Zendaya Divulges How Trial and Error Helped Her Curate Personal Style

The actress is a big proponent of wearing what ‘makes you happy.’

Zendaya / Arnold Jerocki/Getty Images

When we think of Zendaya, it’s hard to imagine anything other than the glamorous, meticulously dressed actress that we know today. It’s hard to consider a time when she wasn’t the picture of elegance we know her to be every time she steps out—for either a casual afternoon outing, a dinner or a red carpet event.

But apparently, there was a time before she had developed her personal style. There was a time, likewise, before stylist Law Roach was her coconspirator in all things fashion. Zendaya thinks of it now as a period of “trial and error,” she recently told Teen Vogue. “I feel lucky that my parents never dressed me when I was a kid. I dressed myself. I was allowed to look like a hot a-- mess for a while. I had pictures that I wish never existed on the internet. But you know what? I was figuring it out.”

That “trial and error” is how the 28-year-old came into her own where fashion is concerned. It’s how she determined her likes and dislikes. “Now,” having gone through that, she said, “I think it's so much easier to curate a look and a style.”

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In many ways, too, it informed her notion of fashion as an expression of self. No one could ever accuse Zendaya of dressing according to the trends. It is, in part, the unique quality of her fashion choices that make them so appealing. For the actress, that’s a pointed choice. Curating any outfit is really a matter of putting on pieces that “make you happy,” not putting on ones that make you blend in with the crowd. After all, according to her, “Fashion is such a personal thing.”

Zendaya is used to getting some pushback on this imperative to wear what “makes you happy” or to embrace your unique sense of style. “My younger nieces and nephews probably get irritated with me because they want to wear what’s cool, and what’s trendy and I’m always trying to push them to just wear what they actually like, what makes them happy, not what their friends are wearing or whatever,” she explained. “I’m like, ‘But do you like it? What do you want to wear?’ And help them to embrace their own personal style and figure that out.”

That is, after all, how she approached finding her own style all those years ago. She wore what she liked—what made her happy—at the time. Sure, she regrets some of those choices in retrospect. But, ultimately, the trial and error turned her into the style icon we know and appreciate today.