Style Thief.

I find the concept of 'stealing someone's style' bizarre. You open your favourite weekly and there are pages full of advice on how to look just like the favourite celebrity of the moment, with key looks being offered to you via high street alternatives and gentle encouragement to "be hot to trot like Pixie Lott'. And the blogs are all over it too, with images being swarmed with quick links where followers can piece for piece replicate what (for the sake of consistency) Pixie was wearing on the 8th April, 12:45, 2010. The whole concept behind the hugely popular ASOS.COM feeds off the growingly apparent need to be seen in the leather shorts, just like the ones, you know, the ones thingy wore, um, well they're As Seen On Screen. Is this the 21st century's equivalent to asking someone on the street where they bought that cape that you've been looking for for months but had never quite been able to find?

I hope not.

My thought process in regards to this is buffered by what i think it means to 'have style'. I am a firm believer in the idea that you are either born with it, or without it. This is not to say that the people that are born without don't look good or are not stylish, but i do think that for every 30 people that you walk past, there will be one that 'has style'. They are the kind of people that would wear a pair of jeans and a tee in a way that you could never re-create, regardless of the fact you rushed into Topshop and bought the closest replicas you could find. They are the kind of people who could tie a belt around a dress, completely altering its silhouette in a way that you never thought was possible. They are the kind of people that don't read up on how to steal someone's style.

I think that ones style is very personal. Our individuality in the way that we present ourselves is preempted by our understanding of our own bodies, personality, and knowledge of what we can get away with and what is perhaps a step too far. With this in mind, how, then, is stealing someone's style constructive to our own imaging of ourselves? Instead of clinging on to the idea that we are going to look just as good as "Pixie" in a Fendi dress (which we're not) surely we should be focussing more on our own creativity and own personal inspirations? Personality is saturated by celebrity as we are no longer following trends or picking out our favorite pieces from the seasons' collections, but are instead being spoon fed outfits that are only interesting because of the person who is wearing them.

What does 'stealing someone's style' even mean? Does it make you a steal thief? 'No, don't leave your style there, before you know it Betty will have pinched it and taken it home in her bag.' The fact that you can steal style does not mean that their style is now yours, you are merely an imitation. An imitator.