Personal Style. Part I

So, Personal Style.
One of those insubstantial but highly desirable things that money can’t buy – unless you hire a professional to do the job for you.
For people who were born with this sixth sense of fashion it’s hardly a chore. Imagine some inner filter that sifts through a constant stream of trends and flows, unerringly choosing what only reflects the essence of your fashion personality.
The rest of the world divides into two groups of people: the ones that don’t know or care about personal style, and the ones that want to develop it and admittedly need help, and who I invite to chat.
Please have a seat, I am glad to see all five of you, and we can start with basics.
One of the points of struggle usually starts with color balance. The thing to remember is, that in fashion, unlike math, two plus two is not necessarily four. In other words, matching shoe color to your outfit should feel like a solution that’s too easy not to be a trap.
That leaves many people with the dilemma where you can’t apply any logical or common sense rules. Especially since the rules in fashion are made to get broken so it could reinvent itself and evolve into the next rule.
Colors and shapes are like couples: sometimes they’re friends, sometimes – lovers, and sometimes they are the spouses that need to get divorced.
To play it safe, beginners may apply an old practice to not wear anything darker than your shoes, even though stylists happily break this rule in editorials all around the globe.
Here is the next advice I’d like to offer that would help you not to age in normal pace.
The trick is do not, I repeat, do not wear your favorite styles from your past.
Those things have only sentimental value, translating, they’re only valuable to you. You can frame them and hang them on the wall, and no one will need to get harmed.
For example, wedding gowns always had long trains, but in previous decades a train was held by a bride with a wrist loop. Nowadays some mothers of the brides suggest their daughters do the same with their modern wedding dresses.
Let me silently blush on your behalf, and then offer a beautiful, artistic reincarnation of the dress into the train-less version.
That all being said, please don’t take it too close to your fashionable heart. The only thing worse than any fashion mistake is when you try too hard making it.
Some people get an A for the effort, but not really. Effortless is the most desirable key word in fashion, even if you spent a couple of centuries getting ready.
The bottom line is, personal style is a multi-faceted, evolving and extremely, well, personal code that helps one communicate with the world.
Disregard it, develop it, substitute it – but you can’t play fashion games without it.
To be continued…