My Approach to Style Analysis

I have a background in clinical psychology, including conducting scientific research and diagnosing psychological disorders.

On the surface, that has absolutely nothing to do with fashion and makeup.

But I actually think that my scientific background, combined with my love of art and beauty, helps me to deliver accurate style analysis. Here’s how I apply principles of science to style:

Pattern Recognition

From a scientific perspective, it’s easier to accurately categorize phenomena when you have clear examples of that phenomena. So if you’ve (somehow) never in your life seen a cat, it’s going to be harder to determine that any given animal is or isn’t a cat, even if you have an abstract notion of what cats look like.

My approach to style analysis thus involves typing many different people to identify patterns that characterize the types. Now I can sometimes look at a person and instantly recognize that they’re likely a certain type—such as an Ethereal Classic Gamine—because I’ve typed enough Ethereal Classic Gamines to recognize that many of them have particular patterns both in their literal facial features and in the vibes those features convey. Pattern recognition increases my speed and accuracy in typing.

Individual Differences

My background also helps me to appreciate individual differences. In clinical psychology, that means that no two people with the same psychological disorder display exactly the same pattern of symptoms.

In style analysis, it means that people who have the same style type won’t have all the same literal facial shapes, and they won’t have exactly the same vibe. They’ll have different skin tones, hair textures, and facial feature shapes and sizes. Their faces should by definition look somewhat harmonious with one another, but there’s a difference between harmonious and identical. I’m always open to the fact that a new person I type may look really different from other people of that same type.

There’s also cases when two people of the same type arguably aren’t that visually harmonious with each other; for example, maybe they’re both Ethereal Dramatic, but one has a ton of Ethereal and only a little Dramatic, and the other has a ton of Dramatic and only a little Ethereal. So I’m always open to that possibility.

Systematic Style Type Analysis

I use a comprehensive typing approach where I compare all seven core types directly and systematically against one another. This means that when initially typing a person, I’ll typically compare their face first to purely Ethereal styles, then to purely Romantic styles, to determine which of those two essences is most harmonious (more on how to detect harmony in the next post). I’ll then repeat this process by comparing the more harmonious essence (either Ethereal or Romantic) to the other five pure essences. When I determine the essence that’s most harmonious out of the seven, I’ll compare all that core essence’s possible blended types directly to one another in similar fashion.

I tend to use this process, or a version of it, even when I’m pretty confident that I know a person’s type just by looking at them. I’m interested in accurate assessment, and this method, when done carefully, produces accurate results. If you’d like to use a simiar approach to type yourself, you can check out my self-type assessment.