From time to time, it is a good idea to undergo a change of one’s personal style. Doing this has a number of benefits. For one thing, it means that you are going to be able to reinvent yourself, surprising people you know with your new look. It can also act as a very effective confidence-booster, for when you need to try and feel better about yourself. Whatever your reason, it’s wise to plan ahead so you know exactly how you are going to approach the situation. Let’s take a look at how to approach a style change now.

Get Clear On Your Reasons

First of all, you might want to take a moment to get really clear on just why you want to change your style. This is to ensure that you are doing it for the right reasons. If you are trying to impress other people or you feel pressured into this in any way, then that is unlikely to end up in the right way. Instead, you should be doing it merely because you want to. It is best when you approach this as a kind of play, or just because you want to see how it turns out. If you are doing it for that reason, you’ll enjoy it a lot more and get more out of it.

Gather Inspiration

Arguably one of the most important parts of all this is to spend some time gathering the necessary inspiration. You need to have some kind of idea of what styles you are following along with. You can think of this as a kind of creative pursuit. Just as you would look to other artists for inspiration when you are creating something, so too do you want to look at other people for inspiration in how to improve your own style.

There are a lot of places to look for inspiration. You can look online at instagram, pinterest and so on. Or you can look to your friends or, quite simply, people you see in the street. Then there are magazines and people in the media. Gather all the inspiration you need, but always remember that you are aiming to improve and change your own style, not simply copy the style of someone else. Inspiration means that you use these ideas as a springboard, rather than a template, and move on to do what you want with the ideas.

Get Rid Of What Isn’t Working…

At the same time, if there is any aspect to your style that you immediately feel is probably not working all that well, you will want to try and get rid of that as soon as possible. You might already have an awareness of one or two elements that you need to do away with. If not, these might start to become clear as you gain inspiration and start to think about the changes you want to make. Be ruthless: don’t hold on to anything just for the sake of sentimentality or ‘just in case’.

…But Try Revamping Old Items

That being said, there are bound to be one or two of your old items that you could revamp into something completely new. By being a little creative and looking at some of your old clothes, you might be able to create an entirely new look without having to hardly buy anything new at all. That is great for those on a budget, or if you just want to put more of your own personal artistry into the whole process. In any case, you should think outside the box of each item before throwing it out.

Start Collecting New Items

Try not to put too much pressure on yourself when it comes to collating together the new style. You are not necessarily going to know exactly what you want straight away, and that’s okay. It is often preferable to simply start collecting new items piecemeal as you go, even if you don’t have a clear idea of where you are going to end up with it all. Later on, you will start to find that things naturally come together more and more. For now, just think of yourself as a kind of scavenger or scrapbook artist.

Begin Making Some Combinations

At the base level, what you need to be doing in all this is putting together outfit combinations that make sense to you, speak to your personality in some way, and offer up some kind of a departure from your old style. By beginning to put together some combinations for outfits, you are going to find that you can much more easily start to get a good sense of what direction your new style will take. This is where the real creating actually starts to happen, so you should try to enjoy it!

Collect Some More Basics

In all of this, you are going to find it is so much easier if you have the right essential items in your wardrobe. There are certain basic items which are likely to crop up in various outfits again and again, and by having these in your wardrobe you will find the whole process a lot simpler indeed. Start collecting your white t-shirts, denim shorts, jeans, and all-purpose shoes now, as they are going to become very important once you are trying to put everything together into a new style. You can think of these items as the canvas you are painting on. Without them, you’re not going to have a painting at all.

Come Up With A Label

Whether or not you generally like to ascribe to labels, they can certainly be helpful from time to time. Coming up with a label for your new look might prove to be one of the most powerful steps you can take, as it will enable you to work to that headline, as it were. If you don’t like the idea of this, by all means skip this part. But a lot of people find it is surprisingly useful, so it’s worth trying out at the very least.

Match Your Body

There is always a lot of talk around body type, body shapes and so on. Whether or not you believe in these, it is certainly going to make a difference to be aware of what kind of a body you have, and how clothes tend to sit on you. This is more often than not an intuitive thing, but even so it’s something that you can work on too if you want to get more out of it. Make sure you are wearing clothes to match your body at all times, otherwise you might find that things just look off from time to time.

Be Aware Of The Little Touches

During all of this, you are going to want to think about both the large and the small. The large is obviously the overarching style, and all of the major outfits that you are beginning to put together. The small is those little touches that go into an outfit, and which often serve to actually complete the outfit as a whole. Be aware of these things, such as belts, purses, tragus earrings, and other little touches. They really do make all the difference in the world, and it shows if you have not paid attention to them enough.

Approach Your New Style With Confidence

Whatever it is that you decide upon, one of the most important things is that you are approaching the new style with confidence. In truth, having confidence is what ultimately sells it, so if you do not have this, you are not going to feel quite as good about the changes you are making. The best confidence, true confidence, comes from within, which means that you are actually happy with yourself in a genuine way.

To develop that, make sure that you are happy with all aspects of your life, and that you are living in a way that you are happy with too, and which falls in line with your own perception of yourself. You should also make sure that the style you are adopting is one that you feel confident in and which you feel is true to you. If it is, you will automatically be able to approach it with greater confidence from the outset, and that is going to help you to carry it off in a much better way.

By working on your confidence in these dual ways, you can hope to approach your new style in just the right manner, and that is going to make all the difference in the world to how it is taken by other people as well. Make sure not to overlook this.

As you can see, there are quite a few things that you might want to be aware of. But as long as you have worked through these ideas, you should be able to approach your next style change in the best way possible, whether it comes in a month or a year from now.

By definition, a documentary film exists to document a truth. As such, unlike other genres, the documentary is limited by the boundaries of not only what is possible, but also what is real. It is a story like no other genre because it tells the factual and real story of the subject. Where other films can leave room for imagination, narrative prowesses, or breathtaking special effects, the documentary is the only genre that elevates the everyday image and sound by keeping it as unchanged and unaltered as possible. 

As such, it’s easy to assume that a documentary film’s purpose is to turn the truth into a work of art. From a directing and editing perspective, the statement is accurate. However, the audience has the right to question the trustworthiness of the truth that the documentary delivers. Can documentaries give viewers a 100% accurate picture of the untainted truth? The answer may surprise you but they do not document events and facts as impartially and exactly as we would like to believe. 

There is no denying that most documentary teams approach the project with an honest commitment to showing a part of the world as it appears to them. These are no works of fiction, and they also include sufficient preliminary research to convince the audience of the camera’s intent. However, there is plenty of room for deviation from the pure truth. 

Truth does not have restrictions

In theory, a documentary should be able to display the truth as it is. However, this would require the team to be able to proceed with filming and editing without any restrictions. Unfortunately, the quest for telling a true story comes with a long list of dos and don’ts that can affect the narrative process. Teams also need to be aware of the risks and costs inherent to the production of a documentary film. Indeed, if you’re planning a project, you need to consider insurance coverage to protect not only your activities, but also the crews, bystanders, and your equipment. There can be no safe project without ensuring that you can tick all the boxes on the list of what you should know about documentary insurance. This will affect some of the decisions regarding filming locations, equipment use, team size and qualifications, and the story you choose to tell. To keep costs to a minimum, small documentary filming agencies may choose to avoid expensive equipment, prolonged rental fees, or even diverse team hiring. Additionally, fear of lawsuits can also prevent filmmakers from exposing controversial truths. 

The truth of self-truth

There can be nothing more real and impactful than making a documentary about yourself. As the main subject, you know and understand what you wish to share with the audience. This could be the case of Charli XCX, who has been working on a way to document herself making an album in quarantine. The artist decided to make the most of the unique creative situation to reflect on her quarantine experience and related insecurities. It is a bold move that fans and creatives applaud. But it also is a move that is influenced by her unique perception of herself and her creative journey. Documenting yourself is a double-edged sword that can both reveal and hide more than you expect. Being both the subject and the initiator, you could end up with a biased end product that will never be able to tell a fully accurate and truthful story. 

Is truth marketable?

In theory, a documentary should be motivated by the search for truth. In practice, however, things are different. The truth that is told needs to be marketable and saleable. Ultimately, a documentary film is a commercial product that needs to be sold to be seen and generate an income. Indeed, no documentary team can work without considering the best ways to maximise their distribution strategy. Unfortunately, ensuring a documentary will reach its audience influences the creative process. The synopsis acts as an attention-grabber, as it needs to encourage the audience to watch the film. Filming the documentary with a synopsis in mind will ensure that the product can remain attractive, but it can also affect the story you’re telling. Perhaps some elements of the truth may not feature in the final result due to marketability. Naturally, it makes sense to tailor the content and promotion of your documentary to meet the audience expectations and mindsets. However, too much tailoring for marketability could distract from the original purpose. 

Telling the same truth with feelings

While documentaries are based on researching and sharing facts, they can’t deliver a factual breakdown of the truth. Documentaries are more impactful when they create an emotional engagement for the audience. Ultimately, for the truth to be heard and seen, the documentary film needs to maximise the properties of the channel. A film adds a drama edge to the narrative. The best films are those that can drive an emotional response. They keep the viewer on the edge of their seat. Documentaries obey the same rules. Some of the most impactful narratives are those that take viewers on a journey, such as Brother’ Keepers in 1992 and Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children in 2007. Yet hitting the right balance is no easy task. For each emotionally engaging documentary, many lost their truth for the sake of emotionality. Maintaining the appropriate level of feelings without obscuring or altering the truth is a delicate skill to master. 

The reasoning behind the documentary

A documentary is no work of luck. It is designed to answer a real question, whether it’s showing the reality of being an orphan in a foreign country or exploring the creative process in quarantine. The set of questions is crucial in providing a guideline throughout filming. But as they provide a direction, the questions also limit what can be and can’t be told. Because a documentary can’t be the blind exploration of a topic, it by definition needs to exclude some elements of the truth, specifically in the process of telling one truth. Ultimately, deciding on what you want to show instantly determines what you don’t want to show, even if those elements are real and tangible facts. 

The filmmaker needs to tailor the content for digestibility. Attempting to answer too many questions within the documentary could prove too hard to follow and comprehend for the audience. Therefore, it is in the nature of the documentary to keep some truths untold as filmmakers decide on the best direction to follow. 

Celebrities docuseries are the new gossip channel

At which point does a documentary turn into an exercise of voyeurism? It is a tricky question and one that the audience can’t answer anymore. Reality TV and documentaries may be two different genres on paper. But on the screen, they can be surprisingly similar. Following current celebrities inside their homes or as part of their day-to-day lives poses a crucial dilemma. Indeed, does every truth have documentary potential? Purists argue that the documentary presents a thoughtful, factual, and relevant truth that tackle important topics. On the other hand, reality TV shows and mock documentaries can confuse voyeurism with relevant and thoughtful content, displaying family feuds and eccentric lifestyles disguised as an honourable quest for a deeper truth. We, the audience, welcome the confusion for the sake of entertainment. But this could come at a cost as it can influence the quality of future documentaries.  

In conclusion, documentaries explore a truth in an industry where they compete for attention against fictions, gossip celebrities content, and marketable emotions. Due to the nature of the filmmaker industry, it is fair to say that the audience’s expectations and the market determine the level of truthfulness and facts of the documentary. More importantly, the popularity of scandal-prone real TV shows can dramatically change the balance, forcing future documentaries to focus on entertainment over fact-checking. We, the viewers, are writing the story of documentaries in our everyday choices.

Every season comes with a whole new wardrobe, and it can sometimes feel intimidating to know what to buy in order to be ready for the season ahead. The fun thing about fashion is that new styles and trends come to light each year, bringing a whole new look to the fashion industry. The thing is, buying an entire new wardrobe each season isn’t actually necessary – with a few key items, you’ll have more than enough clothes to wear throughout the winter and keep you warm and looking good. This will keep your budget right where it should be and also ensure you never go a day without something to wear. That said, here are some essential men’s items that will be sufficient for the entire winter.

Hoodie

A hoodie is one of the most comfortable items you can have in your closet and is suitable for most occasions. Whether you’re going to a chill session with your friends, to the gym, or even if you’re just chilling at home and don’t want to wear some uncomfortable and stiff jacket, a hoodie is a perfect option. This clothing piece will also fit most outfits – a jean, sweatpants, shorts, and chino, so you’ll have an item that can work with multiple looks; have a look at WTAPS for some terrific options to choose from. When buying yourself a hoodie, rather size up than down – the idea behind a hoodie is that it should be super comfortable, so you don’t want something that’ll be skin-tight or too small.

Statement jacket

This is what you’ll be wearing when you go out or have a special occasion. A statement jacket will be your go-to when you want to go for a more formal or class look, so get something that also looks good with most of your clothes but stands out. A bomber jacket is always an excellent way to go, and they keep you warm as well in the winter months. When buying your statement jacket, don’t worry about splurging a little on this item – this is what will complete your look and will also be one of the things you wear the most. You also want the jacket to last and still look good even when being worn a lot, so opting for something a bit more expensive and high-quality will be wise – you definitely won’t be needing a new one anytime soon!

Boots

Safety footwear goes a long way, and they look great too. Boots can be worn to work, when going out, during the day, and at night, so you’ll have a pair of shoes for any occasion. Boots are also a great way to bring a look together and never go out of style. So, even though you buy a pair now, they’ll still be right on trend next year. When purchasing a pair of boots, rather go for a pair made from genuine leather than faux leather – they are much more durable and look better for longer. 

Jeans

It is probably one of the staples of every person’s closet, so make sure your jeans are ready for the winter. If you have pairs that have been through a bit of wear and tear throughout the seasons, throw them out and get yourself a few pairs. This is important, seeing as a jean is one of the most worn pieces of clothing in the history of fashion and continues to be utilized for all the trends and styles each year. Understandable; you may have that one pair that fits perfectly in all the right places and is super comfortable, and even though it has reached its expiry date ages ago, you can’t seem to bring yourself to throw it away – now might be the time! Because you best believe you don’t want to be in public when that jean finally decides to go to the white light and bid farewell by tearing right where it would be most embarrassing to have a tear. There are plenty of styles to jump on board with – straight fit, skinny, slim fit, cropped, and pin rolled; the list goes on!

T-shirts

This is where you’ll be saving a ton of money. T-shirts are much less expensive than other items of clothing and are something you’ll literally be wearing every day. So don’t worry too much about buying fancy T-shirts, they’ll hardly be visible in the winter because you’ll be layering other pieces of clothing over them. T-shirts are also something that you buy every year, so maybe don’t spend a lot of money on clothing that you’ll be replacing in a few months anyway.

These few items combined will give you a wardrobe that will be more enough to suit your needs during the winter. Be sure to buy these items according to your style as well – after all, your style is what makes you an individual!