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Where I Find My Inspiration

Where I Find My Inspiration

Photography by Mikko Puttonen

What I’m Wearing

Oversized Bomber Jacket – Byther (click here)

Hoodie -Byther (click here)

Ripped Knee Skinny Jeans – ASOS* (click here)

Hi Top Sneakers – Artselab* (similar here)

One of the questions I get asked the most is ‘Where do you find your inspiration?’. Honestly it’s one of the most difficult questions to answer in a short amount of time because I get inspired by a lot of things in different ways, so I thought I would write it all down in one place and hopefully it will give you some inspiration too. The images from this shoot go perfectly with this post because it contains all my favourite things that really inspire me, clean architecture, harsh shadows, oversized streetwear and it was shot by a good friend of mine (Mikko) here in London.

You can shop similar items below

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Friends

My number 1 go to answer when I get asked where I find my inspiration is my friends. The people around me, friends and fellow bloggers that I’ve met or still have yet to meet continuously inspire me. They show me that I can wear pieces in different ways or that certain colours look good together. I think it’s just exactly the same way that you might follow me on Instagram or read my blog, I do the same with other bloggers, I read their blogs and I watch their videos. However not only do my friends inspire my style, they also inspire my work ethic. I mentioned this in a previous post ‘7 ways to reach your goals’ (here) that surrounding yourself with like-minded people is one of the best things that you can do for yourself. My friends inspire me to push myself, dress better and constantly improve my work. I’ve listed a few of my friends/favourite bloggers Instagram accounts, it may be that they inspire me style-wise or by their work ethic and attitudes but each and every one of them inspires me in different ways.

Inspiration

Place

Locations inspire me an awful lot, if you read my blog regularly or follow me on Instagram, you’ll definitely have picked up on the fact that locations and places are really important to me. I know that I don’t dress like every other guy and that my style is a little more niche. It’s sort of because I’m lost in my own little world, now I don’t want this to sound really cheesy or scary but when I look for places to shoot my outfits I imagine this post-apocalyptic world where only concrete and futuristic building exist. I’m really inspired by brutalist and modern architecture. Structures and shapes really appeal to me, I have no idea why I like them so much but I like to think that this also translates into my style. If you want to learn more about Brutalist architecture then just go on to google images and you’ll see what I mean.

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Picture

Being inspired my my friends and architecture all comes in the form of photography and imagery is the core of my inspiration I guess. I started obsessively using the internet when I was around 14/15 which at the time seemed like quite an unhealthy obsession – I like to think that now I’ve harnessed that obsession and use it in a much more productive way than just playing online games aha. I would stay up all night researching, when I eventually found fashion blogs and tumblr I developed an interest in fashion. Me and a couple of my friends would get together and do ‘shoots’ for either college projects or even just because we were bored and I think that kind of naive creativity is really inspiring. I think one of the best developments in all of this, photography wise was Instagram. I had my blog for years but would stick to webcam photos because I was too shy to ask my friends to take pictures of my outfits and I also didn’t even have a camera. However Instagram showed me that I could take pictures of my outfit, of my food of buildings that I liked and share them with everyone and it was ok to do that. It’s also fed my researching hunger and allows me to do it at 10x the speed, I’m constantly on my explore page looking for new styles, brands and bloggers. So I’ve listed a couple of my favourite Instagram pages below that aren’t necessarily about fashion but inspire me in different ways.

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Sound

I really don’t understand when people don’t listen to music that much. Music is the key to everything, different artists inspire me so much. I do listen to a lot of ‘pop’ music but even that inspires me too. Music sets the mood, photography and fashion can do this too but music for me is where everything starts. When it’s all pulled together, lets say in a music video, that’s where I find the most inspiration. When I was younger I used to just sit and watch music channels on TV, in fact binge watching music videos on YouTube is still one of my favourite things to do. My music taste changes constantly as does everyones, right? I’ve had phases, emo, screamo, pop, house etc but I’m currently listening to the likes of Mura Masa, Terror Jr, Drake, Tourist, Gorgon City and Dua Lipa. I think back in the day you knew what music someone listened to just from the way that they dressed but I don’t think that’s relevant anymore, everything has kind of fused together and I think that’s awesome.

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Fashion

So the main source of my fashion inspiration, aside from my friends, architecture, photography, music etc is designers. There are hundreds of thousands of Designers and brands constantly creating new and exciting collections and it may seem like a lot to take in but you can pinpoint your circle of research – once you know your personal style, especially using things like Instagram and Pinterest you can surf a hashtag and discover new brands that are producing what you like and find others through that. Saying that nothing has hugely inspired me for a very long time, hype is so short-lived these days, possibly because of things like Instagram and pinterest but one thing that has inspired me greatly is Seoul Fashion Week. Guys in Seoul have these incredible silhouettes with really clean outfits from designers you’ve never heard of and that to me is something to get my teeth into, I’ve been to Seoul before, a long time ago now – infact I did a lot of blog posts about my travels there (here). It was full of inspiration and i think the fashion scene there is really new an exciting, especially for guys. All that being said I’ve listed a couple of my most recent favourite designers/brands Instagram accounts below so you too can get some inspiration.

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I could probably go on forever about my inspirations but I feel like that’s just the right amount of information for an insight into how I get inspired. I really hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post, maybe we have some of the same inspirations? or maybe I’ve showed you some new sources of inspo? I love hearing from you in the comments section and always reply as soon as I can so if you want to talk to me just leave a comment below it would be great appreciated. Thank you for stopping by and taking the time to read this article.