My Style Evolution: Evaluating Different Style Phases I’ve Gone Through
On the brink of turning twenty, I’ve found myself reminiscing about my pre-teen and early teen years.
I am a world-class nostalgist. I can easily say that nostalgia is one of my most felt emotions. I can even go so far as to say that if I were in Inside Out, nostalgia would be taking the reins, sporting rose-tinted glasses and a cheeky mini dress.
But at its core, is just a fascination with how I’ve evolved. I might only be (almost) twenty but I truly believe that my adolescent years have set the foundation for the person I am today.
Adolescence is impressionable, and so was the desire to reinvent myself. Budding an interest in fashion and self-expression, I would say that I went through three main stylistic “phases” throughout my preteen and teen years.
I want to preface that I’m not the biggest fan of using the word “phase” or describing these periods of my life as “phases.” I truly think that none of these phases existed in a vacuum. Instead, I like to think of it as a style continuum. But for the sake of simplicity, I will break this up into three phases: pre-teen angst, early and middle-teen discovery, and older-teen renewal.
In the spirit of nostalgia, here are some collages of how I would’ve styled myself throughout some of these phases.
Pre-teen angst:
This outfit listed above is a true mark of its times. Staying true to the 2016 Tumblr aesthetic, I’ve given myself a Melanie Martinez baby tee paired with mom jeans. While I internally cringe looking at this outfit now, I think it set the foundation for what discovering what I like/don’t like. I remember discovering new music genres, spending too much time on Tumblr and discovering
Early and Middle Teen:
Older-Teen Renewal (Ages 17- Present) :
This outfit represents a period in my life where I yearned to be taken seriously, while also refusing to come to terms with the fact that I was an adult.
