that would make your sweaters look spiffier, or you simply don’t have enough color and need a few punchy pairs of socks.

2. Let your passions direct you

“Good personal style requires some expertise,” said Noah Johnson, editor-in-chief of streetwear publication, Highsnobiety. “Skating made me an expert on certain things: sneaker design, how pants fit, being outside in the city for entire days with nothing to do but skate. Everyone has some form of expertise. Those are the things that inform a personal style.”

3. Look more than you buy

Go into stores (or scroll through them) not only when you need a new dress for a wedding or a tie for an interview. Embrace the pleasures of browsing, and even try things on, with the goal of learning what you like instead of acquiring more things. (Importantly, don’t let this tip into doomscrolling. Research is good – mindlessly thumbing through every arrival on a resale site, less so.)

4. Let your life and aspirations inform your style

“Personal style isn’t something you find overnight. It’s something you arrive at,” said Amanda Murray, a New York-based creative consultant and extravagantly well-dressed person. “Over time, through living, failing, heartbreak, love, wanting, shedding, you begin to understand what feels true on your body and what doesn’t.”

Jalil Johnson, writer of the fashion Substack “Consider Yourself Cultured,” took the idea a step further, saying that personal style wasn’t just a reflection of your life up to this point, but “the life you’re aspiring to or think you deserve.” Johnson added that “much like our ever-evolving and changing lives, our style evolves too, and that evolution is not only natural, but necessary.”

In short, let the changes in your life influence your clothes – the trouser cut that feels right for now may feel less comfortable or sharp in a few years, when you have a new job or move to a new town.

5. Don’t pay too much attention to celebrities and influencers

“I think the reason style feels confusing for so many people is because we’re taught to look outside of ourselves first,” said Murray. “Celebrities, what’s in, what’s out, and now the behemoth of social media and algorithms telling us who to be. But the most compelling style is deeply resolved. It reflects a sense of real self-trust.”

6. Listening to yourself, and what pleases you, is much more important than emulating others

“You might be able to put together a nice outfit by copying someone else,” said Noah Johnson. “But you won’t get any closer to real style.” Similarly, fashion writer Leandra Medine said that the answer to feeling good about your clothes wasn’t in finding the right stuff – but learning to trust your gut. “I find that the older I get, the sharper my sense of personal style becomes because I am more comfortable in my skin and therefore more willing to accept its limitations (e.g. what kind of dressing concepts I might love theoretically but not in practice on my body), and also to object to features of popular style culture that don’t align with my taste.”

7. Develop a uniform

“Since I am always working, my base has to be comfortable. I kind of have a work uniform,” said Hillary Taymour, the designer of New York-based brand Collina Strada, who wears her own clothes almost exclusively, with vintage peppered in. “When I’m getting dressed I look at my calendar: am I going to an event after work, will I be working on the floor that day, am I going to be painting clothes. The calendar always dictates the look,” she added. This usually means starting with “a slouchy pant,” Taymour said, noting that she loves to “layer shirts, add some color with a sweater and always have an over-the-top jacket.” Or alternatively, “a skinnier pant with a dress or skirt layered and a fitted top.”

Uniforms mean you do all the thinking upfront, and can assemble outfits more effortlessly day-to-day.

8. Pay attention to what makes you feel good

For Taymour, it’s a uniform that can dictate her entire mood: “To this day, if I don’t feel comfortable or like my outfit I will in fact have a horrible day,” she said. Finding a footing in your personal style is all about paying attention to what makes you feel good. If something doesn’t feel right, no matter what anyone says, don’t wear it!

9. Play dress up

“Don’t get so stuck trying to define your personal style that you stop playing with clothes!!!” wrote Willa Bennett, the editor of Cosmopolitan and Seventeen magazines, who dresses in a uniform of suits and ties. “Style is supposed to feel like dress-up, fun, and experimental, not like a personality test or a definitive statement you have to defend.” Bennett advised people to be a little more fearless with their wardrobes. “Try the thing you are probably going to return, the emerging designer no one knows about yet, the vintage Depop purchase that your little sister makes fun of you for.”

It’s an approach that works for Taymour, too. “The more you have fun and take risks, the more your style will start to appear,” she said. “So go to your dress up closet and start thinking differently.”

10. Figure out what looks good on your body

“My biggest advice to anyone is to always dress for your body type,” said Taymour. “Once you know what works on your body you can start buying into silhouettes not trends. This is how you build a wardrobe that you feel comfortable in because you always look good.”

It’s time-tested advice, but it doesn’t have to be conservative. Try on lots of things, take pictures, and look back after a few days spent thinking about something else entirely.

11. Don’t be so hard on yourself!

“When did my ‘lucky’ Dries tie deliver a good day? When did my Supreme sweatshirt let me down? The goal is not to judge yourself,” said Bennett. “It is to notice your feelings. That is where real personal style comes from – not from rules, but from learning your own emotional logic and trusting your sense of self.”

Remember: if you wear a bad outfit, it’s not the end of the world. You can always wear a better one tomorrow.

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