I Hate Personal Style
There’s this word that always rubs me the wrong way in fashion conversations: personal style. Everyone in fashion circles throws it around like it’s the ultimate compliment — “She has personal style,” “He’s not performative, he has personal style.” But when I hear it, it doesn’t sound freeing or expressive. It sounds like a hierarchy — like a quiet way of saying I’m above you.
The people most praised for having “personal style” are rarely the ones trying to. They’re painters, bikers, reggae artists — people whose lives bleed into their clothes. Jane Birkin. Helena Bonham Carter. They dress like themselves because their worlds already have shape and texture. Fashion is just an extension of their rhythm, not the core of their identity.
That’s what I think people mean when they say someone has “sauce.” It’s not about being original; it’s about effortlessness mixed with intention — the way an outfit feels like it just belongs to that person. Sauce happens when someone’s clothes and their inner life are in sync. It’s not performative, it’s sincere.
Get Precious Omar’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
But here’s the part that unsettles me: fashion people love to shame “performative” dressing, as if anyone experimenting with an aesthetic they’re not fully part of is fake. A guy who wears a biker jacket because he likes the look suddenly gets called inauthentic because he’s not in the culture. But what if he just likes it? What if it’s curiosity, not deceit?
Every subculture started with people trying on ways of being. Performance is how you learn who you are. So when fashion people act like they are above performance, what they’re really doing is using “personal style” as a pedestal — another way to prove they’re more authentic, more individual, more real.
Maybe that’s why the word “personal style” bothers me. I used to ground my identity in something outside of fashion — in Jesus Christ — and that gave me a sense of peace nothing else could touch. My value wasn’t in how I dressed, or how authentic I looked doing it. It was in something eternal. But in fashion, everything feels temporary. Identity here depends on how well you perform individuality — which feels exhausting and, honestly, empty.
So no, I don’t hate “personal style.” I hate the way people use it to feel superior. I hate that it’s become a weapon disguised as taste. Because at the end of the day, none of this posturing matters — not the labels, not the aesthetics, not the fake depth of “authenticity.” We’re all just doing this to die.
If I’m being honest, I don’t want my clothes to prove who I am.
I just want them to flow from who I am.
