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You do not need to change your size or shape to become the most stylish and confident version of yourself. Fact.
Here's why: Good personal style comes down to three key factors
Want to know how? Read on to discover how to achieve this..
Some of my most powerful experiences as a stylist have taken place whilst working with women who wear larger clothing sizes and had a limited view of what they could wear and of their potential to look and feel great. They thought they needed to change their size to look stylish and to feel confident in their appearance. How wrong they were! Seeing their sheer joy and surprise at their reflection in the mirror was both touching and also very telling. Their results were achieved through careful introspection of who they are and the visual messages that they wanted to convey through their style. When looking in the mirror, they were dressed to show their personality and they were wearing colours that enhanced their natural features and cuts that flattered their body type.
In my years of experience, I have discovered that the way to look truly stylish is to dress as your authentic self. This means choosing items (often the finishing touches, garment details or accessories) that showcase who you are and fit your personal brand.
In some ways, the process of clarifying your personal brand can be even more empowering than having your colours and shapes analysed. Whilst important, I believe that colour and shape are secondary to personal branding. Having a sense of continuity and certainty to your style from the way in which you communicate to the visual messages that you send out through the way you dress only helps to strengthen your sense of self.
Conversely, having no particular direction to your style and brand can have the effect of leaving you feeling ungrounded and lacking stability. Although it’s great fun to be experimental and a style chameleon whilst you are discovering who you are (usually in your teens and early adulthood), that’s not so helpful when you are trying to build rapport, become recognisable for something specific and create impact.
When you regularly change the way that you present yourself visually, you fail to communicate successfully who you are. Now I am not for a moment claiming that our appearance is the sole means of establishing your personal brand however, we do know that more than 90% of communication is thought to be non-verbal.
The buzz word for both marketing and branding is consistency, the same applies to building a personal brand and image.
The key to great style is to dress as the person you know and love, your true self and to wear only the colours and cuts that are right for you.
The right colours should enhance your natural features without the use of cosmetics and the right cuts will be easy to wear without continual tweaking and adjustment. Mastering colour and shape, again, supports the theory that you do not need to change yourself in order to look fantastic. It’s all about making the right choices.
Here are 10 steps to take to refine your personal style:
1. Ideal World Exercise: Consider how you would like to be perceived by the people you are visible to? What words would you like to hear people using when describing you? What type of style would convey the characteristics of these words?
2. Personal Brand vision board. Collect style images that you are drawn to. Think carefully about why you are drawn to these. Do the words you use to describe these images connect with the words you used in the ideal world exercise?
3. Discover your colours: My online course, ‘Jumpstart your dream wardrobe’ contains a detailed guide on how to analyse your colouring. Or you can of course book a session with a Stylist!
4. Get clarity on the best shapes to wear for your body type: Again, this is detailed in ‘Jumpstart your dream wardrobe’ or a Stylist will be able to help you with this.
5. Edit down: Take a careful look at your wardrobe. Do you own many pieces that are right for your personal brand, your colouring and your body type? You may need a significant wardrobe detox.
6. Plan your capsule: Consider the items on your vision board that you might need to own to form a perfect capsule for your desired look. What cuts and colours should your version of these items be in order to work for you?
7. Re-stock: Create a list of the items you need to add to your wardrobe and organise them in order of priority. Don’t aim to tackle more than one or two items at a time. Accept that it might take you a good year or more to shop for the perfect capsule.
8. Outfit build: Each time you add a new item to your wardrobe, create and photograph multiple looks with this item and keep these in an easy to access file. This will make getting dressed so much easier in the long run.
9. Review: When you experience change physically or in your lifestyle, you may need to re-start this process as your personal brand may need to evolve. Our colouring and shape will experience change throughout our lifecycle which might mean there is a point in time when an overhaul is needed.
10. Smile and walk with confidence! You’ve found your true style and you’ll see the results in the mirror
The point to take away here is that your dress size is totally irrelevant when it comes to curating a strong personal style. All you need is to arm yourself with the right information to make sensible shopping decisions and in turn to look the best, most authentic version of yourself
Get in touch for personalised styling help and advice at info@kerenbeaustyling.com
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