Outfit:
Turquoise Velvet Tee
Navy Target skirt
Vintage Oscar de la Renta turquoise/black/white scarf
Black Dansko sandals
Silver bracelet
*I changed out of my skirt and into jeans and boots for soccer tonight.
Menu:
Breakfast: slice of homemade bread toasted with butter and apricot Bonne Maman, cafe au lait
Snack: banana; coffee
Lunch: Romaine salad with homemade vinaigrette, pieces of salami, colby cheese, avocado and blueberries; slice homemade bread dipped in olive oil with parmesan sprinkled in it.
Dinner: Spaghetti with garlic, olive oil, parmesan cheese and tons of fresh ground black pepper; romaine salad with avocado and honey mustard homemade vinaigrette; wine
Finding your Style
with the help of one of my all-time favorite books:
Simple Isn’t Easy, How to find your personal style and look fantastic every day!
by Olivia Goldsmith and Amy Fine Collins
I quoted from this book yesterday and decided to include more from it. This little pink book made a HUGE impact on me. It completely changed the way I dressed, the way I thought about dressing and how I shopped.
If you are really struggling to establish your “style” here’s some strategies or “six never-fail fixes” the authors give:
1. Use a Single Color
Priscilla, a big, tall Texas blonde, wears virtually any silhouette, from a minidress to a formal suit — as long as the outfit is red. “Valentine red makes me happy,” she explains. “And I get my variety in wearing my skirts slim or bouffant, or wearing slacks and sweaters or any shape I want to. It’s just all in red. It’s become my trademark, in a way. All my friends give me red gifts. My little sister does the same with cotton-candy pink.
The single-color strategy is especially common in the fashion world, though there the color of choice is most often black (a gathering of designers, models and editors could be mistaken for a pallbearers’ convention). Why black? Because almost all blacks go together — not to mention the fact that that day’s stains and wrinkles seem to disappear, and that black is always slimming. Also, black has been perceived as chic since before Chanel invented the little black dress. “Black is not a trend. It’s there forever,” says Geoffrey Beene.
But remember that there is a complication in the one-color strategy: not all oranges are created equal. Nor is the one color that you have chosen always going to be available. One reason why the monochrome look is most popular with red, black, white, beige or navy is because these colors are fashion perennials and almost always offered each season. Even if a color is meant to be consistent, dye lots change from bolt to bolt and season to season. Certain colors are deemed to be “in” by the garmentos one season only to disappear by the next one. If you’ve settled on your favorite shade, just be warned that color is sometimes harder to match than to contrast or combine.
2. Stick with the Perennial Fashion Colors
As mentioned above, this is another color-based fashion strategy. Use black, white, red, beige and navy. You can build a wardrobe just on mixing these five colors and add from the best of any new season’s offering, secure in the knowledge that they will mix well together.
(This is one strategy I whole-heartedly embrace!)
3. Select a Single Silhouette and Stick with it
This one is tricky, since we know all too well that silhouettes change faster than leaves in autumn.
Mary, Amy’s friend, is arrestingly chic at age eighty and has been wearing the same dress for decades. Boy, does she look great in it. No, not just one dress, silly! A whole closet full of jewel necked, long-sleeved, knee-length chemises that she sews herself, copied after one very costly original purchased way back in the midsts of time. Amy’s seen it in fluttering light silk in the summer, thick nubby tweed in the winter and it never ceases to impress. Mary not only found her style at an early age, but had the courage, savvy and spirit to stick with it.
A friend of mine bypasses retail establishments altogether. Tomboy-casual yet well-groomed, Jan wears either jeans and cardigan sweaters she handknits or suits made by her husband’s tailor, “always cut from the same pattern. And cheaper than lots of off-the-rack women’s suits.”
Sophia Loren has her own bifurcated version of this strategy. “I like classic clothes for day, but when I go out at night, I like fluffy evening dresses. When you walk in one you feel like you are conquering the world.” Well, it works for her. I’d feel silly and self-conscious in a huge taffeta skirt. But hey, she’s got her (two) uniforms and I’ve got mine.
4. Stick with a Single Designer
There are times when that rare miracle occurs. You try on a dress or a pantsuit and you know — it was made for you. It fits everywhere. It flatters, it feels good. You want to wear it out of the shop and never take it off. You want to sleep and shower in it. Who designed it? What’s on the label? Thank the maker. If you’re lucky (and the designer is good) it will be like coming home every time you slip on his clothes.
Diana Vreeland, while fashion editor of Harper’s Bazaar, had the opportunity to wear anything in the world, but day in and out, she wore only Mainbocher suits. She found a designer, she found a uniform and she looked divine. In fact, she became a legend.
Cynthia Carter, wife of Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon, has a completely different look which also transcends fashion. For her it is about masses of dark curly hair, pale skin and romantic, layered ensembles by Romeo Gigli. No one else looks like her, but everyone else looks AT her — admiringly.
Amy also wholeheartedly embraces this monogamous fashion philosophy, in her clothes (Beene), her pantyhose (Hanes,) and even her exercise wear (Gilda Manx). She finds this strictness about her choices liberating.
But buyer beware: With Seventh Avenue pattern makers, fit models and fabricators changing as often as your underwear and design teams large enough to fill a football stadium, consistency in a given label is rare and should be valued. When it’s found, be faithful.
5. Stick with a Single Outfit in Every Color Available
Geoffrey Beene’s design assistant tells us his most fashion savvy clients often purchase the same outfit in every color available, rather than buying all over the entire collection. The manager of one chic shoe boutique in New York says that her most well-shod customers do the same with their favorite pumps or boots. I myself have the same pair of terrific lace-up boots in black, brown and tan.
6. Dark Bottom, Colored Top
As I mentioned (earlier in the book), I came up with a fairly simple solution for myself: Pear-shaped, like most women, I feel most comfortable and look best in dark slacks or skirt and tights. But because head-to-toe black is too boring and severe for me, I add my neutral-toned jackets and sweaters, often with a white blouse under them. If your upper half is your better half, I add this suggestion of Eleanor Lambert, creator of the International Best-Dressed List: “Save interesting details and colors for above the waist — people will notice your face first, not your hips.”
The authors end the chapter with this thought:
“The unifying principle behind each of these strategies is what we call THE RULE OF ONE. One color, one palette, one silhouette, one outfit … ONE STYLE!
“The single idea that rings through all these approaches is that simplicity and discipline are necessities. Very few women have the time, interest, money, talent and lifestyle to support a wardrobe that requires Imelda Marcos’s closetful of shoes and a dedicated ladies maid. Yet you may feel these suggestions threaten you. Examine your resistance. Where’s the variety? you may wonder. Where’s the excitement? Where’s the unexpected? Not to mention, what will you do with all that extra junk hanging in your closet now?
“If you do feel threatened, ask yourself: Is this what I want from my clothes — excitement, variety, thrills? Sadly, we’ve observed that for many women what they really want in their LIVES appears only in their CLOSET. My friend Lisa kept buying little cocktail dresses whenever she shopped. One day, she had what we call a moment of fashion enlightenment. “I NEVER got to cocktail parties,” she confessed. “But I can’t stop buying these dresses. I think I want to live the life I’m shopping for.” There CAN be fun, pleasure and excitement in YOUR closet, but it should be based on your reality. If you don’t have a place to wear a dress you want to own, then change your life, not your wardrobe.
A few other rules to remember as you “try on” a style.
Accept that you can’t be everything. Letting go is a part of this process.
Accept that you can’t have everything. Even if you could afford to, it wouldn’t help you to look better.
Pick the things you can live in most comfortably and happily. Some things look good but don’t feel good. Others are the reverse. People tell me that I look good in red, and I can see that I do. But I don’t feel comfortable in red. So I’ve given it up. Decide on the things that work best both ways. We all want to find the utopian place where comfort meets good looks.
Outfit:
Recent Comments