“What’s my fashion style?” isn’t easy to answer—personal style doesn’t come naturally to most. It can be difficult to identify how to portray yourself or what makes you feel “like you.” And with noisy social media platforms advertising numerous popular brands, it’s often easier to opt for passing trends instead of finding clothes that represent you.
But knowing what your personal style is matters. Feeling great in your clothing—like it accurately expresses who you are—offers confidence and a better understanding of yourself.
Read on to discover how to find your personal style and enjoy feeling great about what you wear.
Try these 10 tips to discover your personal fashion style and learn how to express yourself through your wardrobe.
Hundreds of online style quizzes exist to help you determine your preferred style, including aesthetic, colors, fashion type, and era. These quizzes won’t have all the answers—trial and error narrows down exactly what you like—but they’re a great way to get a broad sense of your tastes.
For example, if a quiz says your styles are primarily Trendy and Romantic, you can search for those terms on Google and Pinterest and browse the results to nail down your style.
Scour your wardrobe and select your go-to outfits. Your favorite jeans, jackets, boots, and skirts are the cornerstones of your wardrobe, likely make you feel confident, and are an excellent indicator of your unique style.
Then, use ThredUp's improved Search feature, which allows you to use normal language to find similar items that fit into your collection. Simply search for a type of outfit or an occasion, like “cool summer blouse” or “classy holiday skirt,” and browse AI-powered suggestions.
Whose style do you love? That says something about the clothing you’ll feel good in.
If you can’t immediately think of celebrities, influencers, or models whose styles you admire, try looking at ThredUp’s latest trends. This feature lets you discover current looks by browsing the site’s most favorited items and top trending searches. This is one of our top thrifting hacks for finding styles that fit your wardrobe.
Some outfits flatter certain silhouettes and features, like straight-leg slacks that spotlight long legs and crop tops that elongate shorter torsos. That said, be your authentic self and choose outfits you love on your body. Really, choosing “flattering” clothing just means selecting items you feel great in.
When in doubt, you can style oversized shirts in various ways to emphasize different parts of your body like your legs, neckline, or even midriff—an oversized button-down pairs perfectly with a crop top.
Pinterest is an excellent tool for discovering your personal style. Jump in and start saving every look you love, and you might notice a pattern. Say you’re pinning a lot of Free People clothing—you probably like the bohemian/hippie-chic vibe.
Looking at Pinterest boards is also an easy way to determine your style icons. After pinning your twentieth picture of Audrey Hepburn, it’s safe to say you love classy, vintage clothing.
You can do the same thing on ThredUp, saving your favorite items so you can come back to them once you’re ready to purchase. This also teaches the algorithm what you love so you see more of it.
A capsule wardrobe is a collection of timeless clothing and accessories you can combine into hundreds of looks. Distilling your outfits into ride-or-die pieces helps you clarify your signature style and develop a consistent, cohesive wardrobe.
This tip isn’t just fashion-conscious—it’s earth-conscious. Building a capsule wardrobe means paring down your closet into fewer, more impactful pieces and reducing your total clothing consumption.
Determining the colors that make you feel great is a quick way to speed up the shopping process—simply filter for them! Look at your wardrobe to determine what you gravitate toward. You can also do online quizzes to find out what works best with your skin tone, hair color, and eye color.
Beginning to understand your personal style? You can start building up your wardrobe before you’re 100% certain.
Collect a few foundational pieces that complement various looks, like cropped black pants that pair well with elegant, alternative, and boho pieces. Don’t forget a few classic denims.
Versatile clothing helps you try different styles without committing to an entirely new wardrobe. If you change your mind about your boho look, you can restyle those black pants the next day into something new.
Trial and error is a fantastic way to find out what you feel good in. Experiment with various looks and get creative. You won’t know until you take the leap—your ideal vibe could be something you thought you’d never like!
This is even easier when you buy preloved clothing. Thrifting at ThredUp is an affordable, sustainable way to experiment responsibly. Buying (and wearing!) secondhand clothing instead of new reduces carbon emissions by an average of 25%, so you’re saving your wallet and the planet.
Defining your style is difficult when you feel stifled by old clothes that don’t fit your body or suit your vibe. And it’s frustrating trying to force clothes into a look just because they’re in your closet.
No need—find clothes that no longer bring you joy and donate them or use services like ThredUp’s Clean Out to give them a new life while you refresh your style.
Not ready to part quite yet? We recommend mending and restyling old favorites to extend their life and get a one-of-a-kind look.
Wardrobe authenticity is priceless—it boosts confidence and means you’re in charge of how you express yourself to the world.
Finding your style is simple on ThredUp. Our AI Search feature lets you use complex, highly specific search queries to gain accurate results. And buying preloved outfits makes it easy to play around with various vibes to discover what you like—all while reducing your fashion footprint.
Buy or sell on ThredUp to make your wardrobe uniquely you.