Natural and Classic fashion inspiration

fashionnatural fashion
Written By Liz .

If you have a highly Natural face, you have the enviable ability to look harmonious in very informal fashion. Like in clothes that approximate and might actually double as pajamas.

Natural style embodies the vibe of not trying too hard—casual, carefree, and comfortable.

A negative connotation of those terms would be something like “sloppy.” But on a person with a strongly Natural face, highly Natural outfits won’t look sloppy. They’ll look confident, effortless, and cool.

Natural: what to wear

A prime example of a celebrity with a highly Natural face who regularly pulls off laidback fashion is Natural Classic Sienna Miller:

The one thing I don’t love about this: the color of Sienna’s outfit doesn’t appear harmonious with her color season. (In my view, dressing by your style essences is more important than dressing by your color season for creating visual harmony. But color season is also critical, and I plan to write more about it soon.)

Still, I’m amazed by Sienna’s beauty and by how she looks so completely composed, confident, cool, and harmonious in this outfit that on a lot of people might look like pajamas. Actually the fact that it clashes with her color season makes it even more remarkable that she still looks pretty harmonious.

Now she’s standing next to a guy in a formal suit, and she’s still wearing the boxy crewneck top with loose overly-long sleeves and equally loose pants in an understated color with a print that yes is kind of reminiscent of sleepwear—and she looks beautiful. Despite that the color isn’t ideal for her skin. She appears simultaneously sophisticated and carefree.

How does she pull off a casual look in a formal setting?

Sienna’s dominant essence is Natural, and her secondary essence is Classic, so the above primarily Natural outfit (boxy top, long loose sleeves, wide-leg pants, earth-toned color scheme) with a bit of Classic (the coordination of the top and bottom and the relatively conventional silhouette and vibe) matches the shapes and vibes of her face.

The color clashes with her skin, but because it reads both as an earth-tone (consistent with her Natural essence) and understated neutral (consistent with her Classic essence), you can argue that the color is right for her style type despite being wrong for her color season. The brown together with the yellow of her shoes and blonde of her hair also appear harmonious and create a Natural, earthy effect.

Her hair and makeup are also understated, casual, and polished. Again, it’s not inconceivable that someone could wake up with their hair and makeup looking like that, and that’s part of the beauty of the Natural type—Naturals are gorgeous in undone hair and minimal makeup.

Natural and Classic: what not to wear

In contrast, an outfit with Gamine, Dramatic, and Ingenue doesn’t make too much sense with Sienna’s face:

Her face is still gorgeous, but because humans wear clothes, your face is never just your face—it’s very hard to look at this image and only focus on Sienna’s face without being influenced by the disconnect between the outfit and her face.

The outfit appears dressier than the one above—no one is going to mistake this jacket and dress for pajamas—but here she looks much less harmonious.

Even if the colors matched her face, the high-energy Gamine jacket and edgy yet demure dress wouldn’t fit her face’s carefree and polished vibes.

Another example of an unideal look for a Natural Classic:

Image credit: "File:Sienna Miller Cannes 2015 2.jpg" by Georges Biard is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Here her face is gorgeous (you can cover her top with your hand to see how her face looks when not influenced by the top), but the playful top clashes with her casual and sophisticated beauty.

Whatever is around your face—your earrings, neckline, hair—is particularly critical to match to your style type, given that it’s hard to look at someone’s face and not simultaneously see these other elements in your peripheral vision.

The takeaway: when it comes to beauty, your face isn’t just your face. The way your face looks is heavily influenced by what surrounds it, including your hair, jewelry, and outfit.

Trendy and timeless Natural Classic fashion

If you want to look on trend, Natural is probably the best style type to have right now—you pull off the ultra-casual, athleisure looks that have become many people’s perpetual wardrobe.

Classic is also a great and practical essence because you look harmonious in basic and timeless pieces—clothing that’s easy to find in stores and never really goes out of style.

If you’re a Natural blend, many popular aesthetics, like boho, grunge, and shabby chic, tend to be heavily Natural while also incorporating other essences. So you can experiment to find a look that suits both your face and your personal style.

Does style essence analysis allow for personal expression?

Some people may worry that dressing by your style type takes away creativity or personal expression. But in actuality, it can require increased creativity to find ways to merge your personal style with your style type.

Learning your style type can also help you explore new styles that you never would have known you liked, or help you see the beauty of styles that you previously disliked. Like maybe you used to view Classic fashion as boring, but if you have a highly Classic face and experiment with Classic outifts, you may be struck by the timeless, sophisticated beauty of those outfits on you. You may learn to like or even love Classic fashion.

I initially didn’t think my style essences all fit my personal style, but I grew to appreciate their beauty over time.

And of course, you only have to follow the style guidelines as much as you want. So if you don’t have Natural and Classic but do want to dress like a Natural Classic (and after seeing how good Sienna Miller looks, it’s an understandable desire), then do it. Style essence analysis is about learning to look more harmonious for times when that’s what you want, however frequent or infrequent that may be.

How can the Natural style essence look more formal?

What if you want to look more dressed up as a Natural? That topic requires a separate post, but many of these guidelines can be used to formalize your casual essences. You can rely on neutrals or earth-tones, the absence of prints, and the most formal-appearing fabrics that are still consistent with the Natural style type (like faux leather and suede). Sienna’s striped top and pants is a good outfit to study—the coordination and neutrals help it to appear more formal, but ultimately it’s still a highly Natural look that maintains the Natural silhouette and vibe.

What’s the connection to extraversion?

Previously I argued that highly Natural faces tend to look extraverted, because their wide bone structure and features appear both friendly and assertive.

So a logical question might be, why do extraverted-appearing faces look harmonious in casual clothes?

One answer is that extraversion is in part about activity, about being engaged with other people and with pursuits in the external world. Natural clothing supports an active lifestyle by being comfortable, roomy, and easy to move around in.

People who are highly extraverted also tend to appear confident, and so does Natural styling—by dressing in casual clothes with understated hair and makeup, Naturals signal that they’re confident in the beauty of their inherent appearance, and that they don’t need flashy clothes and elaborate hair and makeup to look their best.

So, while your face type doesn’t determine personality, Natural fashion does have an extraverted—active, outgoing, and assertive—vibe.

Natural Classic style inspiration

For more examples of Natural fashion, and Classic fashion, and how they work in combination, check out the Natural Classic Pinterest board where Sienna shows off her amazing personal style.

Liz .
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