MEAGHAN SMITH PERSONAL STYLIST

Do you have a unique signature look? 

You know, the kind of thing that people will think of when they want to describe you.

“Whenever I think of Mary I imagine that beautiful shiny black mane of hers”  

“Therese. That’s the girl with the great smile, who always wears red lippy”  

For you it may be that people know when they see you, you’ll be wearing cool sneakers, big fancy earrings or red glasses.  Whatever it is, you want people to remember and recognise you for all the right reasons.   You don’t want people to be saying:

 “I know Sarah, that’s the girl that always wears those jackets that are three sizes too big for her” 

“You know Louise, the one who’s clothes are always creased”  

Sometimes we have a signature look without being aware of it.  The thing you need to ask yourself is –  Is there something about my style and the way I dress that people think of when they think of me?  Do I have a signature look without really knowing it?  More importantly, is that individual look people know you for, a good thing or a bad thing?   Why don’t you ask those closest to you if they think you have a particular look.

For inspiration, here are a few women who have very distinct individual signature looks.

Anna Wintour, Editor-in-Chief of American Vogue is recognisable by her trademark bob.

Venezuelan fashion designer Carolina Herrera is often seen wearing a classic white shirt

New York fashion stylist and beauty entrepreneur Linda Rodin’s distinct look is her long, silver hair

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When I first started this career, I had a very clear idea of what it was I wanted to do – I just wasn’t sure how to go about doing it or what title to give it. I decided on Personal Stylist after I thought that best described primarily what I do and nobody would find me if I called myself a Shopping Frustration Solver or Women’s Self Esteem Booster.

What I knew for certain was I wanted to help women feel better about themselves.  I wanted to help them improve their confidence and self esteem and I knew that I could do it (If I sharpened up my skills and gained more knowledge) through helping them to dress.

Certainly the fashion side of my job is important to me because I’m passionate about it, along with style and beauty – and clothes are the tools with which I use to help people feel good, but realistically what I do isn’t really about fashion and beauty at all, it’s about inspiring, guiding and encouraging women to be and feel the best they can.

I always knew a lot of women struggled with their identity, their bodies and aging – I was one of them, so I recognise the issues – but it wasn’t until I started doing this job, and spending time with different women, I realised just how deeply unhappy some people are with their appearance.

Often, a style consultation is so much more than trying on clothes. Sometimes personal issues are eating away at a person’s confidence and affecting how they see themself and they need to be listened to, understood and then reassured.

Recently I worked with a really lovely lady who I discovered during our time together, saw herself so differently to how she really was.  She was in her early fifties a mother of three grown children and she contacted me because she felt “frumpy” and because she felt she “had no style”.  She wanted me to take her shopping.  So we met and we wandered around, talking all the time about how she saw her current style, how she’d like it to be and how together we might achieve that.

Once we had a clear idea of how she wanted to look we headed into the stores to try some clothes on.  I got her to put on a pair of pants she would never have dreamed of trying by herself. She looked amazing. Even another shopper in the change rooms commented on how she looked.  She was tall and slim and the pants highlighted her figure beautifully.  But she couldn’t see it.  All she saw was the faults that she looked for every time she looked in the mirror.  When I asked her if she felt she was very self critical her eyes started to well up. She went on to tell me she was constantly given negative feedback by those around her, about her body and how she looked. She was like a little puppy that had been beaten. She was sad. It really affected me that she felt so poorly about herself. For the next hour or so of our time together we just wandered around the stores, chatting.  I made her try on several different things to give her a good understanding of what worked for her shape and to encourage her to sample different things, but the emphasis now was on making her understand how special she was and how she needed to tell those who made her feel bad about herself, how their comments were affecting her.  I got on the train to come home and I couldn’t stop thinking about her.  And I realised that this woman was not alone. There are so many of us who live with low self esteem.

So you see a Personal Stylist is what I call myself, but for me, it really is so much more than that.  My absolute focus and intention is to show each woman I work with how amazing they are and to help them to get the best out of themselves. Sure I do that with clothes, but I certainly don’t just enter a home, take measurements and tell you what you should be wearing. I listen and try very hard to understand each person’s issues, provide advice, ideas and encouragement. And that’s why I love doing what I do.

You can read what styling services I offer here

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Here’s a little story about a client whose clothes weren’t making her feel great.

She was prompted to contact me because..

She’d recently lost a lot of weight and needed to upgrade her wardrobe but wasn’t sure what to buy to suit and flatter her new shape. She was also bored with her current clothes and needed some guidance with developing a new look, as she felt she was going into a new phase in her life and wanted to enter it on the right, stylish foot.

After talking about what direction she wanted her style to go in and when I felt we were both clear about it, we got stuck into working through her wardrobe.   Which consisted of:

• Outdated, tired and daggy clothes she’d had since the nineties. Some from her uni and back-packing days
• Clothes that were nice BUT didn’t fit properly or were unflattering to her particular body shape or completely opposite to her personal style
• Pieces that were making her feel and appear older than she was and making her look frumpy
• Items that were for exercising

As we continued to work through the wardrobe I observed that a large amount of her (newish) clothes had been purchased from the same local shop and it became apparent to me that my client had been misled into believing these clothes suited and flattered her body shape, when they didn’t.

My client had been enticed to shop at this particular fancy city boutique because it was close to where she worked and therefore convenient, because she’d noticed the girls working in the store looked ‘trendy” and because she wanted to update her look and was uncertain how to do so.

But…not only were these clothes unflattering, they were also not her style.

Although we’d determined together this girls style/personality was “Classic” (tailored, clean, simple, somewhat traditional)  she had been talked into purchasing things that were very pretty/floaty/whimsical/patterned.

She could never work out how to wear them. They looked great on the people in the shop but when she took them home and put them on, they felt all wrong.

Because they weren’t her style.  They were someone else’s.

The boutique in question sold beautiful clothes, just not pieces that suited my clients style.

This is why it is so important that you know exactly what your style is, what the image that you want to portray is and what styles flatter your body shape.

If you don’t want to waste your money by filling your wardrobe with clothes that don’t make you feel great, you need to:

• Learn and understand what flatters your body shape
• Know which shops don’t have the clothes that suit your personal style and which shops do
• Define and develop your own unique personal style and be sure about what you buy fits into this image
• Learn how to be a smart shopper or take someone with you who is, so that you don’t buy into fake flattery
• Don’t be talked into buying or wearing something unless you love it

I don’t entirely blame the staff in the stores for selling things to us that don’t complement our style or shape.  They’re like all of us, trying to earn a living and more than likely doing what their boss has instructed them to do.  Some of these girls would be students, working part time and they haven’t been educated about body shapes.  We need to take responsibility ourselves by knowing what we’re shopping for.  I guess if you asked does this flatter my shape, and they lied to you, that’s another issue.

If you feel like this is happening to you and you’d like help defining your style and then achieving it, book in for a Wardrobe Overhaul and Personal Shopping session here 

You can read what styling services I offer here

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Recently I went shopping with someone who among other things wanted to find a great pair of jeans.

We were lucky enough to find the pair at the first store we visited BUT it took time to determine the best style and fit.

The first pair I gave my client to try were skinnier than she was used to.  Although she wasn’t sure about them initially when I handed them to her, (in her assumed size) I told her to give them a try and yell out when she had them on.  When I went into the changeroom the first thing she said was that they were too small.  But after I got her to do my jean stretching routine and I had a good look at them, I told her they were too big and that she needed to try the next size down.  She looked at me like I was crazy, but I knew the right size in this particular style would look amazing on her.  We just needed to determine what that right size was.

To cut a long story short, we went down 4 sizes and bingo! we arrived at the perfect fit.  I could tell as soon as I walked into the changeroom to check out the fourth pair, that these jeans were the one.   They made my clients legs and bottom look amazing and most importantly she felt great in them.  Exactly how a great pair of jeans should make you feel.

The moral of this story is that my client thought the first pair were too small… where in actual fact, we had to go down four sizes to reach the size that fit her properly.  If she had tried on a bigger size or bought the pair she thought were a bit small, she would have worn them once and they would have gone baggy in the butt, knee and across the top of her thighs, and she would have felt very average wearing them.  When trying on clothes you need to take your time, try many sizes (not just the size you think is “your size”) and styles and assess the difference in each.  Learn to know when something fits and feels right for you.

The No. 1 thing I see in most wardrobes I help edit, is clothes that don’t fit properly.  As I’ve mentioned previously move around in the changeroom to make sure you see how a piece fits from all angles and if you find that you have things in your wardrobe that don’t fit you well, have them tailored.

You can read what styling services I offer here

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