I Don’t Care What the Cool Girls Are Wearing

Style isn’t developed staring at a phone screen

Every morning, I open my Substack inbox and do a little triage.

Some pieces stop me immediately. A recent one on how to read a wine list: informative, well-designed, actually useful. Another on finding inspiration outside of Pinterest, which reminded me that style isn’t developed staring at a phone screen. I saved both. I thought about both for the rest of the day.

Then there were the others. “What the cool girls are really wearing.” “What the it-girls are buying for spring.” Article after article, indistinguishable from the last. No point of view. No curiosity. Just consumption dressed up as content.

I used to wonder how influencers always seemed to know what was next. How they’d all post the same necklace on the same week. What comes to mind is that silver shell pendant by Juju Vera, you know exactly the one, and suddenly it was everywhere. Every girl in the city, every girl in the Hamptons, wearing it or a version of it by the end of the summer.

The answer is simple, and a little boring: the brand gifted it to them.

That’s the whole secret. There is no secret.

And here’s the other thing nobody says out loud: it stops being cool the moment everyone has it. So now you’re on to the next thing. Then the next. Chasing a moving target set by people who are being paid to move it. You’re not developing taste. You’re just shopping on a loop.

Nothing on that list will feel cool in a month. More importantly, none of it will feel like you.

So how do you actually develop personal style?

It starts with subtraction, not addition. Clear out your wardrobe and keep only two things: the pieces you reach for without thinking, and the ones you couldn’t part with even if you never wore them again. The first group is your foundation. The second is your personality. Everything else is noise.

From there, here are a few things that have actually helped me:

The 3-word method. Stylist Allison Bornstein has a simple exercise for defining your style in three adjectives. It sounds almost too easy, but naming what your style is, gives you something to shop toward, and something to edit against. Look at your wardrobe and decide what they are:

• Practical Word: What is the theme of the most worn items in your closet (ex: casual, oversized, tailored, edgy)?

• Aspirational Word: What is your dream style? Scroll through your Pinterest boards and style icons.

• Emotional Word: What emotion do you feel or want to feel when you put on your clothes? Is it sexy, powerful, relaxed?

A private Pinterest board. Not a public one. Not an aesthetic mood board for an audience. A private one, just for you. Fill it with outfits, places, art, interiors, anything that pulls at something. Patterns will emerge that you didn’t plan for.

Your music. This one surprised me when I finally paid attention to it. I love 70s rock and Lilith Fair-era music, and I can trace that influence through my wardrobe more clearly than I expected. What you listen to shapes how you want to move through the world. Let it.

People watching, in person. I walked from dinner to Salt & Straw in the West Village recently, and instead of going straight home, I sat on a bench across from Fairfax, put my earbuds in, ate my ice cream, and just watched. I noticed who caught my eye and why. I thought about my own wardrobe differently because of it. No algorithm was involved.

Go directly to the source. When I find a niche brand I love, I email them. Not to buy what’s already there, to ask about custom. It’s worked more than once. I recently reverse image searched a hat I found on Pinterest, tracked down the brand, and reached out about a one-of-a-kind version. I’ll report back when it arrives. But that piece will be mine in a way that no gifted necklace ever could be.

Let mainstream be your jumping off point, not your destination. When the Victoria Beckham x Gap utility jumpsuit released, I noticed it. I liked it. But instead of buying that exact piece, I started looking for my own version, something with the same energy. Mainstream can be useful that way. It can help you identify what you’re drawn to. The silhouette, the mood, the feeling. Use it as a reference, then go find something that’s actually yours.

Personal style isn’t something you find on a list of what the cool girls are wearing. It’s something you uncover slowly, by paying attention to yourself instead of everyone else.

Stop following, and be your own Leader.