This blog is very different from most fashion blogs and I’m very happy about it. I don’t believe in general one-size-fits-all advice and I focus on personal style. And I’m happy to balance out all the nonsense that the internet sometimes teaches women. Seriously, what topics do you find most often on mainstream fashion blogs? Leaving aside, for example, outfits that can inspire someone (in a similar style), it’s mainly articles like “12 pieces you must have this summer” or “we tested mascara” or “things every woman must have in her wardrobe”. What I “like” most about it are the words must and every.

Many authors of articles like this think that there are easy, one-size-fits-all solutions. Or, to be fair, they care more about numbers of readers and money, because the more universal something is, the more people it appeals to. And the better it pays the bills.

Buy a pair of jeans, a jacket, a dress, a couple of t-shirts and you’ll dress pretty anytime, anywhere. Add a few accessories and you’ll be chic. The sad thing is that this effort to teach Czech women how to dress (and not only Czech women, I see the same problems on foreign sites, I just naively think that people with original style are more common abroad) leads to the fact that they don’t know how to dress at all and that they often all look the same.

Imagine if every woman had those versatile pieces in her wardrobe and added a random mix of things she liked. How great can that look like? The problem is that there is no one universal type of clothing. That’s a bold statement, isn’t it? But it’s true. I can prove it.

I found a list of 12 things that are supposedly suitable for every woman’s wardrobe. I won’t link to the article, I don’t want to be accused of deliberately harming anyone. But I want to use it to show you that there really is no one-size-fits-all wardrobe solution for all styles and body types. You can only create universal chaos that is completely styleless. Here we go.

1. A close-fitting dress
2. Tomboy jeans
3. White shirt
4. Sneakers
5. Dress with ruffles
6. Straight coat
7. Plain dress
8. Leather jacket
9. Classic pants
10. Pumps
11. Narrow skirt
12. Crop top

Here we have it all together. If you look at it, you can get an idea of what’s probably missing and what’s extra. I deliberately chose quite neutral colours and similar styles for some of the pieces, yet…

The ruffle dress is completely out of place. It belongs only to romantic and girly women, it looks inappropriate to the point of looking silly on others. The dressy pants totally don’t go with the leather jacket, they could only work with that shirt and nothing else. Tight dresses and skirts belong to a feminine style, ideally seductive, while the rest of the stuff would bury it.

So basically we have a wardrobe where half the stuff doesn’t go with anything, the perfect basis for a chaotic wardrobe in several styles. You would have to buy a lot of stuff to make it at least somewhat usable. Plus, after all that shopping, it could be split between several completely different personalities.

Tight-fitting dresses are not universal because they only fit certain figures and styles. Especially to the alluring, but also to the aristocratic, the dark-romantic, the dramatic, the elegant. It depends on the type of dress and material.

Men’s wide jeans are not universal by any means. They fit only a few styles, among them tomboy and possibly sporty and artsy.

A white shirt is not universal, it only fits the classics, tomboy and minimalist styles. Besides, it doesn’t suit certain body types.

Sneakers are only versatile for sports. For daily wear, however, the vast majority of sneakers are not suitable for the vast majority of very feminine styles.

A straight coat, a straight dress, a short top… all have the first flaw already in the cut. Dress an hourglass lady in a straight dress, especially if she has some very feminine style, and she will look terrible. Similarly, imagine a woman with a bigger tummy in a short top, heaven forbid if the woman is a classy lady. Would Kate Middleton wear a top above her belly button?

Leave the classic trousers to the elegant people, the leather jackets to the rockers and the tight skirts to the seductresses. Find your style and don’t try to be stylish by falling into the chaos and being like everyone else.