Personal Style as Memory: How Memory and Personal Aesthetic Intersect

Style isn’t necessarily invented. Maybe sometimes it’s simply remembered.

When someone dresses well, it often has less to do with rules and more to do with what they remember, honour, or instinctively return to. Even on the runway, we mainly see a fresh take on an old style — a never-ending recycling of a former trend, reinterpreted and reframed for now.

True personal style is rarely built via rigid systems;  instead it’s accumulated like sediment: layers of memory, identity, and sensory imprint. At its most powerful, it’s often less about “what’s in” and more about what has lived in you — culturally, emotionally, physically.

As humans we are constantly absorbing information,   – —  both consciously and unconsciously — and drawing conclusions from what’s mirrored to us.. Especially so during our formative years.

Let’s explore 4 types of memory that shape personal style:

1. Cultural Memory

What we wear often reflects the echoes of where we come from — the textures, colours, and aesthetics passed down silently through generations. Think:

• The richness of your grandmother’s fabrics

• The drape of a traditional garment

• The colours of your childhood landscape

Even if you’re not consciously replicating it, that sensory memory shapes your taste. It anchors your aesthetic compass.

Personal anecdote: My absolute favourite silhouette to wear is actually almost a replica of a traditional West African outfit I used to wear as a child — a long, fairly streamlined #ankara with a matching top.

Nowadays, I don’t necessarily wear the traditional fabric, but the silhouette is more or less exactly the same, even if today it’s more likely to be in black and from COS rather than colourful and handmade by a dressmaker in Africa.

We often think we’ve evolved beyond our roots, but in style — as in language, music, and food — the past remains embedded in the present. Sometimes your most stylish outfit is actually your earliest remembered one, simply refined over time.

A friend of mine who’s considered very stylish mentioned that as a child he felt the way his grandfather dressed was “cringeworthy.”  Yet he’s realising that now, as an adult, he goes out of his way to buy clothes that closely resemble his late grandfather’s trademark Sunday-best linen suits.

2. Colour Memory

Our relationship with colour is often deeply emotional and rooted in memory. We’re drawn to certain hues not just for how they look — but for how they feel. A soft cornflower blue might remind you of school uniforms or summer skies. Deep burgundy could conjure a memory of a loved one’s lipstick, a velvet sofa from your childhood home, or even a traumatic event. These early associations shape our colour preferences long before we ever hear of “undertones” or “seasons.”

This is why colour analysis can feel so affirming — or unexpectedly confronting. When someone discovers their most flattering palette, it often mirrors colours they’ve loved instinctively all their lives. But it can also reintroduce tones they’ve avoided due to past associations, inviting a reclamation or gentle reprocessing of those memories. Personal colour harmony isn’t just visual — it’s also psychological. It’s about being seen in colours that feel like home, even when you didn’t realise you’d left.

3. Emotional Memory

Certain styles call something up in us — not logic, but feeling. A velvet coat reminds you of who you were during a certain chapter. A particular lipstick shade feels like reclaiming yourself.

• This is why people say, “I just feel like me in this.”

Style can hold a memory of your most aligned self, even if you’ve lost touch with her for a while.

A scent, a silk blouse, a colour you once wore at a pivotal time — these can act as anchors. They hold energy. They recall the moment when you felt powerful, soft, daring, loved.

For example:

• A woman who reaches for red when she’s ready to advocate for herself — because red was the colour she wore the day she left her old life behind.

• A man who buys the same leather jacket every decade — not because it’s trendy, but because it reminds him of dancing until sunrise in his 20s.

• A mother who returns to the eyeliner she wore before she had kids, not to chase youth, but to reconnect with a forgotten facet of her identity.

These aren’t fashion choices. They’re personal artefacts. Clues to the versions of ourselves we’re re-membering — stitching back together.

4. Muscle Memory

There’s also a kind of style fluency that builds over time. You know without thinking:

• Which necklines effortlessly harmonise with your face and body

• Which fabrics or textures just feel wrong on you

• Which colours light you up

That’s generally not mere guesswork. That’s stored, embodied memory — built through wear, error, joy, and noticing.

Muscle memory means you don’t need to run to the mirror or second-guess. You reach for what aligns — because your body remembers. You’ve worn the wrong thing enough times to know what’s right. And as with any language, fluency comes from immersion.

This is how someone can look impeccable in a wildly unconventional outfit — not because it fits a formula, but because their body recognises it as true. It’s the same reason some people appear to dress so “effortlessly.” What you’re seeing is years of quiet observation — a subconscious archive of what flatters, what empowers, and what feels like home.

On the flip side, though — sometimes we lose trust in our own inner knowing, our innate style memory. We may have lost confidence in our taste or self-expression due to a critical parent, cultural conditioning, or a major life change that blurred our sense of identity. When that happens, style or colour analysis systems can start to feel like a prison — where our agency is quietly handed over to a consultant or a set of rules.

But in my view, the role of a consultant is not to define you — it’s to reflect you back to yourself. The best tools help you remember what’s already there. You are not meant to be crammed into a box. Great style already lives in you. On a memory level — you already know.

If you’re ready to reconnect with your own aesthetic memory and uncover what’s always been there, I’d love to guide you. My consultations are designed to honour your individuality — not override it. Book here: