The Pie Chart
I’m re-running this, one of my very early posts, because I think the concept is basic. Whether you have a mental pie chart or actually use one of the links here to build one, you need to know how much of your life you spend in which kinds of clothes.
Recently the trend in fashion advice books has been to draw yourself a pie chart, based on some form of lifestyle segmentation, in order to visualize the level of need in each category. What I found for you: a web-site that will do your pie chart for free. You can even choose the colors! I also found a web-site where you can download applets to make pie charts and graphs for use on your site.
Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to build your own pie chart, based on your own lifestyle. Decide first whether you need to split any of my suggested categories into two or more; say, if your office has Casual Friday every week and you want to add a business casual segment. For the value of each segment, enter the number of times per week you dress for that lifestyle. I mean, each time you get dressed (every time the baby spits up or … ). That’s really all there is to it!
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Would You Use an Image Consultant?
As long as we’re all about making ourselves over, Imogen asks:
I’m interested to know what makes you decide to make a change, take control of your image and do something?
I’m actually very interested, not just because of my job, but also because I’m being interviewed for a magazine next week about this topic. Would you ever consider using an image consultant to help you with your transformation? I’d love any feedback on the following questions - from your points of view:
- Who benefits most from an image consultant (age, line of work, emotional state, stage of career etc.)
- The value of an image makeover
These are some of the questions I’m being asked.
Let’s help her out. 
From the gut, here’s my intial reaction to the idea of using an Image Consultant: I’m afraid an Image Consultant in Spokane would be … hinky, for lack of a better word. A Mary Kay lady. A glorified something salesperson. A hair stylist trying to beef up her business.
But, realistically, a properly trained Image Consultant could be a better investment than getting your advice from your hairdresser, who is depending on keeping you in services for her income.
What are your thoughts?
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Do You Look Dated?
Aussie image consultant Imogen Lamport shares a list of questions to use to evaluate whether your wardrobe is dated. But just how important is it to avoid looking dated? And why?
Lamport says:
One potential danger zone and image wrecker is looking dated. Old fashioned clothes = old fashioned ideas – so if you work (or would like to work) in an industry that prides itself in being up with the times, or even ahead of the pack, then you must be careful that your image is not saying “I’m living in the 70s (80s or 90s)” as your credibility is at stake.
There it is: “if you work in an industry that prides itself in being up with the times …”. I would go so far as to say, and maybe this varies with location, that being a SAHM these days is such an industry.
However, I believe it is important to note that a person CAN look somewhat dated and still be beautiful and comforting to be around.
Have you noticed that in some “industries”, ministries, what-have-you, looking “dated” can actually be a plus? Conservative-thinking decision makers sometimes distrust new styles and the people who follow them.
So, all that considered, is it important to you to look current (or even a bit ahead of the pack)? Why or why not?
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Making Peace With Your Body Image
Does God speak to you through your car radio? Strange question, but it’s amazing how often some random program can get me thinking. Like the program I heard on Moody radio (listen here), about the book Making Peace With Your Thighs: Get Off the Scales and Get On with Your Life
A couple of thoughts:
- Dressing your body as a shape, rather than a collection of parts, is a practical way of thinking holistically about your body.
- Men aren’t attracted to stick women, but rather by confidence.
- The biggest “mood disrupter” among women? Gaining weight!
I will add to that last one, though, for me, the biggest mood disrupter, or the thing that most often puts me in a bad mood, is being left out. How about you?
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More from Trieste: Castle Miremare
Mainly an excuse to share more pictures with you, I will also use this post to illustrate a basic “personal best” what-to-wear principle:
The best neckline shape to flatter your face is roughly the shape of your jaw
This seems like it should be obvious, but we miss it because most advice is from the paradigm of what flatters the figure rather than the face.
(Read more back here, where I explain the basics of how deep the neckline should be. And see dcrmom model several different t-shirt necklines, noting the lines they emphasize in her face, in this fashion lab.)
In the pictures of me at the Torri d’Europa, Karen noticed my square jaw. Which totally explains why I long for square necklines and despise v-necks. Yet I was wearing a v-neck in the picture. Ugh! I should just get rid of that top!
(Oh, and one more link, and one more thing I did wrong: combining colors in layered necklines.)
But then I found a headless pic that I had overlooked, one in which I was wearing the offending tee but cleverly combined so as to form a (rounded) square neckline.
What do you think? (Click on the pic to see it bigger.)
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Acknowledging God In What We Wear
Are you a lark or an owl? In all honesty, I get excited when I wake up around 5 or 6 am, and I start thinking about bed anytime after 7 pm. On the one hand, acknowledging this publicly brands me forever as “uncool”, right? Oh well. I’ll just have to settle for the self-righteousness that comes along assumption that early risers are more virtuous. 
At any rate, yesterday I was pleased to get up with my hero, just after dd1 left for work and before dd2 got up for school, that is between 5:45 and 6:15. I showered and dressed, then puttered around and kept him company while he got himself ready for work. When left to myself a little after 7, I sat down to spend time getting to know God, as is my habit; after reading for an hour or so I decided to just lean my head back on the couch for a few minutes … to think about it. You see where this is going, don’t you?
Anyway, when I woke up - at 10! - Proverbs 3:6 was stuck in my thoughts:
6In all your ways (C)acknowledge Him,
And He will (D)make your paths straight.
Honestly, for us very concrete thinkers, passages like this can be really easy to gloss over. “All your ways” is so big it might as well be “none of your ways”. But, since I wasn’t in a hurry to get moving, I began asking myself questions, starting with “isn’t resting when needed acknowledging God?”, through “how do we acknowledge Him in what we eat?”,and ending predictably with “how do we acknowledge God with what we choose to wear?”
Some ways:
- We acknowledge Him as Creator of beauty by harmonizing our clothes with our appearance.
- We acknowledge His sovereignty by accepting how we are made, both physically and in our personality.
- We acknowledge Him as Provider by limiting our wardrobe to what we can reasonably wear.
- We acknowledge His holiness by refusing to dress in a way that would cause another to sin.
- We acknowledge that He came to set us free by not allowing ourselves to be pressed into a mold.
Expressing these things is really the purpose behind the blog. The subsidiary purpose is social. Let the chit-chat begin!
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Teen Staples
I’ve been thinking alot about staples lately. (ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk
Wardrobe staples: those items which if missing make it almost impossible to get dressed on a daily basis.
Having my wardrobe staples in place enables me to get rid of multiple “almost-right” items. For example, one perfect pencil skirt could replace one that is a little tight (or loose), one that is a little too short (or long), one that is a heavy tweed, and one that’s plaid. Or whatever. I don’t wear skirts everyday.
So maybe that’s not a good example, but you get the idea.
Lately I have been able to score a number of staples for myself. (Read more about them at my new page where I am tracking my wardrobe purchases for the year.)
In order that this may become a Teen Style Tuesday post, I have identified four top teen wardrobe staples:
sneakers
Hoodies
camis
jeans
What staples are missing from your wardrobe?
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A DIY Fashion Lab
I’m trying to get back to a more regular posting schedule, including Fashion Labs on Fridays. Any what to wear questions on your mind? You, too, can be a model for a future fashion lab and benefit from the input of others. Drop me a line.
Ever since Vildy told me about Brenda Kinsel’s body proportion principles, I’ve been a cow. That is, I’ve been ruminating on the idea of the four zones. Grab your measuring tape, here’s how it works:
Zone 1: Top of face (I think this must need to be top of head/hair) to top of chest, approximately armpit. (Mine = 14)
Zone 2: Armpit to … legpit. That is, the break in the leg, aka the hip socket. (Mine = 18)
Zone 3: Hip socket to mid-knee. (Mine = 15)
Zone 4: Mid-knee to floor. (Mine = 18)
(Somewhere in the imprecision of self measuring, I lost 3/4 of an inch!)
In reality, this ends up being very close to taking two of the head lengths I have talked about before at a time, but the application is slightly different. Brenda Kinsel suggests considering each zone as a room in a house. The larger the room, the more furniture (line breaks, detailing, embellishments, bells and whistles) you can put in there. Which explains why I don’t want jeans that hug the thigh, tapering in at the knee; they just emphasize how short I am in that zone.
This has also got me thinking alot about tops, and just in time too! More on this to come, but for now:
- Is anybody long in zone 1? If so, do you by chance have a more glamorous style, using more jewelry and accessories than most? I’m feeling justified in liking to keep things simple in that “room” in my house.
- What is your “biggest room” and how have you already been filling it? For example, with my long torso I can easily wear short jackets (inches above the hip socket) which are fitted at the waist (the change of line direction has the opposite effect of a straight vertical line), even belted with pockets.
- Can you think of ways to “borrow” space from one zone for the other? I just realized why it doesn’t really matter if my jeans are skinny, straight, or wide, just as long as the line is unbroken from hip to floor: that is effectively “borrowing” from my length in zone 4 to add to zone 3.
This is going to have a huge impact on my wardrobe! How about you?
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A Single Dress
This is a re-run from March of 2006.
In many of our lives, it simply doesn’t make sense to own alot of dresses. Considering cost per wear, you may, like me, be motivated to get by with as few as possible. I do think it can be done with one; but maybe not the one you think.
I realize there are geographical differences of opinion, certainly if you live in New York feel free to use black, but in many areas you still risk hurting a bride’s feelings if you wear black to her wedding. (I’m looking for a little back-up from you southern belles; most people around here look at me strangely when I suggest black is not appropriate wedding guest apparel.)
In any case, there are options. For a one-dress wardrobe, a seasonless dark, solid or print, with a summer sleeve (for me that is none) is ideal. Something simple and elegant, to be worn with pumps and a jacket in the winter and with sandals in the summer.
Having one go-everywhere dress on-hand doesn’t mean I’m required to wear it to every event, it simply means I am not required to do emergency shopping.
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What’s Your Best Neckline?
As in anything, once the rules are understood they can begin to be broken.
My #1 Rule = the face should be the focal point of every outfit. If some element in the construction of your neckline, or some accessory you add, is placed correctly in reference to your face, this is achieved.
Finding that correct placement (use either method):
- Measure from the hairline or bangs to chin. Starting at the chin, drop down that length to a point on the chest.
- Measure from the center of the widest point of the face to the chin. Beginning at the base of the neck, drop this measurement down to a point on the chest.
- Never before mentioned on this blog: adapt shorter necklines by widening them. In other words, the area of the open space inside your neckline ends up equaling the area of your face. Should I have considered teaching math as a profession?
Here we have a lovely model to demonstrate these principles for us:
And here’s something tricky: photographers know these things, as well as the fact that your best neckline shape is like the shape of your jaw, so a good one will have you turn your head in such a way as to alter the apparent line or proportion.
Look at my blog photo.
