Four years ago I was wearing Sperrys, khakis, and Polo button-ups. Bland and boring (no offense if this is your go-to).
In part, I blamed the school uniform system, but it was up to me to do something about it. By the end of college, I had a closet full of clothes I had collected over ten years with no rhyme or reason to them. Brand name tees I'd worn since high school. Polos from college. Going-out tops that were mere fabric on a string. Eventually, the athleisure I'd accumulated when working out became my only personality trait as it was my best (and only) option. For years, I'd throw on whatever was at the top of my clean laundry pile to make it to class on time, and then I graduated and just kept perpetuating the cycle. I had no style. I had a body and some fabric.
The reason wasn't laziness, exactly. I wore a school uniform from kindergarten through high school, so I'd never actually had to figure out what I wanted to dress like. College was twelve hours of school plus a part-time job plus an MBA program at nights, so dressing for myself wasn't a thing I had time for. And then I graduated into the unemployment void I've written about before, and dressing up at all stopped feeling urgent. I wasn't going anywhere. Who was I getting dressed for?
Then I started building PRS and living Prettier, Richer, and Smarter. And somewhere in the process of becoming the best version of myself, I realized I couldn't keep showing up to my own life looking like an unrecognizable past version I had outgrown.
Style and identity are the same conversation. It’s hard to find one without finding the other.
Here's how I actually did it.
Style Is Not About Clothes
The biggest misconception about personal style is that it's a shopping problem.
Women hear "I want to find my style" and immediately start browsing. They open Pinterest, save 400 photos of women in clothes they could never afford, and then go on Shein and buy a dozen things that look vaguely similar. A month later the clothes have lost their shape, the woman has lost her enthusiasm, the cycle starts over, and all the plastic clothing ends up in a landfill somewhere.
Style is not what you buy. Style is what you choose to keep wearing. Read that again.
It's the recognition you build with yourself and the world about what you look like. It's the relationship between your face, your body, your colors, and the silhouettes that make all of that look the most like you. It's recognizable and intentional, and it has almost nothing to do with whether you can afford new clothes (despite what your favorite influencer might suggest).
The reason your style feels random right now is because you've been dressing reactively. You saw a girl on TikTok in a slip dress and you bought a slip dress. You saw a trend and you chased it. You bought clothes for the woman you thought you should be, not the woman you actually are.
Finding your style starts with figuring out who you actually are. Not who you wish you were, not who the algorithm thinks you should be. The woman in the mirror.
Start With Color
The single best decision I made when I started figuring out my style was doing my own color analysis.
I have pale, cool-toned skin and blue eyes. For years I'd been wearing gold jewelry and warm earth tones because that's what was trendy and that's what my friends were wearing. None of it worked on me. I just thought I looked ugly in photos. I assumed I needed more sleep, better skincare, more makeup. What I actually needed was different colors.
You can do this for free. I'm not a certified color analyst and I'm not telling you to spend $300 on a professional draping session. I looked up color analysis tips from creators online, watched a few videos about seasonal palettes, and then started actually paying attention to how I looked in different colors. Which ones made my eyes look brighter? Which ones washed me out? Which ones made me look like I'd already had eight hours of sleep?
Try this: stand in front of a mirror in natural light. Hold different colored fabrics or shirts up to your face. Not pieces you love, just colors. Pure white versus cream. Bright red versus brick red. Cobalt blue versus teal. Pure black versus warm brown. Silver versus gold.
You'll notice immediately. Some colors will make your skin look more vibrant. Some will make your eyes look more striking. Some will accentuate your hair. Others will make you look dull and tired.
For me, gold jewelry washes me out. Silver and white gold make me look like myself. Brown is not my friend. Black is. And so on.
These are not aesthetic preferences. These are facts about my face. Once I figured them out, I stopped buying anything that wasn't in my palette. Black, blue, red, dark pink, white, silver. That's it. Anything else and I'm working against my own features.
Build a Rule
Once you know your colors, you build a rule.
A rule is the set of constraints that defines your style. It's the question you ask before you buy anything new: does this fit who I'm becoming, or am I shopping for a stranger?
My rule, written out: black, silver, navy, deep red, monochrome or denim-on-denim, business chic, natural materials over synthetics, vintage over new when possible, statement jewelry, minimal patterns, structured silhouettes. Aritzia, Alo, vintage designer when I can find it, thrifted everything else.
That's my rule. I built it slowly, by noticing what I reached for, what I felt best in, what got compliments, what I'd packed for trips and actually worn versus what came home unworn. Over time, the pattern became obvious.
Your rule will look different than mine. Maybe you're a maximalist who collects vintage scarves and wears every piece of jewelry you own at once. Maybe you're a minimalist who wears the same recognizable silhouette five days a week. Maybe you're a clean girl, an old money girl, a downtown girl, a coastal cowgirl, a corporate baddie. The rule is about what you can commit to consistently.
A few questions to start building yours:
What colors actually look good on you? What objectively makes your face look more alive in photos? You can browse through your existing camera roll for this one, put those 20,000 photos to good use.
What silhouettes make you feel most confident in your body? High-waisted or low-waisted? Tailored or oversized? Cropped or long? Recognizing what suits you best becomes part of your rule.
Does silver or gold jewelry suit your skin tone? Maybe rose gold or colored jewelry? Maybe mixed metals? Notice which metal makes your features pop, and double down on it.
What shoe makes you feel the most iconic when you put it on? Heels? Loafers? Sneakers? Boots? Flats? Rule out anything that doesn’t fit your vibe. For example, I cannot bring myself to rock ballerina flats no matter how trendy they may be.
How do you want to feel when you walk into a room? Powerful? Soft? Mysterious? Approachable? Untouchable? Your style should serve the feeling.
Write your answers down. That's the start of your rule.
Purge Everything That Doesn't Fit
Once you have the rule, you have to actually apply it.
When I started getting serious about my style, I was also moving out of my parents' house. So I had no choice but to confront everything in my closet at once. I went through every single piece and asked one question: does this fit the rule?
If yes, it stayed. If maybe, it went into a maybe pile I'd revisit later. If no, it got listed on Depop.
The purge was brutal. I sold things I'd had for years. I sold things that had been expensive when I bought them. I sold things that were perfectly nice clothes that just weren't my style anymore. I listed everything on Depop over a period of months and used the proceeds to buy better pieces. The wardrobe didn't transform overnight. It transformed in increments, the same way every other meaningful change happens in life.
The thing nobody tells you about purging your closet is that it's not really about the clothes. It's about admitting who you've been pretending to be. Every shirt you sell is a version of yourself you're choosing not to keep. Every dress you donate is a fantasy you're releasing. It's grief and freedom at the same time.
A closet full of clothes that don't fit your rule is a closet full of confusion. Every morning you stand in front of it and try to make decisions from a place of chaos. After the purge, every morning becomes easy. You're choosing between things you actually like wearing. The decision fatigue disappears, and your style becomes imminent.
You don't have to do this all at once. You can do it over months, like I did. But you do have to actually do it. The new wardrobe cannot be built on top of the old one if you want to maintain your sanity in the process.
Double Down on What Works
Here's the part most style articles skip.
Once you start finding pieces that feel like you, the most important thing you can do is notice it and do more of it. Style is built through repetition and recognition.
When I started wearing more black and silver, people started recognizing me for it. Brands started tagging me when I associated with their pieces. Friends would see something and say "this is so you." I started getting compliments not on individual outfits but on having a look. And the more that happened, the more I leaned in.
You're going to have moments where something works. A specific pair of jeans. A specific necklace. A specific jacket. When that happens, pay attention. That's data. That's your surroundings giving you a cheat code. Buy more of what worked. Build your wardrobe around the pieces that earned their place instead of the pieces you hoped would.
This is also how you build a signature. I wear silver Tiffany Hardwear jewelry every single day. The necklace and the earrings. When I purchased them, the sales associate specifically told me to avoid heavy wear like working out in them. But I don’t save them for special occasions, and I do wear them to the gym. Every day. I bought them with the intention of accentuating my style. It was an investment, but the cost per wear is basically nothing at this point because they've become part of my DNA. Anyone who knows me would recognize me by them.
You don't need to buy Tiffany. The point isn't the brand. The point is that a signature element is something you wear so consistently it becomes part of how people identify you. It could be a red lip. A statement necklace. A particular cut of jean. A jacket. A look. Pick something that's actually you and wear it until people associate it with you.
The Hard Truths Nobody Will Tell You
A few things the fashion industry doesn't want you to know.
Money does not buy taste. You can spend $1,000 on an ugly, ill-fitting dress, or you can find the best jeans of your life at a thrift store for $10. The price tag does not determine whether something fits your style. I do most of my best shopping secondhand. Vintage silk over new polyester. The materials are better, the construction is better, the cost is lower, and the planet doesn't have to manufacture another piece of fast fashion to feed your closet. The women I see with the best style aren't always the ones spending the most.
Trends are designed to make you feel out of date so you keep spending. Trend cycles now turn over every few weeks. Anything you buy because it's trending will look dated in a year. Build a wardrobe that stands the test of time before you add any trends on top. A closet full of trends is a pile of garbage that ends up in a landfill within five years. Your style should outlast the season.
Influencers don't dress like you. A woman doing a try-on haul on TikTok is being paid by the brand to wear those clothes. She probably doesn't even like them. She certainly doesn't care whether they'd look good on you. Stop copying influencers and start studying women whose taste you actually trust. They might not have a million followers. They might be your aunt. They might be a stranger you saw on the street and couldn't stop thinking about. Choose where you take influence from, rather than what the algorithm feeds you.
Confidence is the outfit. Anyone can put on beautiful clothes and look uncomfortable. No outfit fixes a woman who doesn't believe she belongs in her own skin. The style work is real, but it's downstream of the inner work. You can build style faster when you're also building confidence, and you can build confidence faster when you're building style. They feed each other.
Why This Is Prettier Work, Not Just Style Work
Personal style is one of the most underrated Prettier habits.
When you walk into a room dressed like yourself, you carry yourself differently. You take up more space. You make more eye contact. You speak with more authority. People treat you differently because you're treating yourself differently. The clothes don't make the woman, but they communicate to the world what kind of woman you are.
This was a huge part of my own becoming. When I was lost, I dressed like I was lost. When I started knowing who I wanted to be, I started dressing like her. The dressing didn't make me her, but it made it easier to act like her until I actually was her. Style is a permission slip you give yourself. It's evidence, visible to everyone including you, that you've decided who you are.
The PRS woman dresses like she means it. She's not chasing the algorithm. She's not buying every trend. She's not trying to look like everyone else. She's figured out what makes her features pop, and she's wearing that on purpose. That's the work.
Start This Week
Pick one thing to do this week.
Do your color analysis in front of the mirror. Pull every shirt you own out of the closet and notice which ones make you look better than the others. Write down five words that describe how you want to feel when you walk into a room. Make a Pinterest board of women whose style you actually admire (not influencers, real women, real outfits) and look for the pattern in what you saved.
That's how it starts. By paying attention.
You're going to keep getting dressed every day for the rest of your life. You might as well start dressing like the woman you're becoming instead of the woman you used to be.
— Jules
Prettier is one pillar of the PRS Method. If you want the full system for becoming the prettier, richer, smarter version of yourself, [find the planner here] or join the PRS newsletter for free quarterly prompts.
