My Thirty-Something

Style Note #11

You know, when I was younger I thought getting older would feel more dramatic. I was expecting some sort of a moment of.. arrival. A sense of clear certainty. The feeling that I had finally become the person I was trying so damn hard to be.

And I can say now, being 33 for impressive two weeks, that this number feels surprisingly quiet. And I don’t mean quiet like unfinished or uncertain. Like quiet that often means lost. No. Quiet like its just... very specific.

I have spent a lot of time studying why we wear what we wear. From how to construct and make a garment in the trade all the way through designing full collections, or doing production runs. I breathe the product. I breathed clothing professionally for a decade. And god I always love the stories we tell through it. The identities we build with it. All the versions of ourselves we reveal and hide through what we wear.

And yet, one of the most interesting questions I have encountered isn’t what people wear in public.

It is what we wear when nobody is watching.

Not the outfit for the meeting. Not the outfit for the date. Not the outfit for the photograph.

The one you put on when you have nowhere to be.
Or the one you choose on a Sunday afternoon.
The one you wear when the audience disappears.

Because that is where performance ends and preference begins.

For years I thought personal style lived in the carefully considered choices. The statement pieces. The outfits that felt intentional. And don’t get me wrong - intentionality is so important.

And yet, I’m not so sure when I am asked about personal style. Because I think personal style comes from getting to know yourself. And getting to know yourself can only happen if you experiment. Try on selves. Over and over again.

Personal style can only develop and move with you as you change with the seasons, the years, the moods. And it also lives in repetition. In the jumper you keep reaching for. In the trousers that have survived three wardrobe clear-outs because you know how specifically it can support you.

Damn, even the cardigan hanging over the chair because somehow it always ends up there.

The older I get, the more interested I am in these patterns.

Not because they are fashionable. Because they are honest.

At 33, I know things about myself that 23-year-old me would have found disappointing.

I know I value comfort more than impressiveness.
I know that some trends will never win me over - and that is perfectly okay.
I know that if given the choice between looking interesting and feeling like myself, I’ll choose the second one every time. (Funnily enough most of the time me feeling like myself is considered is looking interesting regardless)

And most surprisingly, I have learned that becoming yourself is often less about adding things and about removing them. And not removing the way you might expect.

I am talking about:

Removing expectations.
Removing performances.
Removing the versions of yourself that were built for other people.

Until eventually, what is left is something simpler and far more recognisable.

Maybe that is what getting older is. Not becoming someone new.
Becoming someone clearer.

The person who emerges when nobody is watching. The person who reaches for the same colours, the same silhouettes, the same textures again and again and again and again.
The person who no longer needs to explain those choices.

33 doesn’t feel like a destination. It feels like a deeper friendship with myself.

And if my wardrobe has taught me anything, it is that the clothes we wear for other people tell a story. And that the clothes we wear alone tell the truth.

This week’s note to self:
What do you wear when nobody is watching?
What might that outfit know about you that the rest of your wardrobe doesn’t?

Let me know. I am really curious about those pieces. And about the pieces of yourself you didn’t feel were important enough.