MEAGHAN SMITH PERSONAL STYLIST

Right or wrong, fair or not, the way you dress projects something about you without you even having to open your mouth to speak.

Your clothes, adornments and grooming communicate a non-verbal message about your identity and therefore help people form an immediate impression about you.

Designer Maxime Simoens says,

“People who set out to project nonchalance construct a disheveled look.  People who want to send a more aggressive message choose more aggressive clothes.”

Of course it’s very important that we’re true to ourselves and that we dress in a way that feels authentic to our individual personal style – it’s when we do that, that we feel the most confident.

However, it’s also important that you continue to ask yourself what is the style and image you aspire to project and then consider whether you are in fact achieving that.

Are your clothes saying what you want them to?

Here’s an article I found really interesting, on the topic.

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In Net-a-Porter’s magazine, The Edit,  Sarah Jessica Parker says,

“I think I wear seven percent of what’s in my closet.  I have more pants, more jeans, more corduroys than I ever imagined I’d own in my life.  I have dresses I keep, and I go,..

‘Better not throw that out because I’m gonna have an occasion’.

But the occasion never presents itself..”

Does anyone relate to that? Are you holding on to things in your wardrobe just in case.

Just in case I put weight on again…just in case George Clooney asks me out for a drink…just in case enormous shoulder pads come into fashion again.

Is your wardrobe cluttered with just in case clothes?

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When you haven’t spent time thinking about, defining and developing your own style, there’s the possibility that you’ll adopt someone else’s.

You might be buying the same things your girlfriends or colleagues are,  wearing clothes your mum or your husband have bought for you,  or copying the style of a character on TV.

Of course that’s perfectly ok if it feels right for you – but often it doesn’t.

It’s quite common to hear, when I first meet a client to do a Wardrobe Overhaul,  that they have lots of clothes, but not really anything they want to wear.  Chances are this is because their wardrobe is full of someone else’s style.

Think about it.  You wouldn’t have a collection of music that wasn’t your taste.   You wouldn’t have art on your walls that wasn’t your taste.  So why collect clothes that really aren’t your taste.

Here’s a good example.

I can imagine there are women all over Australia with pieces they’ve bought purely because it looked like something similar to what Nina Proudman wore, on the show Offspring.

This is great if your style is a little bit bohemian.  You can use Nina’s style as inspiration for what to buy and how to wear your clothes.  But what if it’s not really your style.  What if you’ve just bought maxi skirts, vintage tan belts, scarves and denim jackets because you like Nina’s quirky character and how she looks.  (Think about this: Would you like this style so much if Billie was wearing it?)

What then happens when the show finishes or you discover you’re really not a bohemian dresser at all and your wardrobe is full of Nina’s style – not your own?  You feel confused and frustrated with your wardrobe and feel that nothing works and if you’re anything like me when I was making costly mistakes before I worked out my personal style, you feel annoyed at yourself for spending all the money you did on things that weren’t right for you in the first place.

If you think your wardrobe might be full of someone else’s style why don’t you make 2018 the year you define your own authentic personal style.   Being clear on your personal style and the look you’re wanting to achieve, makes shopping and dressing so much easier ….and it can save you a lot of money.

Book in for a Wardrobe Overhaul (where we spend time together defining your personal style) here 

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I think back to the days of when I worked in banking and how I dressed to fit in.

I liked to put my own spin on things occasionally, but generally I just wore a similar version to what everyone else in the office was wearing.  As you can imagine, it was a fairly conservative  environment.

Occasionally when anyone attempted to wear something a bit unique or different, there were often “knock down” remarks.  I still remember the day I wore a scarf tied around my neck (to try something new) and I was asked if I had a job interview at lunch time as an air stewardess – which made the whole (male) dealing desk laugh – and made me whip it off before I could even get back to my desk to hide.

Of course there was a dress policy to adhere to, which I can completely understand and always complied with, but looking back I realise there was still room for me to interpret the standards in my own way.  I wish I had made the most of that, explored my personal style earlier and learned to feel confident not being so predictable.  You see when I left the organisation I was quite lost and confused.  My corporate identity and the uniform I’d grown comfortable in, was gone.  I had to re-establish how I wanted to look…and it took quite a while.   It took me some time also, to feel comfortable to be different, yet authentic to who I was and not worry that I wasn’t conforming to how everyone else dressed.

So the question is, is our personal style hindered by the tribe we’re associated with?

For example…

Would you love to wear a chic suit to work, but everyone else wears cargoes, jeans and t-shirts?

Would you like to go to the pub in a dress and heels, but all your friends only ever wear jeans?

Would you like to wear more modern, fashionable pieces, but you think you’d stand out too much among the other school mums?

Would you like to try something different, but feel pressured to fit in and worry too much about what others think?

Dressing according to my personal style and in my own way, does not mean I need to look fabulously eccentric as Iris Apfel does above – quite the contrary.  For me it means being confident enough that I don’t feel I need to wear lots of colors and dresses and patterns.  It means feeling that it’s ok to dress however I want to – whether it’s all black every day for a week, bright red lips,  and faded skinny jeans.   And it means not looking a particular way that others expect or would like me to.

Who knows one of these days I might return to the corporate world and feel the need to want to fit in again.   And it’s ok to do that, if that’s what I want.  There’s absolutely no right or wrong.

Are you interested in asserting your individuality or would you rather play it safe?  When it comes to how you dress, how important is it to you that you fit in?

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