On a Thursday morning in June, I took stylist Allison Bornstein somewhere even my closest friends have never been invited: into my closet.
Well, not exactly in my closet. Bornstein’s tour through an explosion of floral dresses, oversized button-down shirts, and wide-leg trousers was mediated by a laptop precariously balanced on a pile of laundry. She was virtually venturing into the mess to help me with a real-world problem: A few months into BAZAAR’s return to the office, I hadn’t figured out how to turn my samplings of the trends I write about into a consistent (and true-to-me) look. I wanted Bornstein to help me find the through line in my style, one I could wear with confidence in front of my impeccably dressed coworkers.
She requested a virtual overview of the items I wear most often—a slouchy black suit on one hanger, several of those aforementioned dresses on the others. With just a glance and a few more gently probing questions—What makes you feel comfortable? Whose style do you admire?—she suggested new pairings I’d somehow never considered.
By the end of our 15-minute call, Bornstein had left me with a few notes I’ve already started using. First, the seemingly dichotomous sides of my wardrobe—what Bornstein called the “Dôen girlie side” and the “Kendall Jenner in The Row side”—could be merged into a more cohesive aesthetic. Second, this aesthetic could be boiled down into a three-word prescription to define and refine my style: tailored, romantic, and polished.
Our session embodies a method that’s catapulted Bornstein to TikTok style stardom, one she’s coined the Three Word Method. It goes like this: Everyone’s style can be synthesized into three adjectives, words that either describe their style as it is or that guide their style to its pinnacle form. Once you’ve identified your three words, they become a set of guidelines to remember when you’re assembling a new outfit from what you own—or when you’re deciding when something new is really going to work hard in your wardrobe.
Bornstein says her three words are classic, seventies, and elegant. They could also be aspirational, accessible oracle. On TikTok, Bornstein’s most popular Three Word Method videos have fetched upward of 500,000 views. She takes requests to ID celebrities’ three words like a daytime style DJ: from Zoë Kravitz (sexy, edgy, effortless) to Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy (classic, minimal, elegant) to Kaia Gerber (tailored, classic, sporty).
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Unpacking how the Three Word Method works and applying it to various celebrities has generated new business for the stylist. Since March 2020, Bornstein has worked with around 700 people in 15-minute FaceTime styling sessions for a $65 fee, with a large chunk arriving after she began framing the appointments as an avenue for discovering your three words. Those are in addition to the long-term clients she meets with a few times per year, split between New York and Los Angeles.
The Three Word Method’s rise may be another form of the style taxonomies and categorizations that existed pre-TikTok. (“People love a style quiz,” Bornstein agrees.) But there’s a deeper aspect to the practice that emerges in Bornstein’s one-on-one styling sessions.
“I think it resonates because a lot of clients and a lot of women are like, ‘Oh, I don’t have a personal style.’ Then they pull out everything that they like and see that they do have a personal style,” she explains. “To be able to access that and work with that is really fun and opens something up.”
Bornstein found her way to styling through a route common in fashion. Her first exposure to the profession was a Teen Vogue internship; after a few years styling in the magazine space, she moved on to working with clients like Katie Holmes. The time she spent in editorial and celebrity fashion, including on the set of many a BAZAAR photo shoot, eventually piqued her interest in the other side of style—the one we all interact with every day.
“Of course, it’s fun to do celebrity stuff and fashion with a capital F, but I realized that’s for one image or one event. There’s a million people there making it look really perfect,” Bornstein explains. “What I’m interested in is how do women actually wear clothes. How do they interact with them in their daily lives?”
Then came the pandemic and a shift to virtual styling sessions, plus a host of free content on her social media channels. Her audience on TikTok (where she has 110.8K followers) skews slightly younger than her audience on Instagram (65.1K followers). Instagram is where followers know Bornstein and her life a little better; TikTok, she says, can feel transactional. What brings followers to both her profiles is a gentle, dos-and-don’ts-free approach to discussing and exploring personal style. “I like creating a space for people to ask questions. And if they can’t afford a FaceTime session, I want them to still feel like they have a stylist in their pocket,” she says.
Clients who found Bornstein before the Three Word Method’s viral moment say she’d had a noticeable impact. Josie Graham, creative director of the Cincinnati-based boutique design agency MUJO, came across Bornstein’s Instagram after learning she styled other people Graham follows. Working together, they’ve replaced former wardrobe stress with a sense of fun. “She’s transformed my relationship with clothes,” Graham tells BAZAAR.com. “Now it’s easy. It’s not a chore or something I have to think about except when I want to—and it’s so positive and confidence building.”
People with influence tend to tell you to buy more to dress better. Not Bornstein. Integral to her Three Word Method is an emphasis on wearing what you already own and wearing it often. Another client, a New York City stay-at-home mom who found Bornstein through Instagram, says she appreciates how Bornstein “invents” new looks with familiar items in her closet.
And Bornstein practices what she preaches: Recurring characters in her styling videos include a pair of Celine sunglasses, high-waisted denim, and basic white tank tops. “I feel like my personal style is consistent, and I’ve had to hold myself accountable in a way,” Bornstein reflects. “If I’m telling people that they can’t buy something every single time they like it, I can’t do that either.”
The Three Word Method may have the gamified nature and the catchy name of more superficial TikTok challenges, but its essence—tapping into what you enjoy wearing and understanding why—gets back to Bornstein’s overall styling mantra that fashion is a tool for wellness.
“A lot of people believe thinking about clothes makes them a shallow person. But I don’t think that’s true at all. Thinking about what you wear and thinking about fashion forces you to be intimate with yourself and [consider], what do I like? Why do I like it? How does this make me feel? Why do I like feeling like this?” she explains. “The avoidance of self-reflection and ‘I don’t think about what I wear’—that’s avoiding examining yourself, I think.”
On an offhand moment of introspection during one of our calls, Bornstein mentions that her childhood self dreamed of becoming a teacher. Looking at the notes she gave me to work with my closet, I sense she achieved that in a roundabout way. Bornstein’s pocket styling methods teach her followers how to better know their closets, and themselves.
To book a styling session with Allison Bornstein, head to allisonbornstein.com.
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