Accessories: Embellishments or Infrastructure?
“Accessories are also the infrastructure of a well-designed outfit. If you don’t have it, your outfit will crumble.”
Brenda Kinsel, from the book Brenda Kinsel’s Fashion Makeover
In the course of focusing on my own comeback, I have finally come to the place in my wardrobe life where I recognize my need for a basic assortment of accessories. Serendipitously, I am also reading this book. Allow me to go out on a limb here and suggest that if you, like me, are an accessory retard, this book could change that. The author does a fabulous job keeping accessories in their proper role, suggesting pieces which support your personal coloring and relate to the scale of your facial features.
She also suggests, after going through what you have and deciding what to keep, but before shopping, that you play with your accessories, grouping them by color (including metals). Take photos.
Without even doing the project I know what I need: necklaces.
- silver to support my hair color (I already have pearls),
- pink to add color near my face when wearing a neutral outfit, and
- brown to enhance my eyes and complete the infrastructure effect of brown buttons and belt.
Often when getting dressed, I know I need a third color near my face. Without a necklace (or scarf, but I don’t like them) my options are limited
Knowing that I don’t like to spend money AND I my stamina for accessory shopping is limited, where would you recommend I look for accessories and costume jewelry? Have you found any good deals lately?
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Slow Down and Read
Believe it or not, I took off for Seattle in such a big hurry that I didn’t even grab a book. Not even my Bible. (That would be even more embarrassing if it weren’t for the fact that a skinny little New Testament is a permanent resident of my purse.) I did take a little stack of bills, thereby averting the disaster that late fees can pile on top of emergencies like these. And I took my ipod, but forgot about it most of the time.
I found the quiet (in my head) rather therapeutic.
However, if I had thought of it, I would definitely have taken Brenda Kinsel’s Fashion Makeover: 30 Days to Diva Style!
In the meantime, blog reading (I’m trying to get caught up on my blog-reading, but if I missed your fall wardrobe post, please send me the link):
- Damselfly’s What I’d Wear Wednesday Fall post. Note from me: magenta - yes!
- Is This Modest? has introduced Quick Reviews, where you can comment on the modesty of specific outfits.
And Yikes! Has the weather turned suddenly in your neck of the woods? It’s been wool all week for me.
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Communicating With Your Hairdresser
In Staging Your Comeback, Christopher Hopkins hints humorously at how he interprets what clients say. For example, if you say, “I don’t want it too neat”; he thinks, “she doesn’t want to feel old”. (And isn’t that the truth? And more than that, I don’t want to look like an old man.) If you say, “I don’t want to look frumpy”; he thinks, “she needs more makeup”. If you haven’t already, buy the book and read the rest of the list yourself.
In answer to the question “What is the most effective way of communicating what you want to your hair-stylist?”, Imogen’s comment is representative of the most commonly recommended way of handling it:
If you have a picture bring it - but look for a picture of someone with the haircut you want who appears to have a similar texture of hair - because what you want may not be possible if your hair won’t do the cut you want.
Interestingly enough, I think the second most popular advice was just to let the stylist decide. Lots of other good advice in the comments back there. Describing what you want seems to be the universally ineffective way of doing it.
Anyway, once upon a time, eons ago, I picked up this book - and I mean, picked it up in the bookstore and stood there and read it - which defines and explains the different kinds of hair textures and what kinds of styles work with them. There’s no substitute for understanding your own hair texture.
The most common communication frustration for my hairdresser, and probably yours too, is people coming in with a picture of a hair style that simply won’t work with their hair. Which is probably the reason some hairdressers prefer you bring a picture of yourself when you liked your hair. Which makes no sense to me. How could I then get something new every fall?
And I guess I’m not the only one doing something new: Carrie has a cute new haircut, so does Bee. And my mom (who looks like Shirley Jones). Drop me a line if you have a haircut to share. (BTW, did you know it’s National Makeover Month at ivillage?)
More hair cut(s):
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Introducing Amazon Video On Demand
With Amazon Video On Demand, we can now instantly watch movies and television shows commercial-free on Macs or PCs. Just what the TV-free household needs!
For $1.99, you can get one episode of Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style. Or buy the season for $12.99. 
What other shows should I look for?
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Beth Before
My sister and I last Thanksgiving.
Here’s the link to her “before” post: This is what 43 looks like. Recently she also posted a book review of Staging Your Comeback
Hair today, which she thinks is too square and I think is too golden. Before we started all this, I emailed Christopher with my suggestion that she take her hair back to it’s original dark brown. He agreed that would be more “gorgeous and sensational” and suggested she had about 20 minutes left to do it.
For background, other posts she’s pictured in around here:
Her last known natural hair color, in a cut I remember thinking at the time was stunningly cute and stylish for a young mom. 
And, to the right, another look that she calls “something in between”.
In my view, my sister has always super photogenic and fabulous. Pop over, take a look at her pictures, and share your suggestions.
And be thinking about joining us in blogging our comebacks!
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Blogging My Own Comeback
In celebration (???) of my upcoming 45th birthday, I have a notion to stage my own comeback of sorts. Of course, I am referring to Christopher Hopkins’ fabulous book (which I highly recommend you purchase if you are over 39, or maybe even if your mom is over 39), Staging Your Comeback
Sort of a DIY makeover, I plan to address topics like:
- a hairstyle change
- scheduled maintenance
- physical fitness
- my lifelong struggle with nailbiting
- and, of course, lots of what to wear!
Would anybody like to join me? Either for fun or for linkage.
Besides turning 45, here are some other times to consider taking a fresh look at your image:
- when entering the work-force, either after high school or after college
- about 7 years later, when all those clothes begin to look really dated
- after your second (or any other number) baby
- when your kids leave home
- a career change, actual or desired
Anyone besides me feeling adventurous?
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Color-blocking for an A
In Staging Your Comeback: A Complete Beauty Revival for Women Over 45
Consider, for example, the fact that the Type A figure is the most common figure type. Consider also the ubiquity of the black top worn with khakis. Precisely the “don’t” illustrated in the book. With that lovely contrast line right around the hips.
This suit would be a do for anyone wishing to minimize hips or tummy and maximize the upper body, where, incidentally, the face is generally located.
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How I Discovered My Need of a Better Casual Outfit
Recently my friend Lori asked:
I was just wondering if you’ve always been so intentional with your style and fashion choices. I wish that I put more thought into what I wear, but with 2 little kids I usually find myself getting dressed at the last minute, wearing whatever is clean ( and sometimes things that are mostly clean :). Is there hope that as the girls get older and more self-sufficient I’ll be able to devote some time and thought into clothes? When your girls were little were you as into fashion as you are now?
My answer: 
When my girls were the ages of yours and my boys were in elementary school, I was just coming off a fashion/retail career. I had loads of nice suits and little else. I had discovered the need for a better casual outfit, but I never had more than one. And I didn’t have near enough “gardening & dog-walking clothes”. I remember despairing that one day I would be out puttering in the yard in one of my suits because nothing else was clean. lol
Gradually I settled into a simple “what to wear” pattern: long-sleeved tee shirt and jeans in the cool months, short-sleeved tee shirt and (short-sleeved) jeans in the warm months. The weather was alot simpler there.
My girls were in mid to late elementary school when we began studying The Triumph of Individual Style
My bad (or how I discovered I needed a better casual outfit):
Showing up to an event inappropriately dressed is always dreadful, but I guess my worst episode happened when I had recently been transferred by my (former) company. In those days, I had power suits and I had grubbies but I had nothing in between. My husband and I went out looking at homes and then, without changing clothes, I went to the store to do a “competitive shop” (at Nordstrom) with the bosses — wearing jeans and pumps, with a BA TEE-SHIRT (yes, it really pictured a cartoon character flipping the BA).
Biff your message tees. Before you embarrass yourself like I did.
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The Triumph of Individual Style
I just saw the lowest price ($36.04) I have ever seen on the ad here, and Amazon also has some imperfect used copies for quite a bit less
Book Description
This text aims to teach the reader how to assess her body type and then choose clothing that looks good on her. The process involves what the authors call an individual’s “design pattern.” This pattern is made up of lines, shapes, proportions, body particulars, scale, colors, and textures. How they fit together in harmony and how an individual infuses them with her innate creativity is what authors call “style.”Text Features:1.Principles of art as they apply to understanding and enhancing the female body
2.Art reproductions from museums such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Musee du Louvre, illustrating women’s body forms and surface features
3.Hundreds of line drawings suggest contemporary wardrobe strategies
4.Two color wheels and pages of charts for skin, eye, and hair color.
5. Provides color swatches to create a color wheel
Personally, after studying this book, I have found that there is a way to figure out any “what-to-wear” problem “from scratch”, providing freedom from the legalism of following somebody else’s list of “shoulds” and “how-tos”.
If you’ve been considering taking the plunge, now could be the time! (My copy was a birthday gift from my hero.)
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More on Apparent Body Shape
As previously mentioned, Trinny and Susannah have come out with a 12 body shape system. When I first encountered this idea, it did nothing but make my head swim; as many of you know, I use a variation on the six silhouettes found in The Triumph of Individual Style
I still consider myself a figure eight, and I will NEVER admit to being a pear, but I am not embarrassed to be associated with Sandra Bullock and answer to this description: Small bust, long waist, flat tummy, saddle bags and heavy legs.
Not if Halle Berry is a skittle.
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