The social media platform BeReal, in which users take a photo during a random two-minute period every day, is not an obvious place to look for style inspiration. Unlike Instagram, which is full of selfies taken specifically to show off a new coat, a good hair day or a flattering lift mirror, BeReal shows everyone at their most humdrum. If Instagram is a glossy, coffee table book compilation of high days and holidays, Be Real is a blooper reel of life’s tea-bath-bed days.
If you are on the app, you get a notification to take a picture of what you are doing at a random time of day – and the reverse camera snaps a selfie while you are doing it. It means you are much more likely to be in the park in your dog-walking coat or sitting at your laptop in an old hoodie than you are to be dolled up.
Thing is, it turns out that despite the absence of immaculately curated outfits, there are useful style lessons to be learned on BeReal. Actually, scratch that: it turns out that specifically because of the absence of immaculately curated outfits, there are useful style lessons to be learned on the app.
BeReal has shown me, for instance, both that I wear grey more than I wear any other colour and also that grey really doesn’t suit me at all. At the end of the year, you see, BeReal serves you up a montage of your photos from the year. Sort of like Spotify Wrapped, but instead of ranking your favourite songs and artists, it gives the definitive answer as to which is your favourite jumper and whether you should maybe wash your hair more often.
Now, I already knew I had a weakness for pencil-grey and charcoal knits, but until I saw my montage I hadn’t realised to what degree these make up my default uniform. What’s more, because BeReal has a habit of sending its notification on my commute home from work, when the only makeup left on my face is the mascara under my eyes, the selfies are a brutally honest guide to which colours naturally work on me and which do me no favours whatsoever. Turns out that when I wear grey, my complexion takes on a tone best described as “week two of the flu”, while I look much more bright-eyed in the photos when I wear a bright colour.
Have you ever noticed that the days when you get compliments often don’t tally with the days when you thought you looked good? I’ll go out in some random old thing and people will be super nice about it, and on other days when I think I’ve absolutely nailed my look, it is tumbleweed in the feedback department. I’m not sure if this matters or not. I definitely don’t think we have to dress according to what is or isn’t flattering. What wearing orange does for your mood is more important than what it does for your eye bags. But if one shade of T-shirt makes your eye colour pop and your smile look brighter, and another makes you look dull and tired, that can have a knock-on effect on your day, so maybe it’s not to be sniffed at.
You don’t have to be on BeReal to get real feedback on whether the clothes you like wearing look the way you think they do. Just click on your selfie album on your phone – and steel yourself not to scroll past all the photos you took by accident – the ones taken from under your chin, where you have the grumpy resting face on top of a hangover. Take a look at what you wear on common-or-garden days as well as dressed-up days – and whether it suits you. It turns out that seeing yourself in an unflattering light can be illuminating.
I still love grey jumpers though. Even if they don’t love me back.
Model: Hanna at Milk. Hair and makeup: Sophie Higginson using GHD and Suzanne Kaufmann. Grey polo: M&S. Dress: jigsaw. Earrings: missoma
