The Origins of Personality Squared

The seed for Personality Squared was planted when I wrote the first Style Syntax workbook. This workbook contained a section that tried to guide people in creating their own archetype, or style statement. My formula for this was Adjective + Noun, or who you’ve always been (the noun) and who’d you like to be (the adjective). If we think about it in Personality Squared terms, it was basically Aspiration + Core.

After the workbook was released and people started using it and posting in the Facebook group, I realized that this one section of the workbook generated probably 90% of questions and posts. People were very interested in developing their own archetype, but it was hard to figure out the right combination of words to express who you are and what you want reflected in your style. Further developing this idea into a separate workbook was on my mind for years.

In the meantime, I discovered the Personality Plus system in a 1950s home economics textbook. This system is a simple explanation of particular style personalities, which operate independently of your physical appearance. When I introduced this system in a series on Style Syntax, people enjoyed finding their place in it, just thinking about what they liked to wear without having to take their appearance into consideration.

But Personality Plus has its flaws: It’s outdated, so some style personalities no longer felt relevant, and there are some glaring omissions, since the way we dress has changed drastically since the 1950s. Additionally, while you can draw from multiple personalities, each personality has an opposite, and these two personalities are considered incompatible.

I wanted to come up with something that simplified the style archetype/statement and expanded the idea I already had. Personality Plus provided the initial framework that made that possible, but it was expanded and modernized — hence Personality Squared.