Sometime in the fall of 2012 (right around when his relationship with Taylor Swift was A Thing), Harry Styles became my main source of style inspiration. This was a surprising-but-welcome development: I had never consciously co-opted a male star’s look before and wasn’t even a big One Direction fan, and yet I had a mental catalog of his outfits that I’d reference whenever I went shopping.
On more than one occasion, I found myself gravitating toward his sartorial faithfuls: loose T-shirts, skinny jeans, retro sneakers, ankle boots, a slouchy posture…you get it:
PHOTO: Danny E. Martindale
Of course, I didn’t dress like this every day. But when I did, I felt more sure of myself. It was as if his vibe was a mirror of my most authentic self.
Harry wasn’t my first style icon—in the past, I looked to women and female characters I admired for inspiration. Dressing like them was my attempt at emulating the qualities about them I liked. But these phases tended to be short-lived and almost always forced, as if I was play-acting as a character. In my Zooey Deschanel years, for example, I’d buy cutesy prints and vintage dresses but never know how to put everything together. I’d breathe a sigh of relief as soon as I got home and changed into my favorite oversized sweatshirt from college.
Once I found Harry, though, everything clicked. I was feeling more confident because I liked how my butt looked in skinny jeans; I was comfortable in the T-shirts and collar shirts; and I knew cool shoes would tie the whole look together. Plus, it was so stress-free to wake up and know exactly what to wear that day—a feeling I had rarely experienced before.
In One Direction-era Harry, I thought I had found my OTSP (that is, one true style pairing). But then, he went and changed up his look to this:
PHOTO: Ethan Miller
New Harry has been doing a printed, almost-exclusively-Gucci suiting thing that totally works if you’re a former boy bander looking to launch a career as a solo rock star. But that’s just not me, literally or figuratively.
I realized couldn’t go down this path with Harry, so I needed to find a new style icon. Enter Finn Wolfhard, the 14-year-old star of Netflix’s Stranger Things and summer blockbuster It. (Stay with me here.)
PHOTO: Gabriel Olsen
Though I was an early adapter to Stranger Things, I didn’t really pay attention to Finn’s style until mid-way through watching It, when my husband leaned over and whispered, “You dress like Richie.” He was referencing this outfit, specifically:
PHOTO: Brooke Palmer
“Oh my God, you’re right,” I whispered as I flashbacked to earlier that summer, when I tried on a loud, ’90s button-down shirt at a vintage shop in London and asked my husband what he thought. “It’s…a look,” he said, generously, after a long pause. I bought it anyway:
Now, Finn’s look isn’t as clearly curated as Harry’s—it’s much harder to pin down what it even is—but that’s what I like about it. He may be in his early teens, but he’s already given us (OK, me) three distinct styles to emulate: the outfits of Mike Wheeler, Richie Tozier, and Finn IRL. They’re all equally inspirational and exhibit a few common threads—think lots of tees, striped shirts, button downs, and cool sneakers. Plus, that omnipresent slouchy posture I love so much.
With this revelation in mind, I went back and revisited some of Mike Wheeler’s outfits and discovered I already owned several similar sweaters and jackets as the character, like this one:
PHOTO: Courtesy of Netflix
And once I started down this rabbit hole, I began noticing what Finn himself was wearing off-camera, on the red carpet and in press interviews. Like myself, he seems to have a fondness for striped T-shirts and flats:
PHOTO: Dia Dipasupil
I even went and bought a new turtleneck after he wore this on the carpet:
PHOTO: Steve Granitz
There’s even more inspiration to be found on his Instagram.
And as I watched the second season of Stranger Things, I fell in love with this sweater that’s now at the top of my shopping list:
PHOTO: Courtesy Netflix
I’ve tried to look inward and unpack why I, a grown and married woman, keep dressing like teen boys. I have a few theories. For one, maybe I’m just drawn to Finn’s style because we share the same birthday. (December 23, what up!)
Or perhaps this is simply a nostalgic return to my younger self. The world is currently chaos, so my subconscious could be directing me toward things that are known and comfortable. After all, my wardrobe in grade school consisted of Umbro shorts, Adidas slides, and a variety of free T-shirts I got from being on the swim team. Those were the blissful years before I was very, very aware of the male gaze—so is that it? Now that I’m in a committed relationship and thus subconsciously free of the desire to dress for men, am I reverting to my pre-pubescent sartorial self? In recent years, I’ve embraced my womanhood by dressing in more unisex silhouettes; whereas before, I would wander aimlessly around Anthropologie picking up whatever floral print was on sale. Now, I shop at places that specialize in basics (sweaters from Uniqlo, jeans from Levi’s, sneakers from Nike and Vans)…which is how I’ve amassed a uniform eerily similar to Finn Wolfhard and his characters.
Will I move on to a new style icon someday? Yeah, probably. Until then, though, I’m fully embracing this phase. It’ll probably get worse before it gets better—after all, I did just add a sweet new Mike-approved Casio calculator watch to my wardrobe. As Eleven would say, it’s “bitchin’.”
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