this was originally published on december 9, 2025 as a video on my youtube channel. see video below.
last halloween, a friend of mine jokingly said, “i’m going to dress up as Annie Neska for halloween.”
and i was like, “but could you really?”
you know how most successful artists have these unique, recognizable looks that you can immediately place? and even if they don’t have a unique look, they at least have a specific style that makes it look like they belong to a specific genre of music?
i don’t have any of that.
and it seems obvious that i should, because we’re living in a very visual world. this is a visual industry. and so i should have a unique, recognizable look that people can immediately say, “oh, that’s Annie Neska.”
but then again, i don’t want to feel like i’m wearing a costume every day.
i don’t want to feel fake.
i don’t want to be pretending every day to be somebody that i’m not.
that’s just way too exhausting.
i’m a recovering people pleaser. up to now, my personal style has mostly been dressing to look good for other people, trying to fit in, trying to belong.
i mean, sure, that’s what fashion is: it’s a way to tell people on the outside of you what’s on the inside of you. it’s a way of telling others what crowd you belong to. but i think my whole life i’ve been doing that to the extreme.
i’m also a very authentic person. i don’t think i could be reliably and regularly be somebody online that’s not me at all.
i do dress differently for different occasions. i dress differently when i’m lounging on the couch to watch netflix, or when i’m going to my kids’ school parent-teacher conference, or when i’m going out to the woods to hike.
it wouldn’t be completely crazy to have, next to my ‘netflix clothes’ and my ‘school clothes’ and my ‘going-out-into-the-woods clothes’, a wardrobe that’s designed for ‘stage clothes’ or for ‘online persona clothes’.
but it does have to be at least a part of me.
this is the overarching theme of this whole personal style journey that i’m on. what is me?
is me the one that’s lounging on the couch and watching netflix, or the one in the woods, or the one on stage?
this is why this topic is actually more exciting than just clothes. it’s a practical, hands-on way for me to decide who i am, what i want, and how i want to present to the world.
i’m pretty much sold on the idea of having a specific style for my online brand persona or whatever.
but it opens up so many questions about what kind of style i should aim for.
do i really have to dress the same all the time? i’m multifaceted. i have lots of different interests.
i listen to lots of different music even though i only make alt rock. one day i’ll feel like listening to country and the next i’ll be listening to taylor swift or to some french rap. and the thing is that my fashion sense is the same; it’s all over the place. i can wear cowboy boots, i can wear a long flowy dress, i can wear a hoodie with sneakers, and i feel at home in all of those.
for a long time, it felt very limiting for me to choose one style and stick to it. but then i was thinking about how i do decorating in my house.
i love lots of different styles: mid-century modern, contemporary, traditional. i love all those styles, but i don’t necessarily put them all in my house.
same for colors: i love lots of different colors, but i don’t put them all in my bedroom. when i decorate a space, i choose a specific style or two, maybe depending on the style of the apartment or maybe a specific color that’s already there, and then i stick to it.
you can’t just put everything in there.
recently, i’ve started thinking about my personal style in this way, too. i’ve chosen certain constraints based on things that i’m going to talk about in a little bit, and i’m sticking to them because it makes things easier. it’s not necessarily limiting. it just makes things simpler, at least for now. it may change it in the future, but for now, it’s given me a lot of peace of mind.
and i can enjoy different styles on other people just like i can enjoy other people’s decorating in their apartments.
so what are these constraints that i’ve chosen?
first of all, my personal style had to have some markers of rock.
not necessarily the whole shebang: leather jacket, leather pants, and tattoos and everything, but some markers just so that i can feel like i belong in that space. because i do. this is the kind of music that i make. and the fact that it’s alt rock and not plain old-fashioned rock means that i can play with it a little bit.
also, i need to be confortable in my clothes.
and this is the fun part for me. there’s daily style and then there’s stage or music video style, and both are related. they both, again, need to be me. i need to feel like myself in them, but i need to be able to do the dishes in my daily style without it being too complicated. i need to be able to go out shopping and not feel like a total alien in the store.
stage style, on the other hand, can be way more eccentric because where’s the fun in wearing jeans and a t-shirt if you can wear a really eccentric dress and poofy sleeves and stuff?
third, i want to feel good every day, all the time.
this “no pain, no gain” thing for beauty… i just don’t believe in it. i think coolness is just self-confidence. and i always feel way more confident when i feel good, when i feel pretty, and when i feel comfortable. comfort is really important to me. it’s the baseline, most important constraint.
and what does “feeling good” mean?
it’s feeling pretty. and by pretty, i mean conventionally attractive. i really admire women who don’t care about feeling conventionally attractive; i just can’t not care. i have tried it, i really have, and i can’t do it. so, i have to feel like i’m fitting into society’s norms for women. (it’s crazy, and i don’t feel good about it, but you know, it is what it is.)
so, that means dressing in a flattering way for my body shape, for example, in a way that ‘minimizes my problem areas and maximizes my strengths’ or whatever. and sure, maybe it’s internalized misogyny, but i just can’t not take that into account when i dress.
second, feeling good is being comfortable every day. i know that if my clothes are uncomfortable, if my feet hurt because i’m wearing heels, if i have a belt that’s digging into me, or if i have pants that i can’t sit down in properly, that’s not going to work.
it’s going to be a lot more resistance for me to do this on the day-to-day and to practice my personal style, i have to do it every day, so it has to be comfortable. i definitely can’t be focused on what i want to do in my life if i’m distracted by stupid things like a tag that’s bothering me or a dress that i can’t move in properly. i have adhd, and minimizing distractions like this is really key for me to be focused and feel good and, you know, be cool.
so, what does this look like on a practical level?
first of all, it looks like wearing mostly black. i thought i wanted to wear color (i actually said so in a previous post) but i’ve been trying to do that for the past year and it’s been more complicated than what i thought it would be. wearing all black has simplified things for so many reasons:
it’s easier to find interesting pieces secondhand,
in regular stores, there’s so much more choices in black,
it’s also so much easier to combine pieces together if everything is black or mostly black.
it’s more striking, especially with my hair color now,
it fits the alt rock aesthetic perfectly. this one move automatically brands you ‘rock’,
it’s also more thinning and more flattering, and as i said before, that’s important to me.
second practical thing is that i’ve taken off my glasses.
i used to have these glasses and i still wear them when i’m reading or on screens and stuff, but i’ve stopped wearing them online and i’ve stopped wearing them when i’m on stage or at band practice because it’s just really not practical.
they fog up really easily. they move when i sing. they get greasy all the time. i’d be editing a video and i’d realize there was this big thumbprint on my glasses. it was just a pain in the butt. so i’ve stopped wearing them mostly. maybe i’ll get contacts in the future, i don’t know.
also, when i’m wearing these glasses, i kind of look like my grandmother. and i don’t mind looking like her, she was a wonderful woman, but seeing her when i’m editing videos and photos of myself is not making me feel like a rockstar…
the rest is just practice.
i’ve been experimenting with different outfits. i’ve been going to thrift stores a lot. i’ve been pinterest-ing lots of different things. i’m having just a lot of fun with this.
and as i said in a previous post, my goal this year is to do “fun and useful.” and this is both fun and useful.
so i win.