Somebody Call Stacy and Clinton Because I Have No Fucking Idea What My Style Is

I am a grown woman. I am a mother. A wife. An author. I own clothing. I regularly leave my house looking reasonably put together. I have attended professional events. I have posed for photographs. I have successfully dressed myself without adult supervision for several decades.

I have no fucking idea what my style is.

Somebody please find Stacy and Clinton from What Not to Wear and get them over here immediately. I don't even need the $5,000 Visa card. Okay, that's a lie. Obviously I want the Visa card. But mostly I need them to stand in front of my closet and explain to me who the fuck I am.

Because I love black. Black is safe. Black is sexy. Black makes sense to me. Give me black jeans, a weird little graphic shirt, my checkered Vans, some jewelry, and I can happily exist.

Except then I see some woman floating around the internet in a pink cottagecore dress looking like she spends her mornings picking strawberries and whispering to woodland creatures, and suddenly I think, Oh my God. That's me.

I am her. I need the dress. I need a little basket. I may need chickens.

Then approximately fourteen minutes later, I see a loose boho maxi dress and decide actually, no, this is me. I am an ethereal barefoot woman who probably makes sourdough and knows what moon phase we're in.

I don't make sourdough. (I tried. It didn’t work. Hello ADHD hyperfocus)

Then mob wife walks through the door wearing a fur coat, gold jewelry, big sunglasses, and an attitude problem, and I'm immediately prepared to abandon the homestead. THERE SHE IS. THAT'S ME.

Until I see something classy and feminine and decide I should build a capsule wardrobe like an adult woman who understands the concept of a neutral.

And then somebody shows me camo and cowboy boots and the little hick town buried inside me comes screaming back to life.

Meanwhile, what am I actually wearing on a random Tuesday? Biker shorts. One of my husband's old shirts. Vans or Crocs. Hair doing whatever the fuck it decided to do that morning. Done.

So… WHO AM I?

This question has bothered me an embarrassing amount because the internet is obsessed with helping women find their personal style, except somehow every attempt I make to do that leaves me with seventeen additional questions and a shopping cart full of shit belonging to seven different women.

I've done the color analysis. Apparently I am a Soft Summer.

Great. Wonderful. What the fuck does that mean?

Then I immediately decided I needed a Soft Summer with a dark twist, because obviously I cannot simply accept the colors assigned to me. I need to gothify the seasonal color analysis.

The internet says muted. Cool. Soft. Dusty. My heart says black. We are at an impasse.

Then we're supposed to determine our body type.

Am I a pear? An apple? An hourglass? A rectangle? Kibbe something? Romantic something? Dramatic something? Why have we turned getting dressed into an SAT question?

I don't know what shape I am. I like Red Bull. I like guac and chips. I like cheese. That's my body type.

SOMEBODY SEDATE ME.

And underneath all the jokes, I actually do wonder how many women feel like this. Because at some point, I got it into my head that I was supposed to develop a recognizable personal style.

That there should be some cohesive thread running through my closet. That if you pulled ten outfits out of it, you should be able to look at them and say, Yes. Obviously these belong to the same woman.

Mine look like several women are sharing a closet without ever having met one another. And maybe that's okay? Because why the fuck do I need to choose?

Why can't I wear the soft, flowy, boho crunchy homeschool mom who definitely has homemade granola in her pantry dress on Monday and look like I'm headed to a Pierce the Veil concert on Tuesday?

Why can't Wednesday be camo and boots because apparently we're reconnecting with my little hick-town roots? Maybe Thursday I want big sunglasses and gold jewelry and enough mob-wife energy that people wonder whether my husband knows a guy.

Friday? Biker shorts and Crocs. She's tired. Leave her alone.

I think part of getting older has been realizing how many completely arbitrary rules I've been carrying around about what a woman is supposed to look like. Especially once you become a wife and a mother.

There's this weird little shift where suddenly you start wondering whether things are too young for you. Too revealing. Too trendy. Too weird. Too casual. Whether mothers are supposed to dress differently. Whether you're supposed to have graduated from certain clothes by now.

And I don't know who made these rules. But apparently I gave them office space in my brain.

Church made this even weirder for me.

I grew up Catholic, and church meant you dressed for church. You were going somewhere important. You wore something nice. That idea planted itself pretty deeply in me, even after my relationship with church changed.

Then I spent time in nondenominational churches, but that dress your best instinct followed me right through the doors.

Then we joined the LDS church for a hot minute. (Hi, Salt Lake City. Technically still inactive members over here. If anyone happens to stumble across this, please expedite my record removal. Love you, mean it.)

And OH LORD. Church clothes became a whole different experience.

It sometimes felt like a fashion show wrapped in an unhealthy dose of modesty culture, which was already complicated territory for me. Suddenly I was thinking about hemlines and shoulders and what counted as appropriate and whether I looked put together enough while also trying not to think about whether I was thinking too much about what I was wearing to fucking church.

And now? We go to a church where a guy regularly shows up in a Patriots jersey. Nobody cares. Nobody gasps. Jesus has thus far declined to strike him down. And slowly, I've gotten more comfortable.

I even wore Vans with a dress to church. GASP. I know. Scandalous.

And you know what happened? Absolutely fucking nothing. I worshipped. I listened. I prayed. My shoes remained checkered. The earth continued rotating.

It seems ridiculous when I write it out, but I think that's part of what I'm trying to figure out—not just what my personal style is, but how much of what I think I should wear actually belongs to me.

How much came from my mother? How much came from church? How much came from being a teenager in the 2000s? How much came from becoming a mom? How much came from publishing and suddenly needing to think about my brand?

Because THAT is another layer of this bullshit. I'm an author. So now apparently I am also a visual product.

At signings, I think about whether I look like Lila Grey. When I'm taking photos, I think about whether something matches the website and the books and the pink and black and the whole Smutlandia universe I've built.

But what the fuck does looking like Lila Grey even mean when I am Lila Grey?

If I'm wearing camo, I'm still me. If I'm wearing a pink floral dress, I'm still me. If I'm wearing all black and enough eyeliner to concern somebody's grandmother, still me. If I'm wearing Crocs and one of my husband's shirts while carrying an emotional-support Red Bull? Unfortunately, also me.

Maybe personal style isn't supposed to be a uniform. Maybe that's the part I've been getting wrong. Maybe style isn't finding one aesthetic and committing to it until death. Maybe personal style is figuring out what you actually like when nobody else gets a vote.

What colors make you happy. What fabrics don't make you want to crawl out of your skin. What shoes you'll actually wear instead of the beautiful ones sitting untouched in your closet because they hurt like a bitch. What makes you feel sexy. What makes you feel comfortable. What makes you feel powerful. What makes you feel soft. What makes you look in the mirror and think, Oh. There I am.

And maybe those things don't always look the same. We're not always the same.

I'm not the same woman at a book signing that I am fishing with my kid. I'm not the same woman sitting in church on Sunday morning that I am going to a concert. I'm not the same woman having dinner with my husband that I am teaching homeschool at the kitchen table.

But they're all me.

Maybe my closet gets to contain all of them. Maybe some days I want to look like a tattooed romance author who might ruin your life. Maybe some days I want to look like I churn my own butter. Maybe some days I want to look like my husband has several businesses the FBI would like to discuss with him.

And maybe some days my aesthetic is simply: I PUT PANTS ON. BE PROUD OF ME.

I don't know if I'll ever have one clearly defined personal style.

I'm still going to save outfit inspiration belonging to twelve completely different aesthetics. I'm still going to buy black when my color analysis politely begs me to stop. I'm still going to occasionally convince myself that one dress will transform me into a woman who gardens barefoot at sunrise.

And I'm absolutely still wearing my Vans to church.

But maybe finding your style isn't about finally choosing which version of yourself you're allowed to be. Maybe it's getting comfortable enough with yourself to let all of them get dressed.

And if anybody knows Stacy and Clinton, still call them. I have questions. And I would, in fact, like the $5,000 Visa card.

xoxo,
Lila