“Lots of people mistake style for stuff. Style really isn't about stuff. It's a manner of thinking and feeling that you know yourself well enough to be confident in your own point of view. It's not really about what you buy, how many things you have, or how expensive those things were. The stuff is just the ingredients! It's so much more about how you put things together. It’s about the critical thinking to understand yourself, understand your true likes and dislikes - and, to have to confidence and curiosity to figure out how to project the real you to the world through clothing.”

There are very few universal experiences in this life. Some would say it’s just death and taxes that we all share. But if I could so bold as to add one more to the list, I would say it’s the experience of walking into your closet full of clothes and still feeling like you have nothing to wear. We’ve all felt it and it is endlessly frustrating.

I’ve got seven reasons as to why you’ve ended up with a wardrobe you hate - and, hopefully a few helpful tips on how to avoid falling into these traps in the future.

Rules *can* be a good thing, creating order or a shorthand way to skip to a desired end result. But you have to have context on who invented them and why. Because style is ultimately completely subjective. There is no clear “right” and “wrong” - only what looks and feels good to you.

The tricky thing is that “style rules” are so often presented as absolute fact. And this just isn’t the case.

Let’s take a quick tour of some of the “style rules” we think you should break. And do it with pleasure.

I suddenly found myself *desperate * to figure out my own three words, convinced that THIS would finally be the one key to unlocking my true personal style. If you’re feeling the same way, let’s take a look at how a few different style experts have approached the problem and our take on the pros & cons of each.