Style Beyond the Scroll

How much of your style is shaped by trends, and how much is truly yours? By Madison Mayberry

“The more you stop consuming all of the content telling you who, how and what to be; the more space you create for your soul to show you who you actually came here to be.”

I came across this on Substack yesterday and it stopped me in my scroll. Which is Gen Z for “it stopped me in my tracks”. I immediately pulled up my most loyal companion – the iPhone notes app to untangle the thoughts swirling in my head.

There’s a quiet magic that happens when you stop letting the world tell you who you should be. In a time when every scroll, ad, and algorithm is designed to shape our identities — what to wear, how to think, what success should look like — it’s easy to lose sight of the things that actually resonate with you.

For example, were skinny jeans back in your rotation at the drop of an Alix Earle ad? Or were they never Poshmark-ed in the first place because you liked the way you felt in them?

That’s the real question: How much of your style is shaped by trends, and how much is truly yours? There’s no shame in loving the latest runway predictions, syncing your wardrobe with the season’s It-color, or leaning into a viral aesthetic. But it’s powerful to pause and ask: Am I choosing this, or is it choosing me?

The more you step away from this constant input, the more space you create for your own voice to come through.

At first, the silence may feel unsettling — 30 minutes in the morning without a scroll? Impossible. But in that space, something shifts.

Without external noise dictating your next fashion move, you start dressing based on intuition rather than influence. You realize your creativity, style, and vision don’t have to fit into a curated aesthetic. They are uniquely yours.

And that is where the magic happens. Your personal style isn’t just about what’s trending— it’s about how you bring it to life!