How to Be Stylish if You’re Not Born With It

There’s a common style myth that if you aren’t born with an innate sense of style, there is no hope for you.  I’ve heard this from many women, thinking that no matter how much they want to feel stylish and put-together, they’ll never get there.  If that’s you, if you’re wondering how to be stylish if you’re not born with it, you’re in luck!

The truth is that style is a skill that can be learned, like anything else.

I brought this up on Instagram, and several women said, “I hope that’s true, because I’m clueless!” or “I hope that’s true because I’m still trying to get there.”  YES friends, it’s true.

I can say personally that I learned style.  I was always “into” clothes and was somewhat style-inclined, but I didn’t necessarily know what I was doing.  I soaked up every style tip I could from magazines, style shows like What Not to Wear, articles and blogs online, and whatever I could find.

Through all that, I learned how to mix and match like a pro, how to use accessories to pull together outfits, how to dress my body shape (and all of your body shapes!), how to build a great wardrobe, how to choose shoes, and everything else. 🙌🏽

I can also attest to thousands of women in our PMT community having felt clueless about style and learning it.  It’s been especially fun to see women in Simply Put Together have style click in a way that hasn’t before!💡 Lightbulbs have been going off for how to TRULY build a wardrobe that you love and how to put outfits together effortlessly.  It’s easy when you learn the right style concepts!

So, yes. Some people are born with an innate sense of style.  But most of us aren’t.  Like any skill in life, we can absolutely learn style! 💯  And if you want to learn it too, you’re in the right place!

Alright, let’s have some fun and get a little concrete by looking at an outfit and demystifying how to pull it together.

Ready?  We’ll start with this:

Above I am in a t-shirt and shorts, which doesn’t look pulled together at all.  If something like this is a typical outfit for you (whether with shorts, jeans, pants or whatever), you can easily turn it into a pulled together look, like the one below:

This look is similar to the one above, and still totally casual, but it looks WAY better.  All it takes is a few easy style concepts.  Let’s talk through them!

#1 – First, the shorts in the first outfit were too big.  Fit is queen in style, so it’s super important to learn how items should properly fit.  The shorts in the first outfit make me look much wider and make my shirt look bigger, so the whole outfit appears sloppy.  I switched them out for shorts that fit a little better.  Notice that they’re not SUPER fitted.  There’s still plenty of extra room around my legs.  But, there’s not so much room that they look sloppy.  Again, this is why it’s important to learn how items should properly fit!

#2 – Second, I did a loose, front-tuck with my top which does two things.  One, it adds a finishing detail.  Two, and more importantly, it defines my waistline and creates better proportions on my body.  Proportions are key, and there are a few simple proportion guidelines that make everything look better.  (I teach these in Simply Put Together and they’ve been game changers for women!)

#3 – Third, I added earrings.  I’ve said over and over that accessories polish off outfits and always encourage you to add them!  These earrings are very lightweight (made of leather) and sooo comfy to wear.  I love that I can wear statement earrings without the pain and annoyance of heavy earrings!

#4 – I added print.  One easy style guideline you can use is that if you have an outfit full of solid pieces, add a print somewhere to give it some more visual interest!  Here, I just added prints subtly with leopard print earrings and sandals.  There are several basic style guidelines like this that make it a lot easier to put together winning combos.

Here’s the side by side:

These are all foundational style concepts, which I’ll talk more about in another post.  For now, I just want you to see that when you know just a few key style rules and guidelines, pulling together outfits becomes easy.  You basically have a system or a framework for how to put together outfits, which makes style TOTALLY learnable!  Seriously.  The 3-part framework that I teach in Simply Put Together (which opens again in a few weeks) is the system I personally use to build a cohesive, easy-to-use wardrobe and put together outfits effortlessly every time.  It’s amazing to have a framework!  If you like posts like this, then you will LOVEEEEE Simply Put Together.

If you want to get started TODAY with a few style tricks, I’ve created a free guide called 5 Easy Tricks to Step Up Your Style.  It has a few of the tricks we’ve talked about here that you can start working into your outfits.

Enter your info below to download the free guide!