Why three words are not enough
don't put me in a box !
When I ask clients to describe their style, most of them give me their three words. Something like classic, minimal, cool or casual, effortless, chic. You know the drill.
I mean, I have my three words too. Mine are modern, classic, playful. TBH I landed on ‘playful’ because I wanted needed a cheat word. And because I have one, I was able to justify buying my printed Dries jacquard pants, and then pair it with another personality piece: an embroidered fringed top. ‘Modern’ and ‘classic’ were never going to cover that, so playful became my permission slip. Sometimes I’m happy in just jeans and a t-shirt, and other times I’m rocking said jacquard pants with fringe top.
I’m just a girl who gets dressed based on her mood, OK?
I worked at Stitch Fix for a long time, and we had our own version of style words. We’d ask clients to rate outfits that mapped to different aesthetics (classic, preppy, edgy, glam, boho, and romantic) to figure out which “box” they belonged in. My job was training stylists to interpret those ratings. We’d score everyone on each aesthetic, so you’d get ‘4 in boho, 1 in edgy’ or ‘3 in glam, 4 in classic’—and use those numbers with a Pinterest board to figure out what to send. It was always a guess, though. I’d scroll through a Pinterest board full of tailored blazers and straight-leg jeans from someone who rated as ‘4 in edgy’.
The problem is that boxes don’t always translate. I’ve worked with women who all call themselves “minimal”. One owns maybe twenty pieces, total. Another has a full closet—she just doesn’t wear print. Both would insist they’re minimal but they’d be miserable in each other’s wardrobes.
Labels are good at describing a vibe but they suck at telling you what to do on a Tuesday morning when the ‘minimal’ sweater looks frumpy instead of chic, or the ‘edgy’ boots feel like a costume. Having the vocabulary doesn’t mean the math is actually math-ing.
I’ve worked with clients who managed to figure out their three words but came to me regardless, because getting dressed still felt like a puzzle. They wanted me to spell out their style directly. Not just the vocabulary but something that actually translates into how they get dressed every day.
So I built a framework. It’s called the Signature Style Recipe.
Four main ingredients, plus one secret. If you’re an intuitive cook, it’s probably similar to how you work in the kitchen: you know your base ingredients and roughly how much of each feels right. And from there, you improvise.
The four main ingredients:
Silhouette: How clothes sit on your frame and move with your body. Not necessarily about what flatters in a conventional sense.
Color Story: This goes beyond your color analysis, if you have one. The focus is on the relationship between tones, not just the colors themselves.
Texture: The “feel” that explains why an outfit works on paper and falls apart in person. It’s also connected to how you want to feel in your clothes.
Proportion: The ingredient that turns individual pieces into outfits. It’s where you put the volume and why it creates balance.
Once you know your four and how they work together, getting dressed starts feeling less like a puzzle you have to solve every morning. And isn’t that the whole point?!
Next week I’m launching a Style Guide, which is built around this exact framework. You’ll explore your own four ingredients and see them at work through different spring outfits. At the end, you’ll have a draft of your own recipe that you can continue to refine.
Paid readers get early access next week.
P.S. There’s a fifth ingredient.
Beyond the four, there’s a Secret Ingredient. The unexpected seasoning, the one thing you reach for when you want to turn the volume up and feel most like yourself.
I reveal how to identify yours in the guide. Until then, look at your favorite outfit from this week and ask yourself: what’s the one thing in this look that shouldn’t work, but somehow makes the whole thing?
The framework makes way more sense than the three-word branding exercise. Which I do love -- but it does absolutely nothing for me at 7:14am when the outfit I planned has decided to be completelyyyyy wrong.
I love the addition of the four (five) additional secret ingredients to my styling formula, even though I would argue that even though do not necessarily stay constant. In my case, the texture, the proportions can also vary depending on the mood.