Hello Y’all,

I hope you had a fab week of feasting and shopping especially now when all diets  should be off or on hold until the first week of January 2017! 😀 This week, I am going to be writing about what I call ‘That Sense of Fashion’. As a lover of fashion and personal style, I try to keep up with the trends albeit from a distance…some trends are amazingly genius while some are downright ‘what were you thinking’ crazy…ha ha!

A lot of times, a love of fashion is misconstrued to equal personal style and I am going to share my thoughts and let you come to your own conclusions. I am an avid watcher of fashion TV and have been for many years now. I do my best to keep up with Paris, Milan, London and New York Fashion week. Now, we all know that a lot of the clothing that’s often times modeled are not exactly items everyday people would wear; from being so beautiful you would have to find a special event to wear it to, to sometimes bordering on bizarre, or for specific body types and being extraordinarily expensive. Then comes personal style…

Personal Style by my definition is a persons likes, taste, judgement, budget and how they want to be perceived summed up into one bold statement. I would like to categorize the art of style or the lack of it into 3 groups that I am going to shed some light on:

The Fashion Junkie: This group of people have to have e-v-e-r-y trending outfit. There isn’t much of the individuals personal style or input; “If it’s in, they want it. If it’s trending, they have to have it”.

The Elegant Stylist: This class of people love fashion just as much but court it on their own terms. They pick and choose creative aspects of fashion and are willing to improvise to attain a desired ensemble.

The No Style What-So-Ever Individual: This group of individuals have given up on ever finding their fashion sense…ever Never fear…it’s not too late.

Personal Style and a Sense of Fashion come with having an artistic eye for detail and a creative imagination. For some, this comes naturally but for others it is something that can be learned if you are willing to put in the work. I am outlining below a few tips that can get you started on developing your very own fashion sense.

Starter Tips for Developing Your Own Fashion Sense 

Honesty: You have to be honest with your body type…right now. Not the body you’re going to have when you finally loose those pounds you’ve been planning to loose for the past five years. Understand that you’re beginning a new phase and you need to know and accept where you are right now; this will serve as a guide to where you want to go moving forward.

Find Someone Whose Fashion Sense You Admire: An icon with a similar body type to you. A person that looks great all the time or someone you trust that has an eye for fashion and a taste for clothes; someone who can tell you the truth in love and help you tweak your wardrobe. For example: I love the late Audrey Hepburn and I have copied images of outfits she’s worn in the past that I absolutely adore. I have images of these outfits saved on my computer for references and inspiration when I go shopping.

Do Not Over Do It: Revamping your personal style and upping your fashion anther does not necessarily mean you have to burn all your clothes either…that would be a little extreme But you need to go through your wardrobe and decide what items you would like to keep and what items you might need to get rid of.

Improvise! Improvise! Improvise!: There is a reason why the word ‘SALE’ is the next best thing since sliced bread (in my book) 😀 ha ha!

Learn the Art of ‘Mixing and Matching’: Have you ever stood in the middle of your closet, that’s filled with clothes (if I might add) and couldn’t find a single thing to wear??? I’ll tell you why – You already have a set idea in your mind on how you pair your clothes and you haven’t given yourself the fluidity to mix and match different items together. You never know what you can create unless you break your routine.

On a final note, there’s  nothing wrong with spending money on expensive clothing and if your job or lifestyle demand it, then go for it. But if you’re not at the Oscars or Met gala every other night, then what good is it to spend a ton of money on an outfit you get to wear 1.5 times in a year. Our fashion sense and personal style determine to an extent how we are perceived and addressed but above all, we must always strive to be confident in who we are as people with a deep awareness that our clothes as fashionably forward as they may be do not define us.

I’ve attached are some pictures from Vogue’s Paris Fashion Week 2016 Fall Collection featuring  some designers I love: Valentino, Balenciaga, Givenchy, Vetements, Louis Vuitton and Maison Margiela. I get to feast my eyes on the creative possibilities out there but also keeping in mind that the majority of these outfits are artworks and not exactly as practical in everyday life.

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Ciao until I come your way next time!

Periwinkle Starr