MEAGHAN SMITH PERSONAL STYLIST

Sometimes it’s not until we try something different, that we realise the impact clothes can have on how we feel about ourselves.

I have had ladies burst into tears in the changeroom after they’ve seen themselves in a great pair of jeans. They had no idea they could wear that particular style, let alone how they would feel when they saw themselves in them.

Looking your best and feeling stylish can help you be more confident and self assured, while wearing the wrong clothes can have the opposite effect,  so it saddens me when I hear some of the reasons women have for giving up on themselves. These are just some of the excuses I’ve heard…

• “I’m old now. Nothing looks good on me”
• “I’m too fat to look good in clothes”
• “I’ve got no one to dress nicely for”
• “Everything I like is too expensive”
• “Once my kids leave home I’ll have time and money to spend on myself”
• “I’d love you to come and look in my wardrobe and help me clean it out and show me how to wear what I have, but I’m too embarrassed to let you see inside it”
• “I don’t have the time and patience to shop”
• “There’s no point in me trying to look stylish at the moment while I have small kids.  I always end up with food or vomit on my top and I can’t run around after a 3 year old in stilettos”

Are you telling yourself you’re not worth it?  Are you thinking you’re beyond help?  Are you stopping yourself from looking and feeling the best you can?

Of course not all of us have the money to spend on new clothes, (high maintenance) hairstyles and makeup and not all of us have lots of time to go shopping, but there are small things you can do that require little time and little investment that will make a big difference.

It’s upsetting when I talk to someone who thinks that “it’s all too hard” and they have given up on themselves. 

All of us deserve to feel good about ourselves at every stage of our lives.

It might be that you need to stop wearing sloppy unflattering comfy clothes, maybe your  hems needs taking up, (or going down) perhaps you could do with a new bra or lippy, or having your eyebrows shaped.  Maybe all that you need is in your wardrobe, you just can’t find it for the clutter.  I’m here to tell you (& encourage you) that baby steps can make a big difference.

Promise me, you won’t ever give up on yourself and remember that I am here to help if you need some motivation, support and guidance.

READ: “It’s Not Just About The Clothes” here

Details of my personal styling services (Including prices) here

Get to know me and my style on Facebook here

..& Instagram here

I’ve had this brilliant fuchsia Bettina Liano pant suit for 8, 10….maybe 12 years.  It’s been one of my favourite trusty items in my wardrobe where I’ve worn it to weddings, the races, dinners and Christmas parties.  It’s a very classic cut so although it’s years old, it’s still current.

When I first bought it I took it to my tailor and got him to alter it so that it fit me like a glove – so I know it flatters my shape. I’ve always felt great every time I put it on…until recently.

A little while ago I pulled it out and put it on to wear to a luncheon at the races and it felt all wrong.  I looked in the mirror and felt blah.  This was odd.  It always worked.  It was my fail safe item I reached for when I couldn’t decide on anything else. This time I had to take it off and put something else on.  I felt like I was over it.   I put this down to two things. Firstly, about a year ago when my jacket came back from the cleaners, two buttons were smashed and I had to replace them.  Despite searching endlessly for something that matched perfectly, I could never find something I really liked.  Secondly, I was bored with it.   It needed to be revamped, I just wasn’t sure how.

So I put it back in the wardrobe and there it stayed, rejected, waiting for me to come up with an inspired idea as to what I could do with it.

I searched…and researched…and researched and one day came across this….

…so I did this….

I really wanted round gold buttons like the photo but couldn’t find them. (Still searching!) These will do for now, until I come across the ones I really want.  When I was sewing these on, I wasn’t convinced it was what I was after, but as soon as I tried it on, I loved it. I felt like I had a new item of clothing, and I hadn’t spent a cent.

People are often surprised when I help them go through and clean out their wardrobe, that I don’t come up with an enormous expensive list of what they need to buy to have a half decent wardrobe.  Sometimes, once we’ve gotten rid of what doesn’t need to be there and we can see what’s left, we find some hidden little treasures that can be reinvented.  There are lot’s and lot’s of things you can do to make your wardrobe feel fresh and updated without buying a single piece of clothing.  Here are five things you can do right now.

• Pull all the dresses and skirts that you don’t regularly wear out of your wardrobe and consider whether they might work better on your shape and with your lifestyle, with a different hem length
• Soak all your whites overnight in NapiSan or similar to bring them back to white white, rather than grey white
• Try all your daggy jeans on and think about whether they’re making your legs look bigger than you are and if they would look more flattering if they were slimmer in the leg.  If so, take them off to a tailor (or do it yourself if you’re clever) and ask him to run them in down the leg
• Give your leather bags and shoes a clean and polish. (I often just use Mr Sheen)  Make sure you test a small patch before you do the whole item
• Buy a thick piece of velvet ribbon and wrap it around your waist and tie it in a bow with your blouses and dresses. Attach a vintage brooch.

**I wrote this back in 2011.  It’s now five years later and this suit is still alive and kicking.  I’m about to reinvent it yet again by having the pants cropped.

READ: “What’s Hiding In Your Wardrobe That Could Be Reinvented?” Here

Details of my personal styling services (Including prices) here

Get to know more about me and my style on Facebook here

..& Instagram here

I’ve always been obsessed by fashion.

When I first started working in the city, as soon as my pay hit my account I’d race off to Myer in my lunch break to buy myself something new to wear out on the town on the weekend. I wasn’t from the city, so all the options available were overwhelming and shopping in the Big Smoke, exciting.  When I wasn’t investing in clothes, make-up or skin care, I was spending my hard earned on Cleo’s and Vogues, where I attempted to replicate the looks of Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Back in those days I thought I had the fashion thing and my style sorted out. I thought I knew how I wanted to look and what I was doing when I shopped, but in actual fact I didn’t.

I really had no idea what my Personal Style was.

I was really just following the trends in the magazines, the way my friends dressed, the way they dressed in the bars and nightclubs I went to, the way the women in Collins Street (where I worked) dressed and how the actresses in movies and on TV dressed. I hadn’t really developed my own sense of style.  So for this reason I made lots of very costly shopping mistakes.

It was in my early thirties when, as Oprah would say, I had a light bulb moment and I figured it out.

During this period I was spending a lot of time, particularly going to 30th birthday parties, with two girlfriends who often dressed in Allanah Hill clothes. (Pictured above)  We’d meet up beforehand and they would both be wearing beautiful lace and velvet dresses with brightly colored flowers in their hair – looking sexy and elegant and I would be in my best jeans and top.   To set the scene, both of my girlfriends had gorgeous curvaceous figures. Both had amazing curly hair – one red the other blonde and they would both have their lips painted bright red. I was so envious of how feminine, attractive, sexy and glamourous they looked – when I felt like a skinny, under dressed boy. (I had short hair back then)

In an attempt to try and emulate the looks of my lovely friends, I’d often go into Allanah Hill and try on a heap of dresses, determined to pretty and womanly as my girlfriends did.  But on every occasion I’d stand in front of the mirror feeling like a little girl going off to a six year old birthday party.  Why didn’t I look like my friends did?  Why didn’t these dresses suit me?  Why did I look like a little girl when they looked like gorgeous, sophisticated women.

In the end I bought one of the dresses, even though it never did feel right.  I thought it was beautiful and it was on sale.  It was orange and white gingham chiffon, with ruffles.  I took it home and hung it on my door in my bedroom so that I could just look at it, and there it stayed til I sold it a year later on eBay.  You see even though I loved that dress, it wasn’t my style.  So it never felt right.

I attempted to wear it to the races.  I even bought something to wear in my hair and a pair of shoes to wear with it.  But on the day when I put it on, it felt all wrong, so I took it off – frustrated and annoyed – and put on a trusty classic black dress I’d worn a hundred times.

And this was when I realised it.

Pretty, floaty, floraly, whimsical dresses were not for me.  I could admire them on other people, in magazines and in shop windows, but I should not buy another one again, because I was just wasting my money and I was wasting time shopping in stores that only stocked these kinds of clothes.

I felt relieved.

But if that wasn’t my style, what was?   That’s a whole other story…..

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