What the women of Mythbusters can teach us about personal style
Walk with me here
I’ve honestly had a tumultuous relationship with my personal style over the years.
I fell victim to a TikTok microtrend or two (or three or four or five or six) in my mid-to-late-teens and I’m not ashamed of it. I looked good in those plaid schoolgirl skirts that I inexplicably paired with Thrasher t-shirts. I think my fake Vivienne Westwood Mini Bas Relief Pearl Choker complimented my H&M “Doc Martins” beautifully. The best way I could describe this era of fashion for me is “of its time”.
I can’t say if I ever felt like I was dressing like myself during this time. I don’t think I ever really felt like myself, but does one ever feel like themself when they’re living through a global pandemic before they’re old enough to vote? Maybe it was an identity crisis. Maybe it was 2020. Or maybe I was just a girl… interrupted.
I feel like part of the problem was the highly divided popular… “aesthetics” that were getting pumped straight to my amygdala via TikTok. You are either this or that. Alt or cottagecore. Dark academia or forestfairygremlincore. You must choose one and that is your fate. I had an easier time choosing my college major, to be honest.
To spare more rambling about the horrors of 2020-2021 and what kind of ecosystem TikTok was at the time, the culture as I experienced it was to essentially choose an “aesthetic”, figure out how to quickly fill your closet so you can present as that aesthetic ASAP, and stick to it.
As I’ve grown a bit, experienced life a bit more and started listening to different perspectives on fashion, I’ve learned that the path to personal style is one meant to be walked on slowly. I’m probably the last person on the planet to have this revelation, but this truly blew my mind once I wrapped my head around it. The way I see it the whole point of personal style is not to find it, but to build it.
I’ve begun viewing fashion as a colorful and intricate mosaic, inviting and curious, rather than a collection of smooth, black, unapproachable monoliths. The tiles of the mosaic are the books you read, the music you listen to, the communities you engage with, where you work, your hobbies and what you devote your time to. These bits and pieces inform the full picture of who you are, and in turn, how you adorn yourself.
One tile I’ve been especially fixated on is the ladies of the early Mythbusters crew.
Kari is a smiley redhead you may recognize from her antics with The Boys Tori and Grant in later seasons. I read her as bubbly and girly, but my God that woman is not afraid to get down and dirty bustin’ myths.
The outfit that spurred this entire idea is worn by Kari in season 2, episode 5 when they’re testing how many balloons it would take to lift a child off the ground. The answer was 3,500 balloons, by the way. To lift a 44-pound child. To inflate and tie all these balloons together, Kari is wearing a true tartan skirt with a black petticoat, black leather boots, white tank top and a black studded choker. This is niche, but it’s giving Asuka Goth Rock Garage Kit realness.
Like, are you kidding? This is what she wears to work and her job is figuring out how to scientifically test urban legends to see if they’re based in fact. This is one of her more iconic and “out there” outfits, but even when she’s more casual, the elements of her outfits are effortless, harmonious and functional for what she’s doing.
She DIYs pieces, has an unflinching allegiance to skinny, low-rise pants, and loves a military cap X pigtails combo. She doesn’t look ridiculous in a hard hat. Even when she’s more cleaned up on stage, seemingly doing a Q&A of some sort, her style remains consistent and present.
It can’t be ignored that these seasons were recorded and aired during the early 2000’s, and the time, 2004, and place, San Fransisco, are undeniable influences on her style.
Scottie Chapman is another gal on the Mythbusters team that shows the range of this California warehouse girl vibe.
Scottie leans more tomboy than Kari, mostly sticking to cargo pants and jeans. Her long blonde hair is almost always either in braids or contained by a bandana. She has some epic ink on her arms and chest, and is partial to tank tops when she’s toiling away in the studio.
She likes to stick to earthier tones, dabble in DIY, show off her gauged ears and there’s an Oaklandish sweatshirt that makes numerous appearances throughout her run on Mythbusters.
I feel like these outfits might look like nothing special to most people, but I see these women existing in a male-dominated space building stuff, troubleshooting and getting messy, and I can’t help but notice how what they do informs what they wear.
Their personal mosaics include their work on Mythbusters, their previous experience in special effects and metalwork and their lives outside of their work. Their clothes are both functional items that fit their needs, and authentic reflections of the lives they lead.
Their outfits work because they do.
Developing personal style is a process of subconscious cultivation, which calls to mind a TikTok I saw recently about the “Jane Birkin-ification” trend that circulated a while ago.
The late Jane Birkin and her worn-in Birkin bag are no strangers to the admiration of fashion girlies across the net. The combination of the obvious aesthetic appeal with the paradox of something so expensive being used so casually is the recipe for reblogs, retweets and Pinterest board infamy.
Overstuffed, bead-laden and loved. Jane Birkin’s bags served her, whereas most celebrities treat their Birkins like the Mona Lisa with a handle; to be kept in mint condition and essentially owning their owners.
It became a trend for purse owners of all kinds to sit down and decorate their bags with keychains, scarves, pins and beads to emulate the look of Jane Birkin’s bags. Sometimes even going shopping to buy things for the express purpose of “Jane Birkin-ifying” their bags.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on what irked me about this at first. The bags turn out cute, and these people are living their lives. DO WHAT YOU WANT! But then I came across a video that drew out my thoughts and expressed them exactly:
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This is exactly what it is. The need for instant gratification in fashion leads to inauthenticity. The contrast of a pristine bag with a bunch of charms doesn’t deliver the same message as Birkin’s personal bags. It looks odd because it coming together all at once.
This coincides with fast fashion and the “aesthetic” cults of 2020. We want an exact look and we want it now. But that’s not how personal style works!
The reason Jane Birkin’s bags work, the reason Kari and Scottie’s outfits work is because they are the sum of years of living life and cultivating style. Social media and TikTok, specifically, have kind of destroyed the idea of building personal style in favor of “finding” it in the sea of “-cores” and aesthetics.
I guess I’m writing this for my younger self. There’s no rush. I know you’re excited to come into expressing yourself through clothes, but you don’t need to be whole just yet. In fashion or otherwise.
It can be frustrating even now to browse social media and see people digitally cataloging collections of outfits that showcase their perfectly curated wardrobe because I’m just not there yet. It seems that everything blends so seamlessly for them, while I still struggle with finding, collecting and styling pieces I like.
But the struggle is part of the process—trial and error and the virtue of patience and all that.
Obsessed