A timeless look, elegant yet effortless. Casual but refined, interesting but not overdone. Simple yet stunning.

I keep dreaming. The words come to my mind thinking of fashion icons I admire but I don't wear what they do. Why is it so hard to define our special unique style?

It may be because defining your style is defining your identity and that is hard to put the finger on. It has as much to do with looks as with how it makes us feel – just like we love a good friend for how we feel together.

We have a craving to be understood and admired while at the same time want to be different and unique. Just like our personalities, the need for social approval while maintaining our uniqueness is tough.
Then - our personality and our mood changes, the colors or size (!) change as well and what worked yesterday maybe not true today. Here are some of the tips I picked up over the years about the style:

• Simplicity always trumps the fussiness. The simpler the main body of the outfit, the easier is to transform it with heels and jewelry if needed. Then at noon you throw on a pair of espadrilles and meet a friend for lunch. Perfect!
• Quality always trumps the price. If the price low = too good to be true, it probably is, barred occasional sales. Which leads us to another subject - how ethically it is made.
• The “vibes” of production travel with each item. If they are made with slave labor, there is pain and suffering connected to it. Then, if it is a labor of love, pride of skill - it feels like a gem. Natural fibers connect us to their origins and unite us with nature's beauty. Plastic does not.
• Sophia Loren stated that the two most important parts of the style are: healthy well-maintained hair and shoes well cared for. There is a lot of truth to it – these create endpoints of the first impressions.

Top (hair) and bottom (shoes) anchor us to the magic of earth and clouds – if well cared for thy pull together of what lays “in between”. I often start with shoes when putting an outfit together.

 

• Fashion gurus talk about exuding confidence to have a true style but I do find it a bit of a Catch-22. You can’t fake the confidence or it comes across a fake.

Personally, I like the help of the right dress or shoes that feel good. To find it – it requires a bit of attention, a bit objectivity, a bit of trying and a bit of time. Let’s don’t deprive ourselves of that time - it really is spent on YOU: understanding yourself, getting to know yourself better and… liking yourself better.

That is worth a million bucks.