Considerations: Inspiration as a form of self-knowledge

On quieter references, noisy seasons, and what your eye understands before you do

In the least flippant way possible, the past week has been a struggle creatively. As I’m building A Considered Curiosity and my presence online, I am now online ten times more than ever before. I am self-assured in my sense of style, taste and identity. Having a considered eye means I can scroll past ubiquity and the overwhelming carbon copy aesthetics without hesitation. But how to find genuine inspiration that arrests me when it feels scarce?

Then compound that ubiquity and incessant 10°c London weather with the barrage of emails pushing spring sales and promotions. Maybe my inspiration just needed a dopamine hit, a small purchase to feel fresh again? But what do I actually want, what do I actually need?

So shopping is not the solution here. What do I feel like wearing during these dismal spring days, which I’m spending mostly in solitude, building a business and designing a consultancy methodology? Because what I wear is so deeply connected to how I feel, who I am and my operating context, getting dressed is still an act of putting on armour. My outfits are part of my conditions for success, they’re unleashing creativity and maintaining strategic alignment between my taste, my expertise, my business and how I choose to represent myself across each.

So how do I draw inspiration when I don’t want to buy something new for the sake of it; when I want to feel aligned to my new work identity; and when the weather is charged and changeable? While I prefer to let my curiosity ride and plunder from more nuanced sources and references, I’ve decided that for this particular moment, the simplest solution is best.

I’m not hugely into celebrity culture or style en masse. It mostly washes over me unless something intriguing catches my eye. Margot Robbie’s current style transformation is one of those rare exceptions and it’s worth understanding why, because that’s where the inspiration is actually drawn from.

Firstly, she’s stunningly beautiful and would look impeccable in a bin bag so aesthetics alone aren’t the draw. What interests me is the convergence of several things happening simultaneously. She has a new stylist. As a Chanel ambassador, she has pivoted alongside the house from its old codes to Matthieu Blazy’s modern, intelligent design language. She is also a first-time mother who cruelly received armchair commentary about her pregnant body, and has responded not with retreat but with a quietly recalibrated confidence. And she is, beyond being an actor, a very successful and increasingly powerful producer. The artistic license and creative control that provides has its own gravitational pull. What I’m looking at is a woman actively renegotiating her public identity in real time, and doing it with considerable intelligence and agency.

That context matters, because inspiration divorced from meaning is just imitation.

A few weeks ago, Margot Robbie wore an all-black outfit that went viral. Replicated a thousand times over. And while I can appreciate it from afar, it wasn’t what stopped me. There was a quieter image, one that most people scrolled past. An oversized blazer, baggy grey jeans, a Chanel classic flap, undone hair. The ease of it. What caught my discernible eye wasn’t any single piece but the relationship between all of them: the deliberate tension between the slouch of the jeans and the structure of the blazer. The way the proportions were slightly off in precisely the right way. The classic flap laced through her arm evoking authority. It was effortless in the way that only considered things are. A powerful woman conveying who she is, chic, modern and effortless.

The fact that everyone was looking elsewhere made it more interesting. When something cuts through your natural resistance — when you’re not into celebrity style but you see something which stops you and makes you consider the woman and context more deeply, that discrepancy is information. Your eye has identified something before your conscious mind has caught up. That involuntary recognition is the signal worth following.

Margot Robbie in Chanel

When I draw inspiration, I’m never simply looking at what someone is wearing. I’m reading it. I’m looking at colours, textures and proportions both individually and in aggregate — how the pieces are in conversation with each other, where the tension sits, what’s been left deliberately undone. Something always needs to be undone. It always needs to look effortless even when it clearly required thought. I’m asking: what is this outfit actually saying, and does that resonate with something true about how I want to move through the world? Then comes the practical translation. What do I already own that could be assembled in this spirit? What needs to be modified in proportion, in layering, in the small details to work for my body and my context? How do I anticipate feeling wearing this? Does it genuinely represent my point of view, or am I borrowing someone else’s?

Only then do I play.

The assembly was easy. And it felt exactly right: quietly confident, with a touch of masculinity. Warm enough for chilly spring days, considered enough for my taste, identity and how I choose to represent myself.

As ubiquity pervades and sales promotions crowd every channel, remind yourself how you want to feel and how you want to represent yourself. Through all the noise, is there a quieter image that caught your eye, and do you understand why it stopped you?

That why is the thing worth pursuing. Because the references and images that arrest us involuntarily, before we’ve had time to intellectualise or justify them, are telling us something true about who we are and who we’re becoming. Inspiration at its most useful isn’t about the outfit. It’s a form of self-knowledge. A way of understanding our evolution, our values, our point of view. It’s rendered visible through the things that move us before we understand why.

Tova Turkel, A Considered Curiosity founder wearing: Saint Laurent blazer; Toteme top; Citizens of Humanity jeans; Chanel ballet flats; Chanel classic flap bag