The Everyday Icon Style Podcast

Episode 152 REWIND: Embrace Individual Style Over Polished Conformity

• Tiffany Howard

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Your closet shouldn’t feel like a treadmill. We explore how to build a personal style that outlasts trends, supports your goals, and makes getting dressed feel effortless. Fashion is created by others and moves fast; style is created by you and moves with your life. I share a practical framework for turning intention into outfits, from naming the feelings you want to project to selecting silhouettes, fabrics, and colors that reinforce that message.

Style is more than clothes; it’s a lever for confidence and a silent extension of your personal brand. We talk about aligning your wardrobe with leadership moments—presentations, client calls, and high-stakes meetings—so your presence reads as consistent and intentional. Then we map how style evolves with life seasons: career pivots, entrepreneurship, travel, motherhood, or stepping into a new decade. Instead of a total overhaul, we focus on refining foundations and refreshing accents so your look matures with you.

Website: www.theeverydayicon.co

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/styledbytiffanyo/

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Everyday Icon Podcast, a podcast focused on helping women entrepreneurs embrace the image she has always envisioned to become the boss she is meant to be. I'm your host, Tiffany Howard. Let's get started.

SPEAKER_01:

Hi, my name is Tiffany. And today I wanted to come in and talk to you about the key differences between style and fashion and kind of learn understanding the difference because there are very much key differences between the two. And if you are watching the replay, as always, welcome. And if you ever miss it or you have to drop off the live stream for any reason, please be sure in the description box all the links on how you can watch the replays or listen to the replays on either my YouTube channel or on my podcast. So let's dive in and get started. So first let's define exactly what is style. So style is personal as always, and it is a reflection of you. So style is something that you sit down and you get to create. Style is something that is the one thing that you can always control. So always remember that with style, and most importantly, it is personal. Number two, for fashion, it is created by someone else. So an example, a fashion designer, or if you're looking at styles in the magazine, and you could even consider looking at things on Pinterest and things of that nature. So fashion is created. Fashion can be here today, and it can be out of style tomorrow, next month, six months from now. But with your personal style, personal style is something that even though it will evolve during time and during your life, as depending on what is going on with your life at the time, your personal style will always be yours, and it is something that you get to create for your own self. So let's start with style. And I want to go over, I have a few points to go over the key differences between style and fashion. So the first one is style is personal, and it's about how you want to feel, how you want to show up, and you get to create something that will make you stand out and memorable. Who is on the inside trying to get out? And we all have this idea of what the style it is that we want to look like and we want to create, and sometimes we don't because of say dress codes, standards, what people will say, but it is I like to call the inside coming to the outside. So if you want to create a style that is edgy and you're but you don't know how to do it, that's what style is. You get to create and mix and match. So if you want to show up as powerful yet edgy in corporate America or as an entrepreneur, guess what? You get to do that and you get to create and merge as to what that actual style will actually look like for you. It's also a great way to have fun and let your creative juices just flow when you're going through this. Now, creating your style, of course, is a process and it does take time, and it's something that you shouldn't necessarily rush into because you want to get it right, at least making sure that you have the foundation, the capsule wardrobe foundation for your personal style, and then being able to build onto that. Fashion, on the other hand, is what we see, it's what's in and what's trendy, and it's for a moment or it's for a season. What's in now may not be in what's in tomorrow. And we can use anything from, and we'll use something simple as I don't know, we'll say like the palazzo pants. So at one point those were in, that was a big thing, but then of course, now we don't see them as much. Another style might be that I another fashion thing that I like is actually a are the kimonos that people wear, whether they're over shorts, whether they're over dresses, those could be considered fashion for now because guess what? We didn't necessarily see them three or four years ago. We're seeing them now, and we may not see them two or three years from now or even six months from now. However, with fashion, you can incorporate that into your personal style. So if you like them, say for example, I do, I like them as well. So I may incorporate that into my ultimate personal style as a piece that might be the statement piece that I wear with a pair of shorts and a t-shirt when I'm going out or a pair of jeans. So that might be exactly what I do as far as um incorporating it with my personal style. So you can incorporate your personal style and fashion together, but you don't want to heavily rely on fashion. You want to heavily rely more on building your personal style and then adding in a fashion that you will like because guess what? Once it becomes part of your personal style, it's a part of you and it's no longer a fashion. So that is the difference between style and fashion, number one. So number two, with style, the emphasis is on you. And last week I talked about how a lot of us, me included, are comfortable with not being seen. So with our style, we get to put the emphasis on us, and this helps us kind of break us out of that comfort zone a little bit. You don't have to be all full-fledged in and all of a sudden start wearing bright colors all of a sudden when you're not used to that. You can begin to add these things in a little bit over time in your style, and as you become comfortable with it, then you might be able to add an extra piece, or if it doesn't look right, you can take that out and try something new. That's the thing with style, and it allows you to make a connection with yourself. Now we get to tap in to see and say, What do I like? What makes me feel good? How what is this outfit going to do for me when I step out into the world? And it's sort of like you're getting in tune with yourself because style is also part as part of the journey, actually. Being able to get in tune with what you like, what you don't like, and just experimenting with things because what I might like, you might not like. But if it brings a connection to you and if it brings you joy, because part of this is the style should also bring you joy. And remember, you're getting if you're trying to dress yourself from the inside out. So really sitting down with yourself and really thinking about what is it that makes me look good and what connects best with me. Because if your clothes don't, or your style doesn't connect with you, you're not going to be able to walk into a room or put them on and show up as confidently as you would want to do. And plus, number two, when you find this connection, when you get dressed in the morning or at any time, you'll have joy with getting dressed. And when you open up your closet, you won't hate or dread going in there because everything in there should be a connection to you and should provide you with the joy with getting dressed. Because getting dressed, kind of believe it or not, is sort of a form of self-care and creating it. So you always want to do things and wear things that bring you joy. And when you open up your closet, you shouldn't be overwhelmed or dread getting dressed. You should enjoy the process of getting dressed, and that's how having your own style and building and creating it will also help you. And most importantly, you'll always have something to wear when it comes to your personal style. With fashion, not so much. Because remember, with fashion, sometimes you have to stay in the know on a regular basis because it goes and fashion changes at such a fast pace. So you'll always literally probably spend most of your time. Okay, so this is in season today. This style or this cut is not no longer in season. So you always have to keep in the know of things. And also creating that with fashion as well can be time not only time consuming, but cost a lot of money as well. Because now you're going out there and always having to buy something new. However, with your personal style, you get to always have something, as I like to call a mix and match wardrobe, to where you will always have something to wear. You can always create something new with your style, and that will help you with showing up better confidently. And if you're running last minute like I do sometimes, you're able to just put your outfits on with ease and be out the door. Remember with this, you have to also begin to kind of see yourself differently, and this will put you definitely will allow you to do that. Another point when it comes to fashion, it just makes you feel good for a short period of time. So with your personal style, your personal style will make you feel good all of the time. But fashion, on the other hand, it'll make you feel good for a short period of time. And then once that novelty wears off, you're no longer gonna want to wear it again. It will go back into the back of your closet and you're going to be looking for the next fix. So we have to get out of the habit of trying to get the next fix with clothes. And by doing so with fashion, that's pretty much all that it is. And you're either going to be buying new clothes all the time, or you're gonna have, as we always end up, having a closet full of clothes with nothing to wear. And we want to now moving forward, try to stop and avoid that so that we actually have something that we can always wear all the time, and always allows you to create something new without having to go out and buy something new all of the time. And with that, you want to always just make sure it can become draining at times with fashion. Because guess what? For me, and I'll use me an example. As I get older, what was in fashion, I may look think that it's nice, but it might be for somebody a little bit younger than me. I'm not going to be able to pull off this image that I want to build and create for myself, especially as we're moving and transitioning into the upper levels of management, or if you're moving into the space as an entrepreneur and really walking into your space as a CEO, you have to remember that also fashion with your personal style, it is also an extension of your personal brand. And over the next few live streams, I will actually be getting into personal branding and how you can use that with your clothes. With fashion, it doesn't do that because it's always ever changing. You'll never be able to even build not only your personal style, but you're also not able to build your personal image and your personal brand that people know you when you walk in just by how you dress. So that is number two. And number three, fashion is always shifting. So what's good today won't be here tomorrow, and it may or may not come back five or six years from now. And you know, a lot of us are saying, Oh, I remember when that was in style. I have those in my closet now, but they don't look as good as the ones that they have now. So you still have to go out and buy things. And in tomorrow, to stay in a fashion, as I stated earlier, you always have to stay in the note. That could be time consuming and cost you a lot of money because you'll have to be online all the time, looking in the stores, ordering things, all the different sizes. Because of our lifestyles, we don't have time for that at all. We don't have time to be in the note. Now, yes, you could hire someone such as myself to do that, but that is not my primary focus, and that is not how I want to serve you. I want to serve you to where you can build something that you could dress effortlessly with ease when you get in the morning, whether you're getting online or whether you're going and stepping out of out home out of the home and going into the office. We don't have time to sit up here, shop, and buy all the time and doing all these other things. We have to make it as easy as possible for us. So this is why building our style is important and not necessarily always leaning on fashion. Now, don't get me wrong, your style as personal style, that can also change as well, but not as fast as fashion. This may change because of the season that you're in. So this season you might be traveling a lot, whether you're doing speaking engagements a lot, you might be more online, doing online virtual events, you might be entering into a new phase of your life as say maybe you're becoming you're about to be on the verge of becoming a new mom or you're about to be married or anything, any of life's seasons that bring us. You might be like me getting ready to enter into my next phase of age, you know, because getting older, you might be in the process of for me. Um, I'm actually thinking about because I will be 50 next year, that I have to think a little different with what my style is, and I'm entering into a new season of my life. So that is a part of it. So it's not going to change as fast, it's going to change slowly over time. And that's the importance also of having those foundational capsule wardrobe pieces. So even as your style changes over time, even though it's slower, you will always have something to wear, and you're always able to be able to put something together effortlessly and with ease. So, and another example would be working versus retirement. Some of us are in that phase to where we're working, but maybe we're looking for retirement or maybe retiring early. That's one of the goals that a lot of us may have nowadays. So those are different life seasons and style changes for our seasons in life, and not because somebody's on TV or online says, oh, this is in right now, this is the latest craze and phase. And then next month, six months from now, oh no, now we're on to the next. So there is a difference in how fast style and fashion change. And we always want to make sure that we are changing our style with our life seasons. So I hope you enjoyed today's live stream. If you, of course, ever miss any of the live streams, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel or podcast because they will always be on there. And as I mentioned last week in my live stream, I am actually going to create a series. I don't know how long it's going to be, but it's going to be starting, if not this month, definitely next month, on taking you and walking you through my style journey, which will literally be exclusive to YouTube. So be sure to go onto my YouTube channel and subscribe so you can follow me as I go along this journey because I'm not going to do anything, I'm not going to have you do anything that I'm not going to do, and to show you the ups and the downs, the ebbs and flows, and just showing you that it's just a part of creating and building a style and becoming intentional about it. Also, if you have any questions or any topics that you would like me to cover, please be sure to just send me a DM and I will add it to my list. So, with all that being said, I hope you guys have an amazing rest of your day. If you are a mom or a mother figure, happy Mother's Day. Enjoy your weekend. Stay healthy, stay safe, and I will talk to you guys next Friday in my next live stream. Bye guys.