During last year’s SG Madness, I started doing Instagram Live events (follow us!) each night, recapping the day’s winners and losers, and making predictions about the next day’s face-off’s.
Something I’ve gotten better at doing while streaming these missives is interrupting myself every few minutes to say, “If you’re just joining us, we’re talking about…” for those who jump into the stream after its start.
Doing so can be a useful check-in for more than just live streams, as I discovered this past weekend.
Trapped 40,000 feet somewhere above Michigan, I was feeling frustrated and stuck in a work project, and decided I’d (ahem) write my way out.
Flipping over the piece of paper I had in front of me (if I can, I always go old school on planes because my laptop feels a little too close for comfort to inattentive seat mates on their second glass of Chardonnay), I wrote out longhand the mission statement of Style Girlfriend.
The vision, the raison d’être, if you will.
And sure enough, jotting down why it is we do what we do at Style Girlfriend helped me…unstick.
So, if you’re new here, or even if you’re not, I thought I’d share what I wrote out longhand on that plane in my fifth grader’s scrawl. I love what we do at Style Girlfriend, and hope you do too.
Below, the Style Girlfriend mission:
What we do and why we do it
Style Girlfriend’s mission is to help guys live with more style and confidence, and ultimately, to be their best selves.
While style isn’t just about what you wear, we often use clothes as a jumping off point. Why? Because improving your wardrobe causes a quick hit of confidence that comes from an appearance you’re proud of. And that can be addictive in the best possible way.
Bottom line?
Once you start making an effort, you don’t want to stop.
Our tips and tricks come from a friendly, female perspective, but that doesn’t mean you’re dressing in a way that’s dictated by women. If that were the case, you’d have plenty of more obvious options in that department. Maybe you’d let your wife or girlfriend lay out your clothes each morning. Or go shopping with your mom.
But that’s not you! And it’s definitely not us. Style Girlfriend can help make dressing well easier, and we’re not afraid to point out the ways you can act your best once you start looking your best.
The way we see it? Women have been raised to think about appearance—for better or for worse—our whole lives. Way more than men have.
So, while we untangle the socialized conditioning that comes from having our value tied to what we look like, why not share what we’ve learned when it comes to subjects like nailing fit, the importance of investment pieces, amassing a closet full of flattering colors, and how best to tackle trends?
It’s not superficial to be proud of your appearance!
We’re not saying you should tie your worth to your appearance (or that women should, either!). But in an appearance-obsessed culture, you and I both know the difference between walking out of your house looking and feeling like a million bucks…and not. Why not chase that feeling of confidence and empowerment? It’s not hurting anyone!
Why bother going on the journey of improving your personal style at all? Because we feel good when we like what we see in the mirror. We feel good when people compliment our appearance.
Is it the most important thing in life to be affirmed in this way? No. Does it make a bad day better, and a good day great? Yes.
And here’s the thing: there’s nothing wrong with wanting a shortcut to getting to “having a great day” kind of confidence. We all want help sometimes. It’s why I let a designer tell me which couch to buy, a food delivery service tell me what meal to cook (and how to cook it), and a disembodied trainer tell me how to work out.
Does this outsourcing preclude me from doing my own due diligence, or educating myself in any or all of these pursuits? Of course not!
Outsourcing the work of dressing well doesn’t mean you have zero style.
But if I’m completely stressed out by the thought of picking out my own ottoman because my concept of spatial relationships is actual garbage, I’m not going to enjoy the process, or be happy with my purchase. If I have to hoof it to the grocery store to buy ingredients but can’t even pronounce half the spices in the recipe, I might not cook at all. And the working out…well, sometimes you just need a push.
So if you want to live your life with style – from the way you dress to how you outfit your home to the way you ask a woman on a date – but don’t want to do all the work to get there, you’re welcome at Style Girlfriend.
All that’s not to say you can’t take the inspiration we share here and tweak it, change it, make it your own. We encourage it! But there’s something that feels very different about starting from zero, vs. starting with a curated head start from someone whose taste you trust.
And we hope, by now, you trust us.
