Sewingplums

More Rich Links with lots to explore when you get there. And some chatter ! This time on personal style.

Do you know your body shape, colouring, personal style?
What flatters your special combination of qualities ?
What do you enjoy wearing ?
Have you got an effective wardrobe ?
Or do you just enjoy reading about it all 😀

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Follow Imogen Lamport’s April Style Challenge at Inside-Out Style.
Get some ideas for re-thinking how you wear your clothes. (Sorry, a bit late now – do it in May instead !)

More inspiration for using your existing clothes to best advantage, from Jill Chivers of My Year Without Clothes Shopping. She and Imogen have a video on styling up a basic outfit of tee and jeans.

Imogen Lamport also has good groups of posts on
body shape.
colour personality. (Posts on individual colour types in the Archive for early April 2010 – scroll down.)
capsule wardrobes.

And a recent series on which neutrals are flattering to wear with your hair colour (allowing for warm-cool differences) :
blonde,
red,
brunette,
grey.

Another Australian site for getting to know what you like to wear describes 6 steps to a personal makeover.
There’s much good advice here, without making any purchases.

The Joy of Clothes has a fun style quiz – even if I don’t recognise myself in much of it !

Lot’s of advice to explore from The Chic Fashionista. Another style quiz (look under Fashion 101 > your personal style) – this one does include me 😀 except I’ve never owned a pair of black pumps. Interesting advice on wardrobe essentials – ignore that the examples are all white, grey, black.

Or simply search your body shape, for innumerable suggestions. Example for me : “pear body shape”.

If you’re interested in exploring your personal colouring, there are free videos on the 6 basic colour types used by UK Colour Me Beautiful.
The videos are oriented to selling handbags, but you can always move on once you get to that section !

The videos show people who are clearly dominant on one of the UK ColourMB 6 colour types :
Light . . . . . . . . . . . Deep
Warm (yellow) . . Cool (blue)
Clear . . . . . . . . . . . Soft (muted, added grey)
Many of us are a mixture. I need to wear Light clothes in Warm colours with a touch of Soft.

Not the same as the US Color Me Beautiful company, which uses the 4 seasonal colourings based on 2 dimensions :
light-warm . . . . Spring
light-cool . . . . . . Summer
deep-warm . . . . Autumn
deep-cool . . . . . . Winter

Sadly I don’t look good in all the colours suggested by either of these colour schemes. I find it best to use colours directly based on the colours in my hair, eyes, and skin, as I have cool hair, warm skin. There are many of us, but UK CMB says it’s impossible.

US ColorMB’s seasons are similar to the colour system used by Dressing Your Truth. Who go so far as to relate colour of clothes directly to face shape and clothing personality.
DYT . . . . colour . . . . style . . . . . MBTI temperament
Type 1 . . Spring . . . . . Casual . . . . . . SP
Type 2 . . Summer . . . Romantic . . . .NF
Type 3 . . Autumn . . . . Classic . . . . . SJ
Type 4 . . Winter . . . . . Dramatic . . . NT
DYT claim their system is unique – this way of relating it to well known categories of colour, style, personality is mine. See also this post from Expressing Your Truth which analyses in detail how DYT is derivative. (Much information on that site about many other style and colouring systems.)

Of course DYT makes an extreme over-simplification of all our subtle individual differences. Psychologists long ago gave up on the idea that there’s any link between face or body shape and personality.
Indeed, DYT have to colour people’s hair so they look good in the colour of clothes suggested for their personality. Which to me doesn’t seem a way of respecting the Truth of our own bodies and personalities.

But anyway DYT have a free course on identifying your Type.
And many entertaining free videos about their system. See if you like the ideas and presentation style.
Despite all the limitations I enjoy watching this material. But it’s probably most helpful for people who don’t know there are innumerable sources of personal style advice – consultants, sites, books – out there !
(Don’t buy the book ‘Dressing your truth’ – expensive and says little about clothes.)

UK Colour Me Beautiful expands the usual 4 categories of personal style to 6 :
City Chic – elegant quality basics with an emphasis on accessories, or minimalism. See Janice of The Vivienne Files for inspiring outfits in this style.
Classic – traditional classic, modern classic, tweeds.
Natural – casual, relaxed, rugged, sporting.
Romantic – feminine, vintage.
Dramatic – edgy, sexy, fashionista.
Creative – a wide range of possibilities, from the Tilton and Sewing Workshop patterns through crafter’s embellishment, Goth/ Lolita/ steam punk, to grunge or the wildest of unexpected shape/ colour/ print/ texture combinations. Or ‘eclectic’ – any style depending on how you feel at the time ! (Have a look at Fantastical Beauty and Urban Threads.)

UK CMB have nothing free on-line about these styles, but they have got an on-line course for training professional personal stylists !

The 7 personal styles in the Australian 6-step wardrobe revamp include 6 similar styles and also ‘Alluring’.
Elegant
Classic
Natural
Feminine
Alluring/ Sexy
Dramatic
Creative.
Choose a main style, then a secondary one to add special character to it.

My main style is relaxed, but having a ‘chic’ category helps me include the quality aspect that’s important to me. With touches of creative and feminine. I’m not at all into being highly visible, either dramatic, alluring, or aggressively creative !

‘Alluring’, ‘casual’, ‘feminine’, ‘creative’ – there are many situations, such as at work, where these styles are either inappropriate or unhelpful. It’s good to know your tendency and preference, so you can think how to get round it. Sometimes your secondary style is helpful. I’m a ‘natural’ and unhappy in classics (as I keep saying 😀 ) When I was working I focussed on my ‘chic’ side to look successful and competent. I know a supermarket supervisor who goes home in black leather and chains – when at work he keeps his ponytail with the company uniform.

Does any combination of these categories describe your personal style ? Where do you feel you fit in ?

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I’ve looked at many systems describing body shapes, colouring, and personal styles. None of them fit me exactly. Some of them I can fit myself into quite easily, others only with great difficulty. But I’ve learned something or got inspiration from nearly all of them, so it’s worthwhile as well as entertaining.
I am nearly always a combination of categories, and have learned much about what suits me by working out what would be a combined style.
Your own judgement about you feel ‘comfortable’ in is the best guide – physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. . .

Have a look at some of this for a bit of enjoyable relaxation.
If it gives you any ideas for your own style, that’s a bonus 😀

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Links available April 2013

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This entry was posted on April 13, 2013 at 8:18 am and is filed under personal style. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.