Finding your style takes time, but a logical system can ease the process.
Many people pay a significant “tuition” in their search for style — this tuition includes the costs of trial and error. Costs aren’t just monetary but also include unquantifiable time and energy. Often, once people find their style, they look back and think, “If only I had done this or that differently, I could have saved a lot of time and money.”
Hi, I’m Zion. Previously, we discussed understanding how fashion companies develop products and market operations. Today, we’ll explore why having a logical and systematic approach is crucial for managing your wardrobe and finding your style. Trial and error is an essential part of the process and valuable for self-discovery, but excessive trial and error can become inefficient, consuming more resources and making you resistant to finding your style and making changes. We’ll delve into a professional explanation of how to systematically find your style.
Changing the decision-making process for outfits: from physical to integrated virtual and physical.
Previously, preparing an outfit meant:
opening your wardrobe → selecting clothes → laying them out on the bed
→ starting to mix and match → deciding on the best and most suitable outfit
→ putting away the clothes that were not chosen.
See the diagram below:
This method is cumbersome and inefficient, and it limits your view of outfit combinations due to space constraints. A significant issue is that under time pressure, you often resort to familiar, safe outfits. This leads to a serious problem: you may automatically overlook other clothes you own, creating a false impression that you lack various styles. Consequently, you might end up buying and hoarding more clothes, causing your wardrobe to overflow.
By implementing a wardrobe system with a structured spreadsheet, you can effectively manage your clothes, categorize them, and pre-plan outfits. This approach shortens the decision-making process, saves time, and helps you understand what types of clothes you have for mixing and matching. Importantly, you won’t need to physically take out and put away clothes repeatedly.
With this simplified, integrated approach, your decision-making process becomes:
open the file → copy and organize potential outfits into the structured spreadsheet → simulate various combinations
→ once decided, accurately select the clothes you need from the wardrobe.
See the diagram below:
Have you noticed? We’ve simplified the original 6 steps into just 4. The key benefit is that you save a lot of time and effort, and can accomplish what used to require physical effort with just a few clicks. With this time and effort saved, you’ll have more energy for further experimentation, and you’ll find your perspective broadened, no longer limited to just the few items you frequently wear.
From Spreadsheet Layout to Comprehensive Data Analysis:
We’ve discussed using a spreadsheet to organize and explore outfit combinations within a theme. However, this only addresses part of the problem. We need a more long-term and broader approach, focusing on how to manage, categorize, and integrate various clothes in our wardrobe efficiently, and utilizing data analysis for a more systematic approach to achieving your style goals.
In my previous experience with forecasting and analysis, dealing with countless competing brands and their products, it was crucial to use a logical classification method to analyze competitors’ styles, prices, patterns, materials, etc.
Consider this: whether you’re developing products or choosing items as a consumer, the situation is nearly the same. Everyone is producing similar items with minor differences. So, what really suits us best?
For example, with the current trend of oversized drop-shoulder tops, brands are producing various versions in response to market demand. From a product development perspective, the question is: “How much drop-shoulder is ideal for sales?” As a consumer, you might wonder: “Which brand’s drop-shoulder top looks the best and fits me the best?”
Notice something? Both sides are essentially trying to meet each other’s goals. On one hand, developers aim to create popular and sellable products that align with current trends. On the other, consumers want to buy attractive and suitable items that also match current trends. Understanding both perspectives helps in mastering the “trend code,” leading to successful sales for developers and satisfying purchases for consumers, creating a win-win situation.
The current market issue is the overwhelming number of similar choices. Brands struggle to differentiate their products clearly, while consumers often lack sufficient knowledge about basic clothing to make informed decisions. This leads to difficulties in determining what to buy and what is truly suitable. Adding factors like price, material comfort, wearing habits, personal preferences, and trends makes the situation more complex. This results in unsold inventory for brands and wasted time and money for consumers, causing unnecessary waste overall.
Therefore, precise item classification and comprehensive analysis of all fashion details and categories, from simple to complex, is crucial. Breaking down each item’s key points and details, managing quantities, and analyzing style proportions effectively address the challenge of finding the right style and outfit.
For a detailed explanation, refer to the course content of “Style Shaping, Build Your Wardrobe System.”
Everything ultimately stems from the relationship between “your choices” and “the potential for those choices to be combined.”
If you start with the right choices, the possibilities for styling and combining outfits increase. You’ll be able to create more combinations from your existing wardrobe and adjust them based on your needs. If something is missing, you’ll know exactly what it is and can pre-arrange and test new items to see if they fit into your current combinations. This approach allows for precise purchasing in the shortest time, breaking free from your comfort zone.
There are no shortcuts to finding your style; no one method will yield instant results. However, exploring your style and shortening the trial-and-error process can be achieved with the right methods, which is the essence of having a wardrobe system.
That’s all for today. See you in the next post.
[This article is part of the hahow Knowledge Bundle — Graphic and Text Series: “Style Shaping Essentials,” which combines fashion logic with stylistic systems.]
[hahow Exclusive Course: Building a Fashion Style with Logical Systems — “Style Shaping, Build Your Wardrobe System.”]
