When you go to a college like FIT, just picking out an outfit for your Friday 8 AM can be a closet-demolishing experience. It seems like everyone, from the students to the faculty, counts outfit-arranging as one of their many creative outlets. But as a first-time college freshman, in a city as aesthetically conscious as New York, it is almost too easy to get swept up in the style of your glamorous peers (or completely give up and fearfully live in the same pair of collegiate sweatpants for half of a semester). And while finding your personal style (that borderline between looking good and feeling comfortable in your own skin) is a loooong journey (Ugg boots anyone? Oh, you don’t care to relive those days either?), it is so worth it when waking up in the morning transforms into an artistic—rather than traumatic—experience.
So, how does one step foot—or stiletto—down the all-consuming path of style discovery? Well, start with your DVD collection (no, seriously). A person’s favorite film—or seven—tells more about them than any “style quiz” ever could. Whether you crave the gamine-like elegance of the inimitable Audrey Hepburn (famed for her effortlessly chic on and off-screen ensembles), or the modish, barrier-breaking androgyny of Diane Keaton (known to rock a suit better than half of Hollywood), the movies have always been the telltale cornerstone of fashion trends of the past, present, and future (see Ali MacGraw’s seventies-defining accessories in Love Story, or the, like, totally fab Cali-prep getups of Cher Horowitz and her swoon-worthy virtual closet in 1995’s Clueless).
So next time you’re style seems as if it’s stagnated, curl up on the couch and become better acquainted with that dusty stack of fashion’s finest films. You will be surprised how aesthetically-inspiring it is to gaze appreciatively at the feminine sophistication of Grace Kelly in Rear Window (1954), or the voguish twenties garb of a spellbinding Barbra Streisand in 1968’s Funny Girl.
After all, they don’t call them classics for nothing.
