Outfits I Wore In 2021-2022 While Still Determining Which Style Was Truly Me

Okay… these aren’t completley awful outfits I’ll admit that. There were, obviously, a few that didn’t make the collage. These looks all come from the time I was living in Los Angeles, when I was actively discovering fashion and felt, for the first time, officially “allowed” to dress exactly how I wanted. Big city rules. Or maybe the absence of them.

I’ve always been experimental with clothes. In elementary school, my signature look was a skirt over pants with green high-top Converse. Everyone had an assigned shoe color we were “authorized” to wear yes, that was a real rule, and yes, we took it very seriously in fifth grade. Then came high school, thrifting, and the full-blown hipster era of 2009/2010. What a time. Layers, irony, and the illusion that we were all onto something.

Living in Los Angeles woke up that 2010 version of me the one who loved fashion without overthinking it. Somewhere between 2011 and 2021, that part of me had gone quiet. A whole decade, honestly. So when I landed there, I went all in. Crossroads. Wasteland. Almost daily. Every location, on a loop throughout the week. I spent nearly all the money I made waitressing not to keep up with anyone else, but to finally pin down my personal style. Officially.

I was buying clothes, wearing them, then reselling them two weeks later back to Crossroads. Over and over. Which, in hindsight, says everything: I was circling something, but never quite landing on it. The clothes weren’t hitting the exact spot I was searching for.

Then I left Los Angeles, and suddenly the thrift stores I loved were gone. No more daily experimenting. No easy reselling. The clothes I owned just… stayed. Hanging in my closet. And that’s when it hit me I had been living inside a fashion bubble. Some of the outfits I wore were objectively ridiculous, and I don’t think I would’ve realized that if I hadn’t left.

I can still see who's in that bubble now when scrolling on social media. You can always tell who’s in it—the outfits get louder, stranger, more extreme, until they’re no longer personal at all. I don’t judge it. If anything, I’m slightly jealous. I’m sure they’re having fun. I’m also sure their wallet is hurting, and maybe their sense of self too.

Needless to say, it was all a phase and a useful one at that.

Looking back, every mismatched layer and every thrifted treasure led me here closer to knowing exactly what feels like me.

currently in 2026 hello from the other side