Finding your unique style

                

How to find own your unique style

I had a period in my life when I expressed myself with how I looked. I liked doing that. I just loved clothes, but have never had many. And costumes. I love costumes. So it was natural for me to be creative in how I dressed. But, as happens to most of us, when life takes over with lots of responsibilities, and things which need to be done, spending some time on ourselves is no longer a priority. But now I do have that time. And knowledge. About myself. This can be expressed through our appearance, if we wish. I don't feel that this is so much a vanity thing, but rather it's self-expression. For me, anyway.

I tend to get stuck in a rut. Which I don't want to do. And I really don't always like the clothes available. But I had a shake-up after reading a fantastic book on style, much of what I already knew, and had mysteriously forgotten to do. I just loved the way that the women in the book dressed, I could so relate to all of them. Usually when I look at these books, and at magazines, I'm like: "you have to be kidding". And that is because, I believe, each country has it's own style of dressing. Due to money, ethnicity, climate, and the way life is lived. After all, New Zealand is a very casual country. Most of us would not look like someone, with hair, make-up and dress, who is from Mexico, California, New York, or London, for example. We all dress to suit our lifestyle.

And the book,  The Closet Stylist, by Anna Caselberg, is from my own country. That was why I enjoyed it so much. Every style of dressing in it, I loved.

                  

First up

So, I feel that this is the first requirement: does how you look, and dress, suit your life-style?

The tricky bit

Do your clothes flatter you? I wrote a course so many years ago, before there were lots of books around telling us how to analyse what does and doesn't suit us. Or, to be more precise, what is flattering on us. There are some easy factors that we can look at look at regarding looking good; colour being the easiest to start with.

Colour

When I trained, back in the days of yore, with Grace Cosmetics, as a Colour Consultant, it was all about skin tone. I learnt, in my training, that basically we are either warm toned or cool toned. And that some people are fairly neutral, meaning that they could wear colours from both warm and cool ones.

Nowadays that's been greatly changed so that there are sub-headings under colour types. All of those sub headings are just too difficult for me, personally, so I just ignore them, for myself. The easiest way that I know of to work out whether we are cool, or warm, toned, is by looking at our veins inside the arm, just above the wrist.

blueish veins = cool tones    greenish veins = warm tones

Our skin has hues

I do think that it's a lot harder when we have dark skin, or have a family history of hues of olive, brown, whatever you want to call it, from light to dark, because we then suit more vibrant colours. It seems to me, that even if there is just an undertone of olive, that many of us are a bit outside of the accepted rules about colour and colour types. Even if our skin tone fades (mine has), those sparkling, richer colours, are still more flattering for us, than softer, gentler colours. 

One of my grand-daughters has rich, deep, auburn hair. It is amazing. With a faint touch of olive in her skin. I am sure that if she was blatantly fair skinned, she would not suit the colours which she wears: deep, vibrant colours like mustard and rich browns, black, all are 'her' colours. They are striking, strong, colours, which, incidentally, go with her strong personality.

A modern colour stylist (which obviously I am not) would say that she suits deep colours. I do too. But hers are a bit warmer, except the black, and my deep colours are a bit cooler. Because BG ('beloved grand-daughter', in blog-speak) has such contrast in her colouring, somehow it makes sense when she echoes that contrast thing, with the colours which she wears. Soft, cool, pastel colours would even make her look a bit sickly. So, I suppose that it is also about intensity.

Whereas I, BG (this time it's about me. I know that I am her 'beloved granny') I know that there is not so much contrast in my colouring. So my deep, cool, colours look a bit more flattering when they are not so sparkling. A little bit muted, instead. Just the barest touch. So, I have a muted, or softer, intensity. Softer in this context is not about a pastel colour. It's something else.

Looking at, for example, apricot. A colour which is a warm tone. When it's very bright it's quite different to a softer version of it. Someone with a big contrast with their skin and hair, could wear a rich, deep apricot. Whereas, one of my daughters who is a lot fairer in colouring but has strong definition in her colouring, still with that most subtle, barely there, undertone of olive, could have a mid tone apricot. And a fair-haired, fair-skinned person with lovely soft, delicate colouring, could echo that in a soft apricot. 

I don't know if this is confusing. I hope not. And I hope that it helps with choosing colour.

The easy way to choose a colour

The bottom line is that if you hold a garment, or piece of fabric under your chin and look at your face, and you look a bit tired. Or your sunspots, freckles, wrinkles and other 'things' are more noticeable, then that is so the wrong colour for you. 

But if you look, well, pretty, then voila! it's the correct tone, the correct intensity, for you. It's a winner.