Merriam-Webster defines style as “a particular manner or technique of doing something, a distinctive expression in writing or speech, or a way of behaving, living, or dressing.”
That is a much broader definition than the one most people use.
Ask someone to describe their personal style and they will probably begin with the clothes they wear or how they do their hair. That makes sense. Our appearance is the most visible expression of style.
But it is only the beginning.
I grew up without much. Style, at least as I understand it today, was not a significant consideration in our house. There were, however, non-negotiables.
You took care of what you had.
Manners and etiquette were taught and enforced.
You respected adults.
You understood how to behave in public.
We may not have had much, but what we did have was looked after. My parents were teaching me that standards did not depend on money long before I understood what a standard was.
Our parents are usually the first people to shape our sense of style. Their values become our values until we are old enough to examine them, keep what serves us and decide for ourselves what kind of life we want to build.
Where that life takes us shapes us further.
My career eventually took me into rooms I could never have imagined entering as a boy. I spent more than forty years working in luxury, where personal appearance, manners and etiquette were clocked the moment you walked through the door.
I understood very quickly that if I wanted to succeed in that world, I had to look as though I belonged there, not as a visitor, but as someone who understood the environment and could move through it comfortably.
That required more than buying the correct suit.
I watched.
I listened.
I paid attention to how people entered a room, how they spoke, what they wore and how they treated the people around them. I noticed what was considered appropriate, where the boundaries were and which details separated genuine confidence from its performance.
My life’s work exposed me to people, places and objects I never thought I would see. But exposure alone does not develop personal style.
Two people can be exposed to precisely the same things and leave with entirely different impressions. What matters is how each person reads, interprets and assimilates what they have seen.
I am an observer.
The smallest details rarely escape my attention. I take everything in, even when I am not consciously trying to remember it.
That is why I will choose the Frick over the Met.
I love the Met. It is one of the world’s great museums. But there is something about being inside Henry Clay Frick’s home with the art and objects he chose that moves me differently.
I may have gone specifically to look at the Vermeers or to spend time in the Fragonard Room, but my eye is taking in everything: the furniture, the fabrics, the proportions, the light and the relationship between one object and the next.
I am not simply looking at a painting.
I am reading the room.
The Met allows me to experience an extraordinary collection. The Frick allows me to experience how someone with a highly developed eye composed a life around extraordinary things.
The same is true when I visit the Huntington in Pasadena, where I once lived, or any house, garden, hotel or museum that makes an impression on me. My eye gathers details and stores them. A year later, when I am selecting a chair or considering a fabric for my own home, something I saw may return. I do not copy the room. I consider how the idea was handled and translate it into my own home, my own time and my own vocabulary.
I cannot tell you what I had for lunch yesterday, but I can tell you the colour of the fabric on a chair in a room I was in a year ago.
That is how personal style develops.
It is not simply what you have seen. It is what you notice, what you retain and what you eventually make your own.
Music works the same way for me.
When I listen to Henry Mancini’s “Lujon,” I am immediately transported to the 1960s. I am sitting in first class on a Pan Am jet en route to Rio, dressed in a suit cut to the bone and smoking a cigarette—because that is what one did then—while a white-gloved flight attendant serves me a dirty vodka martini exactly as my grandmother drank them.
One piece of music creates an entire world in my imagination. I wanted more music that could take me into that world, but I did not have the musical vocabulary to explain precisely what I wanted from Suno.
I could describe the scene in extraordinary detail. I could explain the period, the mood, the clothes, the destination and how the music should make me feel. What I could not do was translate that vision into the language of instrumentation, tempo, arrangement and production.
That is where AI came in.
I gave AI the brief. It gave me the musical vocabulary. Between ChatGPT, Claude and Suno, I was able to build an extraordinary playlist of cinematic, orchestral bossa nova.
AI did not decide what I liked. The taste, memory and emotional response were already mine. It helped me articulate what I was hearing in my head and refine it into something I could create.
I use AI in much the same way when I am looking for a new fragrance. It already knows my preferences. I can explain the season, setting, mood or degree of projection I want, and it can suggest fragrances worth testing.
It does not choose for me. Fragrance must still be worn on my skin. I still decide whether it belongs in my life.
Personal style is the thread connecting all of those choices.
It is present in the music you listen to, the art you choose and how you compose your environment. It is present in your morning rituals, the car you drive and how you care for it.
It is present in how you speak to people and the standards of conduct you maintain in public.
It is present in the food and wine you serve, the fragrance you wear or choose not to wear and the amount of space you allow that fragrance to occupy.
I never leave the house, even to go to the gym, without one or two sprays of one of my daily drivers. L’Aventure or Bal d’Afrique in the summer. BR540 or Givenchy Gentleman Réserve Privée in autumn and winter.
But I am conscious of projection. I do not want my fragrance to enter the room three hours before I do and stay for breakfast.
That is style, but it is also consideration.
The same principle applies at home.
I use the good dishes and good table linens every day because I deserve to sit at a well-laid table. When someone comes to my home for coffee or a casual meal, the food is prepared and served with the same care I would bring to entertaining at the highest level.
That is not performance.
It is respect for my guest.
The glass matters. The plate matters. The music matters. The way someone is welcomed into your home matters. Not because any one of those things needs to be expensive, but because care is visible.
Everything I touch reflects both my style and my standards.
I do not live a glamorous or extravagant life.
I live a considered life.
Whether we realise it or not, we all have a personal style. Even people who have never consciously thought about it are communicating what they value through the choices they make and the standards they maintain.
Those choices say something about how we respect ourselves, our friends, our families and the people whose paths cross ours for only a moment.
And they can be read remarkably quickly.
Within seconds of meeting us or watching us enter a room, people have already begun deciding who we are. They notice our clothing, grooming, posture, physical condition, manners and how we treat others.
Is that fair?
Perhaps not.
Does it happen?
Absolutely.
Style is not a costume we put on for important occasions. It is the accumulation of choices we make when we believe no one is paying attention.
Where we begin does not define where we go or where we eventually land. Personal style can be developed. Taste can be educated. Standards can be raised. But all three require attention.
You must notice what moves you.
You must understand why.
Then you must decide what deserves a place in your life.
As I see it, the question is not whether your personal style says something about you. It already does.
Until next time,
