Style Is How You Break The Rules

I’m still organizing my clothes.

I’ve been spending days and a lot of bandwidth thinking about stuff like base layers, the Rule of Three, and the concept of Clashing Vibes.

The Rule of Three

Your base layers are your tops and bottoms. After that, you add three more elements to arrive at your look: a shoe, a sweater, a blazer or vest, and finally, a bag. Maybe some jewelry.

Clashing Vibes

The concept of Clashing Vibes means never dressing in a way that gives off a consistent vibe. For example, if you dress corporate and buttoned up, add a sneaker instead of a dress shoe or a graphic tee instead of a shirt. 

Similarly, if you’re stuck in a jeans and a tee shirt rut, add a vest or a blazer to scramble the signal. You never want to send a monotonous vibe. Vary the beat. The way you break the rules defines your style.

Clothes are Costumes

You need to dress for the roles you play. And context is queen. But if you live on a closed set —meaning, your life is played out between the same four walls and with the same people day after day, year after year, novelty and excitement have no way in.

But you can use clothes to create a doorway to a different life. 

I’m a yoga teacher, slash writer, slash doggy mama, slash partner of a coach. G and I have clothes for sporting events, Brewpubs, coffee shops, walking paths, and yoga classes. Occasionally, a nicer restaurant.

G’s job requires both athletic wear and business casual, but I could live in yoga pants and tee shirts. 

But I don’t want to. 

I want to dress for other lives and other roles. I want to build this Field of Dreams wardrobe, where an alternative life is ready for me to step into it, only if I’m dressed and ready for the part. 

 If I’m dressed for it, it can happen. 

Have you seen the movie Crazy Rich Asians? 

There’s a scene in that movie where Peik Lin (Awkwafina) drives Rachel (Constance Wu) to the Young Mansion for a completely over-the-top cocktail party. 

Rachel is dressed elegantly, but Peik Lin is wearing a funky pantsuit.  

Nick asks Peik Lin to stay for dinner, but she says she can’t, but he insists. She finally agrees, goes into her trunk, and pulls out a dress bag labeled “Cocktail.”

Rachel says: “You have a cocktail dress in your trunk?”

Peik Lin says: “I’m not an animal, Rachel.”

I want to be “not an animal.” I always want a cocktail dress in my trunk, just in case.

Check out the clip. The “not an animal” line comes around 4:08.

But getting back to my clothes, my pain point is that all my clothes look the same.  I’m sending a monotonous, boring vibe. 

In the past few days, I’ve been making piles.

I also bought a box of 50 wooden hangars from Amazon and a clothing rack; they make a big difference. The uniformity of the hangars alone thrills me every time I look at them.

 Now that everything is out of my dark little Harry Potter closet, I can see what I have and where the gaps are. 

Shoes.

I’ve been watching fashion influencers and tipsters on Instagram.

There is a satisfying agreement among them that basics include: Jeans in a variety of washes, graphic tees, high-necked tanks, a denim jacket, a blazer, a cardigan, white jeans, khakis, black pants, a white button-down shirt, and shoes: a sandal, a loafer, a Mary Jane, and a white trainer. 

The way you break the rules defines your style.

What is painfully clear is that I am a rule follower when it comes to clothes. Everything has to match or go with it. Nothing is startling in my wardrobe. There are no bright colors, prints, or flowy pieces. 

I need to find a satisfying way to break some rules, but first, I have to figure out what rules I’ve been following. 

Personal style discovery in clothes is as hard as in any art. You must spend a long time copying other artists before finding your voice. 

I am at the copying stage now, watching Instagram reels on how to use hair ties to snug up a tee shirt or shorten a sleeve and other tricks of the trade. But one day, I will discover my unconscious rules and learn how to break them.

I’m having a lot of fun with this new artistic medium.