Style Workshop Week 4: Your Three Words

Visuals are great, and pulling together your inspiration board was a critical step in visualizing the kind style you want to attain! But they can sometimes feel…kinda nebulous. When it comes down to making real day-to-day decisions about what pieces to buy or how to put together outfits, for most of us, a Pinterest board just isn’t all that helpful.

You might be nodding your head, having the ah-ha moment that perhaps this is where things have gone off the rails for you in the past.

So, what's the solution? Many stylists, from Tibi’s Amy Smilovic to TikTok’s Allison Bornstein recommend distilling down your style to just three words. You can make us here at Indyx another member of that club, because that’s exactly what we’ll be doing together this week.

Incredibly simple, yet also incredibly effective: the idea is to describe your style with just three carefully selected adjectives. We love how this approach is extremely flexible yet specific and establishes a solid “north star” to help you stay true to your style, rather than fall prey to every new trend.

Alongside your inspiration board, your three words are meant to give you a clear idea of your style in both visuals and words. While they each serve different purposes, they can also help strengthen the other. Throughout this week’s lesson you will be encouraged to revisit your inspiration board to choose your three words.

Right now, picking three words to describe your style might feel a little overwhelming, but we will guide you through the process step-by-step.

The Lesson

Name any major fashion icon and we can easily describe their style in three words. Lady Gaga? Raw, Eccentric, Dangerous. Beyonce? Sexy, Powerful, Sculptural. Taylor Swift? Classic, Feminine, Vintage. Their style is iconic in large part because they are consistent - which is also why it is relatively easy for an outsider to identify their three words.

This week we too are defining our style in three words. After all, we are icons in the making. The purpose of doing this is likewise, threefold. 

Why should I use this approach?

First, you can use your words when editing your wardrobe, as a way to decide if something can be made to fit through good styling, or if it just doesn’t work for your style.

Second, it similarly serves as a checkpoint when buying a new item. You can quickly ask yourself if the item matches your three words to avoid unnecessary purchases. 

Third, it provides great guidance when styling an outfit. Say you have a pair of jeans, a tee shirt and some loafers that perfectly fit into your “classic”, “relaxed” style, and your third word is “edgy”, so you opt for a leather jacket over a blazer. It’s styling, made easy.

Not only will your three words make decisions easier, but it's also the best kind of fashion literacy to have in your arsenal, allowing you to easily communicate with others about what you’re going for. For example, when speaking to your Indyx stylist, you will both be on the same page on how you want to look and what you’re missing to get there. Even when out shopping, a sales associate can easily point you in the direction of the more “androgynous” clothes you’re looking for, rather than having her pull out everything they have available.

Inspiration boards are an important visual definition of our style, as after all, fashion is a visual medium. But it can be hard to hold a full inspiration board in our heads when we’re trying to evaluate something against it, while just three words are easy to remember. It can be hard to answer “does this dress fit my inspiration board?”, but it is probably much easier to answer “is this dress classic, effortless, and playful?” A verbal description helps us evaluate individual items or outfit inspiration against our style, ensuring that your inspiration board never loses its focus. The two perfectly compliment each other. You’ll likely find you will have a natural preference for either visuals or words, but it is very useful to have both at hand.

Why three words? Anything less is constraining; a one word style is a stereotype, and a two word style is limiting. This is true for how you interact with fashion as well as how people see your sense of style. But once we add more than three words, we sacrifice clarity. You are no longer able to communicate through your style and others can’t recognize you. So, three words feels like the perfect balance.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that this isn't graded homework. There is no right answer, just one that serves you best and helps you communicate to others. As the workplace maxim goes: done is better than perfect - and, you can always revisit and adjust later.

The Homework

The homework this week is to decide on your three words. 

Remember to actually write these down, that way you won’t forget them and it will make it easy for your Indyx stylist to see them, too. We’ve actually built a spot in the app to do this! Navigate to Indyx > Style Workshop > Week 4.

It can be hard to just pluck three words out of thin air - and, the good news is that we don’t have to.

Start with your inspiration board

Obviously, we’ve already done a lot of hard work in putting together your inspiration board. Let’s use it! Clear your mind and scan over your board for just a few seconds - like, 3 seconds or less. You are trying to take in the overall emotional impression of the board without getting stuck in overanalyzing it. Then, immediately write down all the words that come to mind.

If your three words flow to you naturally based only on your inspiration board, then we give you a hearty congratulations. Good for you! We encourage you to simply go with that.

But, many people have one of two opposite issues:

1. They find their mind completely blank with a sudden case of writer’s block

2. They are overflowing with too many words, and struggle to get down to just three

If this is the case for you, you certainly aren’t alone - and here’s our suggestion on how to solve it.

If you need help generating…try our Three Word Quiz

If you’re struggling to come up with any words, our in-app Three Word Quiz can quickly get you to a starting place of three words to describe your style. You can find it by navigating in the app to Explore > Style Quiz.

Based on your results, we’ll also give you a curated word bank of related style words. If something isn’t feeling quite right, you may want to swap things around to make them feel more you.

In case you want to see it all in one place, here is our full style word bank:

Of course, all of this is just a starting point and a suggestion. You are free to include any words you want, whether they’re in this style word bank or not!

If you need help editing…here is our guidance

Let each word serve its own purpose.

We are editing down to just three ideas, but at the same time, we want space for each idea to breathe. If you only get three words, let each of them be different!

Notice if some of the words you are considering have similar meanings, and consider editing down to just the one word out of that group that is most resonant to you.

For example, you may have written down (among others): cool, effortless, and confident. And for you, all three of these words are getting at the same idea of how you want to feel in your clothes. Can you edit down to just one of these three, so that you have room for other words that represent a different facet of your style?

Let your words be a guide.

Your three words will serve a real purpose in your daily life: you’ll use them when you get dressed in the morning, when you buy new clothes and when you (hopefully, rarely!) let go of some. So, it’s important that the words you choose are helpful to you as a guide: something that you want to move towards rather than necessarily a 100% faithful description of where you are now. So, which words feel most empowering or instructive to you in making your day-to-day style decisions?

We’ll also note here: it’s okay if some of your words are in contrast to one another - in fact, that might even be encouraged! Fashion’s most famous images are defined by creative tension and sharp contrasts. And, choosing contrasting words may even help force more clarity about your unique style, making them an even stronger guide.

For example, if you choose classic, preppy, and layered…those are adding up to a pretty established style archetype (or, even stereotype). It’s Ralph Lauren! That’s great if that *truly* matches your personal style deep down inside. But, if you’re just subconsciously trying to pick words that “make sense” against a preconceived archetype then you may find yourself back here in a few months.

Say instead you instead choose classic, minimal, and layered - just one word different. At first glance, minimal and layered may seem in conflict with one another. How can you have lots of layers but also be minimal? Maybe you define for yourself that you love pieces with clean lines, limited detailing, and neutral colors (minimal). But you also love when those minimal pieces are layered together to create texture and shape in an outfit (layered). And voila! You’ve used the contrast to actually create more clarity for yourself in the pieces you choose and how you uniquely put them together.

Let your words feel like you.

If we can put *one* more thing in your head to consider: you also don’t want your words to feel too far from home. If none of your three words could at all describe your current wardrobe, then maybe you’ve stretched too far - you are styling an imaginary idealized version of yourself, rather than your true self.

Gut check your three words: would they also reasonably describe you as a person? Okay, maybe not your everyday running late to the office, just spilled coffee on my pants, don’t even know what’s for dinner yet self. But, you on your best day. Do these three words reflect how you feel on the inside, and therefore want to be perceived on the outside? Because at the end of the day, that is all about what personal style is about.

Let us help!

The cool thing about the Style Workshop that you’re never alone. If you’re someone who benefits from some external processing & feedback, we’re here for you.

Remember that community Slack channel you got the invite to in the very first logistics email? There are tons of friendly and helpful folks over there who would be happy to give their feedback. There’s even a whole #style-workshop channel to do it in.

Finally: it’s not that deep!

What we want to avoid here is overthinking to the point of analysis paralysis. Even if you’re not 100% sure about your three words, we encourage you to settle in with your current best effort.

Style is a journey, not a destination - so you can always revisit later to tweak. The practice of actually using your words over the next few weeks and months may actually give you the clarity you need to find just the right ones. So, the main thing is not to get totally stuck in this step.

And, remember to input your three words in the Indyx app under Profile > Style Hub > Your Three Words so that your stylist can easily reference them!

Until next week…

Found yourself here without being signed up for the Style Workshop?

Obviously, we’re giving away this awesome content for free.

But, sign up for this experience in our app and you’ll get this 8-week course conveniently emailed to you at our recommended cadence to help keep you accountable.

You’ll also get private, exclusive access to our community Slack channel where you can meet other like-minded folks and discuss your progress.

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