Finding Your Personal Style with PigMami
Welcome to Ask the Experts, a monthly column that consults the coolest people we know.
Hello and welcome to Ask the Experts, the newest and most exciting installation, in my humble opinion, of this newsletter. For every monthly Ask the Experts column, I will talk to somebody who’s cooler and more interesting than me. But not only are they cooler than I am; they are also intensely knowledgeable about a subject matter or “thing” that I will never be a connoisseur in. I ask them around 20 questions or so to learn more about whatever nebulous topic they know lots about and glean some sense of taste along the way.
While introducing the new newsletter format in a post a few weeks ago, I hinted at my philosophy behind this column. “Taste is dead and trends are relentless,” I wrote. I’d like to amend that: taste isn’t dead, but rather a scarce resource that is becoming increasingly difficult to acquire.
Ok, so what does this have to do with Ask the Experts? That cooler and more interesting person I’m talking to each month? They are an elected tastemaker, democratically chosen by me, myself, and I. I’m asking them about their favorite things, about their opinions on a pressing piece of discourse in their topic area, about their recommendations to an outsider interested in becoming an insider, about the pieces of media that inform their knowledge, all for that added layer of context (something I wrote over 1,000 words about last week), that added “why” and “how,” in the hopes that we develop more taste through them, and that our taste is grounded by and through real people — not an unpredictable and inexplicable algorithm. It’s funny that I algo-shame, because I was introduced to our first expert through TikTok’s For You Page only a few years ago. (Algorithms aren’t bad; a lack of curiosity is bad!)
I wanted to start the column off with someone who embodies this ethos, and given that it’s the new year and we’re all figuring out who we’d like to be again and how we’d like to appear to the world, I wanted to talk about personal style, the purest form of communicating our own taste to others.
Who else but Heather Hurst could help us out with this? Hurst (@pigmami on TikTok) is a Brooklyn-based style consultant, vintage business owner, the queen of analogies (I mean, she did say “Trends are not a bus that you have to run and catch and hop on and ride. Trends are like a sushi conveyor belt: the food passes by and you stay still and you take what you’re hungry for and you leave the rest.”), and one of my favorite people to pop up on my For You Page. She is many things: the writer of a Substack, the reason I know what a de-piller is, a source of encouragement for wearing “bad” outfits, and a bastion of knowledge on personal style that feels approachable and attainable.
We talk about the hamster wheel of dissatisfaction that comes with overconsumption, separating style from fashion, and how to prolong your favorite clothing pieces.
So let’s get into it. Happy Ask the Experts launch day!
How would you define your style?
Comfortable enough to do a cartwheel in, embellished but casual, private school punk.
What does personal style mean to you?
Right now, it means that I understand and enjoy the way I show up in the world.
What was the last book you read?
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.
What was the best thing you ate and drank recently?
I'm still thinking about last Saturday's spicy Branzino and Maguey Mama cocktail with mezcal, cold brew, passionfruit, and lemon from Margot. I've eaten at this Fort Greene spot about 11 times since moving to Brooklyn in August. It’s struck the perfect balance of a welcoming, neighborhood spot but with excellent food.
What is one essential book that helped you define or further understand your relationship with fashion?
Art as Therapy by Alain de Botton.
What's your go-to drink order at a bar? Coffee shop?
At a bar, a gin and tonic, or mezcal and lime juice on the rocks. At a coffee shop, a cappuccino, extra hot with whole milk.
What song and album have you been loving recently?
Drive by The Cars and When The Pawn by Fiona Apple.
What fashion media do you consume?
Business of Fashion, Amy Odell, Articles of Interest, Jesica Elise’s Substack, and Dione Davis.
When you're lacking creativity, what do you find yourself seeking out?
I like to rewatch old favorites that I find visually stimulating like Ghost World or Masculine Feminine. I'll also paw through a coffee table book. I keep a few books open at a time, and flip the page every few days — I'd like to think I'm passively reading it but who's to say.
I think about style as a function of quality of life as it can contribute to the richness of everyday experiences, social interaction, learning, creativity, mindfulness, and more. So I also find great inspiration reading new scientific literature or learning about the intricacies of people's work or jobs I didn't know existed.
When I worked in laboratory operations, I was constantly scanning the ways style existed in the lab through the rejection of style itself. I enjoy Pinterest, Instagram, and topical books on style and interiors, but I find I get most inspired through unrelated things. As Sally Singer via Lynn Yaeger said, "If you want to know about fashion, learn about everything but fashion."
What advice do you give people looking to further develop their own personal style?
You cannot style yourself into a well-lived life; a well-lived life breeds style. Let yourself make "bad" outfits. It's a dynamic lifelong experience, not a month- or year-long project.
What questions should people ask themselves when figuring out their own personal style?
Why do I want what I want? Why do I like what I like? How do I want style to function in my life? What are my favorite outfits I've ever worn, why? What are style choices I regret, why?
People get very hung up on "where to shop" or "defining your words" and these are helpful tools, but only a fraction of the process. When I style clients I recommend products based on what they're looking for, but the most important part is to teach a pattern or thought process people can repeat for themselves. When you understand your desires and goals for self expression, you'll be able to use that to guide future purchases and outfits without having to rely on a stylist or influencer, or get caught in the hamster wheel of dissatisfaction.
How much does someone need to know about fashion to develop their own personal style?
Apparently very little! I only say that because my journey with personal style has had very little to do with knowing anything about fashion in my adult life.
Growing up, I never distinguished style from fashion. I don't think I'm very fashionable at all—but I feel I'm more stylish than I was. I'm sure many of my pieces would make Miranda Priestly choke. But I like what I wear and have developed a greater intuition with myself, instead of feeling my "style worth" come from being able to qualify my purchases or receive accolades for my dressing.
Fashion is an extremely dynamic and complex industry, so I don't say this to minimize it, more so that I've separated the two interests recently.
What do you think people aren't doing enough of to maintain their existing closet? Tailoring, going to the cobbler, de-pilling! I won't buy something that I don't think would be worth spending on to repair, maintain, or alter if it didn't fit perfectly. People are reticent to tailor because it feels silly spending $20 to $60 on something you just bought, but I still find that $20 to $60 is a better deal than the time spent returning or hunting for a new silhouette.
Maintenance is vital for prolonging the life of your pieces, and tailoring can help you realize the full vision of a piece so you don't stay on the hamster wheel hunting for "the perfect thing." Investing in these practices (even on the cheap—you can do a lot of these things yourself) has in turn, led me to a higher quality closet as well.
What's the first article of clothing/jewelry/thing you notice when you meet someone new?
While I love a small designer or fantastic statement piece, I usually notice how the interplay between elements makes me feel before I notice a specific item.
I met a woman a few weeks ago with the most amazing burgundy Lady Dior. I've never cared for the style or wanted one, but the way she styled herself made the bag feel magnetic. Naturally, she also had a wild story about how she acquired it. I always enjoy feeling surprised and delighted by the way other people interpret things we've seen before.
Who's a designer or brand to watch in 2024?
I won't posture like I know. If someone I wanted to impress at a party asked me this, I would briefly sneak away to the restroom to scroll @upnextdesigner.
Are there any styles or trends you think will be big in 2024?
The growth of the intersection of food and fashion as part of community will be big. So will more niche or self-referential campaigns as the "local" landscapes diminish with continued growth of digital style globalization. I think brands will try to offer more experiential opportunities and launches framed around the idea of community.
In your eyes, how big of a role does attention to trends play in having a good sense of style?
I think if you decide to pay attention to trends at all, paying attention to your reactions to trends is most helpful. It's a valuable tool to understand what you think is interesting. I also enjoy having distance from it. I have no idea what's coming for 2024 because I've mostly been going back in time to understand some of my favorite ‘80s style references. That's a special interest of mine. If you have trouble knowing whether you like a trend because it's you or because it's trending, looking back on what you like that "no one is wearing anymore" — someone is always still wearing it — helps. When the trend inevitably resurfaces, you'll have better context for your desires.
What's one fashion trend on the internet that you disregard or haven't participated in?
Is it a cheat to say the naming of everything? A la tomato girl, clean girl, mafia wife, onion bride, fantastical urban warlock, what have you — although I do love watching these unfold sociologically!
What is one oversight or mistake people make when they are in the beginning of figuring out their personal style?
Buying too much too quickly.
How do you balance wanting to explore your personal style and trends with being conscious of overconsumption?
Personally, realizing all my favorite pieces are secondhand, things I saved up for over time, or from small businesses has made it much less attractive for me to want to buy impulsively or buy a ton at once. I consumed way too much in the last two years, and having all of that excess only improved my style marginally.
My main struggle with overconsumption right now is the optics of style content. For example, I do think it's helpful to make a video styling a slip skirt to help someone get creative in their closet, but when these videos are reaching 50k people, it can inadvertently make people think they all need a slip skirt because it's "so easy to style!"
I'm happier now working with individual clients instead of making recommendation videos because I can actually provide a solution for someone's specific need instead of listing things en masse. Even if the en masse lists are helping people find something they wanted secondhand, I still feel the need to disclaim that no one needs to keep this long of a wishlist, spend this much, or style this many things. I'm still navigating the tension between being a resource to people by answering questions for anyone's closet or style while still representing my closet individually, realistically, and authentically.
And lastly, how would you define taste?
My short answer would be a mindful and authentic appreciation for beauty rooted in a genuine curiosity or inspiration (compared to an external pressure telling someone it’s the “right” thing to want).
I think Jesica Elise (@jesicaelise) said it best when she said —I’m paraphrasing — that she isn't concerned with taste unless it's coming from an aggregate of diverse points of view. Societally, many traditional ideas of taste stem from material signifiers that people leveraged to distinguish social classes years ago, so I constantly find myself unpacking why I think something is beautiful, tasteful, or significant. As one of my favorite screenshots says: "long live bad taste."
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Thank you for reading!