Style Syntax

Last week, I wrote about how I probably need to add a Valkyrie lean to my Nymph/Puck mix. I was very fortunate today, because someone else commissioned a guide for Nymph Pucks. I purchased it, and I was happy to see that Puck fits perfectly and I don’t need a lean at all.

Characteristics of Woodland Puck, the Nymph-based Puck, include:

-a more boyish Nymph
-heavy use of black in color scheme
-punk rock vibes
-associations of: half-tamed, mischievous, bon vivant, odd knits, sheers, floral crowns, edgy, mixed media.

When you request a guide, if you’re not sure quite what subtype you need, you can tell Kati the things that are missing for you from the base and she can tell you where you’d fall, or whether that is possible with that base type at all. Boyish, black/dark color scheme, and punk rock vibes are exactly what I would have told her that I needed out of a Nymph subtype. (And what is spooky is that years ago, one of my style friends told me I was a “defiant woodland sprite”!)

So I’m very glad to see that there is such a perfect place for me in this system. If you can’t afford a full analysis, and there is a type that you think would work for you with some caveats, I would definitely suggest discussing what you need from a subtype with Kati and commissioning a guide. With a subtype you can go from this in the base type…

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…to this in a subtype:

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Have you ordered a subtype guide? What are you considering?

Today I found myself downtown with some time to kill, so I popped into Zara to see if I could find some hot-weather clothes. One thing I’ve noticed is that if my current style typing (Zyla, etc.) isn’t working for me, I find myself succumbing to shopping paralysis, and just nothing in the store feels right. After declaring myself Nymph and Puck in Fantastical Beauty, I found that I didn’t even know what to look for. I tried to make a secret pinboard for Nymph-Puck-Gamine Linear, but I just pinned a bunch of stuff from Kati’s pinboards for these types, and I wasn’t sure if the things I found on my own were “correct.”

After this experience at Zara, once I got to a computer, I took a look at the guides I had. I then looked at my personal style pinboard, and started adding and subtracting things. I thought about what the images meant together as a whole. I think they represent “me” and my aesthetic really well, and it reminded me of my personal style statement/archetypr, which I developed while creating my workbook.

My style statement is “Grown-up Punk,” which means that I retain both sophistication and edge at the same time, with a little bit of boyishness/youthfulness thrown in. One thing I noticed is that I have a lot of Alexander McQueen on the board.

This makes sense, because it’s a label with sophisticated designs, with motifs like skulls and moto added to give it some edge. For me, the “punk” part is easy. It is adding the “grown up,” the sophistication, that is hard.

Taken as a whole, my board to me means Puck Nymph Leaning Valkyrie. Maybe I can also pull from Nyx and Raven Rider at times, but this what feels essential. Nymph covers the “grown up,” Valkyrie the “edge,” and Puck partially the “edge” and wholly the “boyishness/youthfulness.” In addition, the Valkyrie color scheme of dark neutrals with “wildflower” pops of color works better for me than Nymph’s variations on browns and greens or what Puck’s color scheme seems to be, which is dark gray with pastel pink. But Nymph feels like the base to me and not Valkyrie, because the sophistication is what needs to remain front and center in my mind. The “punk” can always be added with accessories, but the main shape always has to remain firmly in Gamine Linear Nymph territory.

Fantastical Beauty is a relatively new system that I’ve been exploring as a way to bring an expression of my inner self into my Kibbe type. I’ve written about it here before, and in my latest update, I was settled in a type called Fae and waiting for more information on the darker Nixie subtype. At first, I felt like Fae was really helping me, and leading me toward better choices in things like jewelry. But then I realized that the things I thought Fae was adding to my style were things that were already in Flamboyant Gamine and I just hadn’t been honoring.

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So I went back to the drawing board and made some collages and morphs using Snapchat (a very fun way to waste time, by the way). Many suggested Valkyrie for me, so I got the guide, and there a few things from Valkyrie I like, overall, it didn’t feel right. Fae is whimsical, Valkyrie is powerful, and neither of these attributes feel like my defining characteristic.

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One of the things I realized I was doing was that I was looking for the type most compatible with Flamboyant Gamine, rather than me. I already have a set of FG recs that work; I don’t need another style type that just repeats them. It needs to add something different that will help me express myself within the framework of the FG recommendations.

Nymph is the type I didn’t want to be when I first found out about the system. It seemed kind of dull and stuffy for whatever reason.

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But in Kati’s blog post on bathing suits, the Nymph suit is the only one I would even consider. So a seed was planted in my head.

After thinking about the little personality description and scenarios in the guides I have, I couldn’t see myself as anything of the “characters” Kati describes. Whatever worked stylistically, the imagery that the styles are meant to evoke didn’t fit me at all. I thought about how I would describe myself above all and what drives me in life. I think the first thing people that know me would describe me as is “smart,” and what I am driven to do is collect and disseminate knowledge. This is something the Flamboyant Gamine doesn’t exactly express, and I saw that this is what Nymph could add to my self-expression.

I finally bought the guide, and here I could see myself in the personality and characters she describes. There are also moments where she describes what works for Nymphs where I got the sneaking suspicion she had sneaked into my closet at night and spied on what I owned.

Kati also has a subtype called Puck that can be found in Nymph, which is more boyish and has funkier makeup. It adds a little edge that Nymph lacks, and I feel that together with FG, I can create something that expresses all the facets myself that I want to express.

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So if you are going backwards from other systems when trying to find your Fantastical Beauty type, I would recommend trying a different approach. Yes, you should understand your s-curve and facial features, but I think you also should have a look at what you actually want to express with your style.